Sleeping or not, as the case may be!

[Gabby11]

Does anyone have an answer to the age old problem of getting a child to sleep through the night - I have a 3yo DD who has never slept particularly well but the last few months have been v. rough! Sometimes she says there is a dragon/monster in her room but mostly she'll just cry and whimper. We tried the ignoring but she then gets hysterical and it take ages to calm her down, we've tried the water bottle to soothe her back to sleep but this makes the problem worse as she then loses the bottle and wakes up upset because she can't find it - please can anyone help with this! I'm knackered and it's impacting on all parts of family life! :(

It's been a while - hope you DD is sleeping well.

I've heard nightmares tend to disturb the little ones. I have 3 daughters and sometimes we spend all night taking them back to their beds as they sometimes come to sleep with us in the night.

I suggest you have a simple routine for bedtime and stick to it.

After dinner and a little play our kids come upstairs for bath time, after that milk, story and bed. They are not allowed downstairs after that.

Also, pay attention to what she TV programmes she watches, even some children programmes can be scary some little ones. Try and cut down TV just before bedtime. Keep bedtime stories short and not too stimulating.

Hope this helps - if all else fails lots of cuddles help. it's only a phase as the little ones world can be confusing - reality and fiction.