This advice - should it be taken seriously?

[BradfordMum]

I care for a little girl - just gone 4. She's very bright and doesn't seem to need much sleep at night. (She's been with me 12 months and has never slept during the day)
Her mummy took her to clinic for her pre school injections in the easter holidays and mentioned the sleep problem. When she can't sleep, she tends to wander into Mums bedroom and wake her up 'for a chat'.

The HV told mum to put a chain on the bedroom door!

Mum has declined this, but the meer threat has done the trick. G now stays in her own bedroom, but is more unsettled and often cries during the night.
What are your views? I think it is dangerous and un-called for. Image she was ill and needed the bathroom? Imagine a fire?

Thanks for reading.

Sally

!..was she joking?..the child is now scared cos she 'cant' get to see mummy, im sure other methods would have been more effective!..we have the sleep fairy, who rewards dd with a silver coin each morning if she sleeps all night in her own bed.her money box is full..and i seeit as an incentive than a bribe as dd knows she is a big girl when the fairy leaves her a coin!

that's terrible! what if there's a fire

I love that idea PinkChick and am hereby stealing it!

LOL, feel free..she thinks its fab and we have two small fairies and on special occasions(yesterday-her birthday) the fairy was sat in the middle of 4 20p pieces(she was 4 so 4 coins today)..she thought it was cool!

We do the 'Sleep Fairy' thing too, and leave little presents - some stickers, a new pencil or notebook etc.

Within 1 day my DD6 and DD4 were sleeping through and only coming in for genuine emergencies or bad dreams.

What an awful thing to suggest/do. It doesn't sound to me like the child is waking to get attention. Some children/people really do need much less sleep than others. I have sympathy because I sleep relatively little. I once calculated that I slept 40 hours a week less than a friend of mine (she averaged 10 hours a night and I average 6). My dd is the same; she sleeps a few hours a night less than my ds. In addtion she is a very light sleeper and on top of that she has night terrors. All of this adds up to her ending up in my bed several times a week. I think that if I wasn't such a light restless sleeper myself, I would have been less sympathetic to her and more likely to assume that it was just attention seeking behavior. If she didn't share a room with ds, I would probably put her to bed later than I do now.

Sorry make that 30 hours a week....it's late.