Fed up with being a shouty mum - 5 year olds bedtime is slowly killing me. Please help!

[BreakHerOffAKitKat]

My 5 year old DD has always been a bit of a nightmare at bedtime but the last few months have become worse and I am at a loss on how to improve things. I am sick and and tired of resorting to shouting at her every single night, I feel like I'm failing and I don't want to end everyday with both her and upset and angry. I absolutely dread bedtimes now because I know it's going to a long drawn out stressful evening.

Bedtime is 7pm, routine is toilet, teeth and a story. I say goodnight then DH pops up to give her a kiss and say goodnight. Guaranteed within 5 mins of us getting downstairs the shouting for mummy starts.

Various reasons, ranging from being thirsty to headache or tummy ache or she just remembers something really important that she just has to tell me or her covers have come off etc etc. Once she told me her mouth was sweaty - it's ridiculous.

This goes on and on and on. She has a bottle of water next to her bed, she has a fan in her room as she gets hot easily, we've got black out blinds so the light evenings don't keep her up, the toilet is right next to her bedroom so she can go if she needs to. She has everything she could possibly need. But it is relentless, if I don't go up the shouting on repeat continues until eventually it is screaming and sobbing. If I do go up it's 99.9% a nonsense reason as an excuse not to sleep.

My DH will go up and tell her to be quiet and get some sleep, the second he is back down she's shouting for me again.

We have tried going up the first time, telling her we won't be up again and ignoring the rest of the shouting but she will not stop. We've tried reward chats - if she goes to sleep with no shouting she can earn a star - she's not managed that once. We've tried consequences and have followed through with them so no empty threats - things like not going to the park as we had planned, no tablet for a week etc but it doesn't make the blindest bit of difference and most nights result in me shouting at her then hating myself for doing so.

I am at the end of my rope, I lost it again with her just now. It's nearly 9pm and she's still awake and still calling down to me. I don't feel like I have an evening any more I end up stressed and angry and I can't do it anymore.

Does anyone have any advice? I am desperate

Apologies for typos!

My DS has a 5yo daughter who does exactly the same! Personally I'd get ear muffs, but ds lies down on the bedroom floor until his dd eventually falls asleep - a few hours later.

Stop talking to her! Only reasons to get up is an emergency or toilet time. Otherwise she stays in bed. Silent treatment. She pretends she needs the toilet the first time, still don't speak to her, just put her straight back to bed.

Watch what she's eating during the day (try to minimise sugar) and how much screentime. Dinner time too. Always seems they need a good two hours after dinner before sleep is possible!

Also wake up time is more important. Get her up same time every morning eg 7am or it'll impact nights.

Thank you both.

She has her tea at 5pm so well before bedtime. She's up every morning at 5.30/6am. I wouldn't mind the later nights if she slept in of a morning the shouting starts again as soon as she wakes up.

She doesn't get out of bed so I don't need to put her back in she just lays there shouting. We'll try the silent treatment and cutting out sugar is also a good plan

Mine does the same, same routine same everything. I’ve recently ( as of two nights ago) discovered some energetic play and excitement just after teeth/toilet/story kind of wears her out and she’s more “fulfilled” and content to go to bed. I’m sure there’s a science behind it. The relaxed and quiet bedtime routine seems to bore her so she took to calling out to me exactly how yours is.

I’m a shouty mum and I hate it, most nights I’d end up charging in turning the lights on and just saying “do what you like”. Eventually we will get there , I’m still holding on by a thread!

The way I would look at it is this, she is getting more "reward" from what she is doing than the "reward" she gets from staying in bed. Totally agree with poster above , try stop talking to her/replying. And I would add to avoid eye contact. I would act like a neutral robot and guide her back to bed, neither loving nor cross. Lots of positive talk in the morning if she even improves this habit. It will pass OP.

Just say, 'it's bed time now, everyone's going to sleep.' Then leave, ignoring any shouting.
Keep doing this. If she has everything within reach then don't engage any further. She will settle eventually, once she realises she isn't going to claim your attention.

