Please or to access all these features

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

previous brilliant sleeper suddenly awful- getting very low advice needed

4 replies

ladypanda · 15/06/2010 21:28

My 2 1/2 year old son used to happily go to bed, he'd sing at the top of his voice to get himself to sleep and the same again til we went in in the morning. He's had a sickness bug followed by chicken pox, during which we slept in his room a lot, and now, even though his health is better, he absolutely cannot fall asleep on his own. One of us has to sit by him til he sleeps, he gets incredibly distressed if we try to leave him, and he's waking at least once a night, usually more, where we have to do the same otherwise he doesn't go back to sleep. We've tried a bit of leaving him, but he stands by his door and wails himself into an awful state. If we leave the door unlocked he just comes into our room again and again and again until we give in and sit with him. Net result is he's knackered, not sleeping nearly enough at night. Does anyone know if this is normal post illness, and if so how long it tends to last? Or if not any tips and techniques to help him return to normal form? As well as exhausting him, it's making me really depressed, I get very frustrated with him and want to scream. I don't, but I'm really tired and not sure how much longer I can bear it

OP posts:
Habbibu · 15/06/2010 21:33

Can you do gradual withdrawal, with some rewards built in? Explain that tonight you'll sit next to his bed, and then the next night you'll sit on a special chair a foot away, etc, and if he goes through the whole week letting you creep away bit by bit each night he'll get a book or something? A wee treat each morning (dd likes a story) also helps reinforce the benefits of letting go a little bit.

ladypanda · 15/06/2010 21:40

I'd read about that withdrawing a little bit each night but I'd forgotten, thanks. I'll try it. I've tried offering treats as rewards and he takes them, says he understands what it means etc etc, and then behaves the same!

OP posts:
Habbibu · 15/06/2010 21:46

Well, the treat would have to be in the morning, after he'd let you do it. I don't k now how much a 2.5 yo would understand it - it works well with dd, but she's 3.8, and that's a big difference. I think gradual withdrawal, with briefing him with what you're going to do ahead of time will prob work best.

Couple of other things - maybe change bedtime routine slightly - introduce something nice, like maybe a story CD after lights out? dd loves these, and when she went through a bad patch, she'd resettle quickly if we just started the CD again. She now gets up and doesn it herself quite often when she wakes in the morning!

Also - make your own presence in the bedroom quite dull; limited talking, and do something like listening to radio (earphones) or reading (booklight) to stop yourself getting frustrated. Person not on duty has cup of tea/glass of wine ready once child is asleep...

ladypanda · 15/06/2010 21:58

I like the sound of the wine!! and will try cd's, thank you...

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page