My youngest daughter is 7, she’s is funny, beautiful, kind, strong willed and lots of other brilliant qualities but at the moment she is making me feel like running away.
(Apologies in advance if this is a bit long & Jumbly)
She is the youngest of 3 and definitely fits the last baby bill, I guess we have always mollycoddled her a little but a lot of her personality traits are due to to having to keep up with her brother and sister.
In the last few months and with a jump up to year 3 she has become difficult, angry clingy, rude, irrational and many other things that are proving to to be quite challenging..
Most of this I could definitely normally put up and deal with but to top it off she has also stopped sleeping! Resulting in me averaging about 3-4 broken hours sleep a night.
She used to quite often come into our bed in the middle of the night and as my husband works away it’s never been a problem, however as she has got bigger, and bit of a grinder and kicker in her sleep we decided to gently phase it out and all hell has broken loose,
It’s a bit of blur if this is where all the bad behaviour has stemmed from (feel like I have been sleep deprived for months) or if it’s another part of the bigger picture but the lack of sleep is really taking its toll on all of us...
We have tried going back to a basic routine, all sorts of oils, sprays and rubs that have done nothing other than almost bankrupt us, we have got cross at her, (mostly) stayed calm with her, slept in her room to till she dropped off and sneaked out, read the awful sleepy rabbit story, warm milk, subliminal sleep inducing stories on Alexa, absolutely nothing is working, and she will scream, shout and lash out for hours apon hours, keeping up her sister who has just started secondary and says she is dead on her feet during the day.
Getting her to sleep is tricky in itself but the real problem is her waking up, 7-8 times a night and then all the noise and tantrum that goes with it, she will get so upset and seems almost scared to go back to sleep or bed but when so ask if it’s a bad dream she says no, she nor I cannot understand what’s constantly waking her!!
Last night we gave in and bought some low melatonin gummies, I had put all faith in them being the the magic cure and have just had a massive meltdown to my husband after them doing absolutely nothing and me seeing every hour of the clock with her!!...
My husband thinks we possibly need to be a little more forgiving and let her come and sleep with us when she wakes up, and I know she would be asleep in seconds but not only do I not think it’s the right thing to do, I don’t want her beside me, I’m so cross at her that I’m starting to feel quite resentful and a bit icky which I hate as I used to love a snuggle with her as she was falling asleep...
It’s difficult to know if the sleeping is part of something else along with the out of character behaviour and their is something on her mind or if she is just so tired that is making her feel and act awful...
I have directly and indirectly asked if there’s anything on her mind, told her her if she was upset or frightened about anything and didn’t want to talk she could write me a letter and leave it under my pillow I could write one back, I have also (irrationally) googling alsorts of conditions, illnesses and worrying myself sick over what it could all be.
Her teacher last year had said she was showing signs of possible dyslexia, in her work and her mindset and did find it really tricky to change the way she was doing something if she had set her mind to it, meaning that sometimes it seemed like she was being naughty and purposely disobedient when really she struggled to changing concepts. That is exactly how her tantrums and fights seem to start here, and it does often come across like her is a spoilt brat but I do wonder how much is in her control...
My other child asked this morning when I was putting up the Halloween decs and would I help him make his costume and I had a little cry when they all left for school at how broken and exhausted I feel, I just don’t have anything left in me other than to basically function to the end of he day, I feel absolutely terrible for my kids that I’m not being the best mum that I can.
Anyway I’m sorry for the awful messy and badly written post, I’m very tired! If anyone has any advice I would really love to hear and equally would love to know if there are other mothers out there that have gone/going through similar and words of wisdom how we can all get out alive!!