4.5 year old regularly waking at night asking to be 'tucked in' what can we do?

[milkyman]

So tiring as have a 14mth old who also wakes. What can we do to end the 2-3 wake ups?

Something that helped DS at that age was giving him some "spare kisses" - we'd kiss his hands or kiss our hands and then pass the kisses to him, he'd put them under his pillow and we said if he needed us in the night he could just get one from there just in case we were sleeping.

No idea but place marking for ideas as my five year old does this too! We had some success with a reward chart then once he had the reward it was back to waking again.

Well I'm guessing they're not specifically waking to be tucked in. So I could check if they're comfortable, warm enough, nothing waking them up etc.

Or put them in a room together. We did that. They don't disturb each other unless they scream but it meant that they had company. Also we set up a bed in their room so we could just crash if need be.

They like sharing and are 5&7 (girl and boy)

My nephew used to wake my ds every night. She mentioned this to his teacher when he was in reception, and she just said you must stop waking your mum at night. Stay in bed.
He never did it again. My ds has tried lots of things, but had never directly told him not to.

I will say all 3 of my DC motivated by different things so different solutions work-

But middle DC did this coming out after put to bed and I found it very stressful-at that point in the evening I just wanted to drink wine relax and the constant coming out did my head in.

I had recently done a parenting course and was at wits end so tried one of the strategies-at 4.5 your DC should be aware of cause and effect-
this worked on my very stubborn DS because he felt he had control.

I tucked him in, then just said that it was bedtime-and that he needed to stay in bed.

However-if he came out that was his choice.

But if he did make that choice he was also choosing to (insert suitable sanction here) miss a fav show or early bed time tomorrow etc etc ...whatever would work of your DC-
and somehow he quickly decided that when it was his choice- he had the power- that it sort of lost it's appeal very quickly and he stopped coming out

Reading with interest.

My three year old is up several times a night. Needs a wee, covers pulled over etc

I'm at my wits end as I have two older kids and I'm getting quite sleep deprived.

I've tried a simple reward chart, dropping her nap, bribery and being firm. Nothing works.

A dreamcatcher, they love them. If you wake up look at the dreamcatcher until you fall back to sleep. It'll watch over you take away any bad dreams and make everything safe and comfortable.

BertieBotts I love your idea so much! Almost worth having another baby to try it out on.

It's totally worth having another baby for!! You know how they are just so serious at four. He would be so careful never to spill one. He took them to nursery in his pockets as well. It all started when he went to stay with a family member for a few days and he was worried he was going to miss me.

I do genuinely think they sometimes get a bit anxious or don't know what to do which is why solutions like this or the dreamcatcher or just giving them some suggestions of what they can do (read with a torch, put on story CD or projector nightlight, etc) which is something relaxing and comforting helps better than trying to deal with it as a behaviour issue with reward/punishment/reasoning.

All kids are different of course but that's my experience.

Spare kisses, awww.