DC not sleeping properly anymore

[GriseldaChop]

Has anybody else found that their DC aren't sleeping properly since lockdown? My DS is 6, usually a good sleeper but now needs me or DH to sit with with him till he goes to sleep. The past couple of weeks he says he's having bad dreams and is shouting for me 2 or 3 times a night and I'm sitting with him until he's settled and asleep again. He usually sleeps deeply but as soon as I move to go back to bed he's waking. I'm conscious things are different at the moment and as much as we try to protect him from what's going on, he's bound to pick up on things. I want to be sympathetic but also don't want to make a rod for my back by sitting in his room all night, and I'd really like more than 4 hours sleep again!

Yes. But I have no solutions.

How much exercise is he getting?

How much screen time? It’s known to disturb sleep patterns.

A couple of hours hiking might help particularly if coupled with screen free time after midday, or similar.

Yes. My son is 5. He can walk miles in the day during excercise time and still won’t sleep past 4.30 in the morning. He is very unsettled by the loss of routine and I am hoping the two days a week of school he will be doing will help. He is an already sensitive child, worrying about ‘the bugs’ and desperately missing his friends, teachers and nanny.

He's getting loads of exercise, out on bike, walking, playing football. You can see he's tired but it seems that if he wakes momentarily he's shouting for me in a panic. I've chatted to him to see if he's worried about anything but he says not. He's become a lot more affectionate over these past few weeks though so maybe just enjoying more time together that he wants it overnight too! Haha!

I think it’s lack of mental exhaustion. We do loads of bike rides and walking, but it’s not working, DC still awake at 10pm.

My kids are not falling asleep till 11ish. It's exhausting, as a single mum, I get literally zero time to myself at all.

Mine are finding it harder to fall asleep. They have very limited screen time and they are out on bikes and scooters or in the garden each day and we are doing school work/games/crafts all sorts to keep them entertained but nothing tires them out like being at school does!

Oh and they are 5 and 7

Yes, worse than usual. No school stimulation and constant activity during the day means they aren't tired. I'm giving them a 5k wall or run each but it doesn't touch the sides.
11yr old DD stopped coming in and talking to me at 23:45 last night.

Yep we're worse than usual too. We roughly stick to their bed time routine but they are loads more unsettled in the night. I think it's not being mentally stimulated enough. We try to wear them out loads and do homeschooling/ activities but they're still stuck in the same house/ walk with the same people for what must seem like an eternity.

We dropped some old baby things to a friend the other day and had a twenty minute chat through the window and they seemed loads more mentally settled than all the activities we did! Usually they'd be saying I'm bored can we go now!

We're following the same bed time routine, maybe half an hour later but he's always bathed and in bed with stories by 8 ish, except for Saturdays where he sometimes stays up a bit longer for a film with us. He says he's having bad dreams and is frightened of the night, and often wakes with a fright really shouting for me. Typically only me will do, my husband went to sit with him the other night but he only wanted mammy!

Dreadful here. Night terrors are back. 5 year old not going to sleep until gone 10pm, awake by 7.30, an hour at least during the night of crying/bed hopping/bad dreams etc. She must be chronically tired. She's always been a crap sleeper (reason she's an only one), but this is special. Nothing works, we're just riding it out.

My 3 year old's sleep is not great. I'm sure it's lack of mental stimulation. He is 3 and never freaking stops moving and we live in the country so can get out for walks but what wears him out is interacting with people and that is sorely lacking.

It was my Grandma's funeral last week and my parents were in the area for that so stopped by for a chat over the garden wall. They keep their camper van at ours and it has a loo so they really came here to use that before the longish drive home. They got their chairs out of the van and we had a cup of tea and chatted over a wall at a distance. DS had no physical interaction with them but just seeing them was enough (alongside his usual levels of exercise) for him to actually be properly tired and sleep deeply all night. Obviously now they've gone home and we won't be seeing any family again until the lockdown eases. Which sucks, and my son is not even a social butterfly.

We are OK going to sleep as DD who is 3 has just dropped her naps. But she is awake constantly in the night, sometimes crying she’s frightened, sometimes crying that she misses her grannies cat (🙈), sometimes just wide awake! I’m convinced it’s a lack of brain stimulation. She’s very active all day, long walk, shorter spin out on her bike around the area, bouncing on her trampoline & generally never sitting still like most 3 year olds! But she’s not being challenged mentally that much, we try do a couple ‘learning’ activities each day but it’s not the same as nursery. It’s also not the same as going to different places most days such as Grandparents, softplay, library, museums that we so often went too. Even her swim lessons & gym class meant a lot of concentration and interacting with other people. She inevitably watches a lot of TV too whole we try juggle life! 😩