Could 7pm be too early for her? Is she tired?

I had a nightmare with my 5 year old until I pushed her bedtime back until 8pm and she settles much better.

Audiobooks? Storm sounds or similar on Alexa?

Is she tired? Just that my 4 year old goes to bed at 8.15pm. Any earlier she just stays awake until then (and later) doing the calling me in thing. It's exhausting. But bed at 8.15 for her and she's asleep in 5 mins.

That sounds hard-going! Poor you guys!

One thing I noticed is that bath time wakes mine up! I stick them in showers most of the time.

Also, a bit of a sneaky one, my very chatty child likes babies so if she's too noisy in quiet places I'll say 'I think there's a baby trying to sleep' and she often quietens down! Not sure how that'd work before bedtime but maybe could be part of chat about what shouting is for (energencies) and why we don't do it at night (incase we wake these babies...) 👀😇

I am going to disagree with a lot of the advice given here. I have dd 7 ( early 8) she stopped sleeping at 8 months until she was 6.5. In part due to a health condition. But mostly, terrified of being alone. Would literally scream til she threw up. Every fucking night for years.

She needed her sleep so we coslept a lot. However, a blue grolight bulb worked wonders. As did music. Melodic, calming (not classical) music. Even now she will doze in the car to certain music.

Audio books stimulated her.

Unfortunately she takes after me, I have always struggled to switch off and go to sleep.

We did have some success with a book...it was called The Rabbit who wanted to fall asleep. Me reading it was disastrous, but the audio book had some success. Its worth a try.

Whatever you do, don't shout. I know it is easy to say. But it will make it so much worse and create more anxiety over being alone and sleeping. I did it, I knew it was wrong, but I was so exhausted and frustrated it happened a lot. But I promise it made a bad situation so much worse.

Keep calm, if you feel like you are going to shout, just walk away.

No expert and probably not what you want to hear, but I would put her to bed later and then lie next to her for a bit. When you get that to work and it only takes 15 mins or so, then start popping in and out, explaining you'll be back soon etc. Eventually, you'll get to completely escape.

Also, a light ball helped us, but that could just be a random quirk of our son.

We had this with dd for years, so I feel your pain.

Like pp said - fear was the root cause in my dd’s case.

We had success with a book called “what to do when you dread your bed.” One of the techniques we used in it was “call back cards”. She got 3 per night and could use them to call us back to her. But once they were gone they were gone, so she had to use them mindfully. Also if she saved them up (say got 6) then she could choose a small reward (stickers or something small). After she got better she had to save more to get a reward.

It was no quick fix but improved things. It helped when I acknowledged she was frightened. I was more patient then, but I totally understand how stressful getting no peace is and you have my utmost sympathy.

Our 10 yr old dd has always been challenging at bedtime. Eventually we gave in to being upstairs with her as nothing else worked.

We tried:
Gradual retreat - this did work a bit as we now don't stay in her room.
A sleep app on the phone - worked for a bit, but she then didn't fall asleep after one and wanted another and another etc.
Shouting - did not work and was awful.
Punishment - taking away toys etc - see above - awful.
Silent treatment - did not work as she would come downstairs and start shouting at us/pulling at us etc - led to rows - did not work - awful.

I do agree with the poster who has said that you need to make sure she is not going to bed too early. We have made this mistake a couple of times with our 10 yr old and have been tearing our hair out as things were getting worse. When we moved bedtime back 30-60 minutes there was a huge improvement.

So now this is what we do:
She is happy if one of us is upstairs when she goes to bed. we stay for about 20 minutes until she is asleep. When she was little (2 ish) we stayed in her room, then moved to her doorway, then moved to just being upstairs - normally in our bedroom. We have done the just being upstairs thing since she was about 4.

This may not be the answer you want as it does ruin your adult time, but it has led to a more harmonious bedtime. My DH and I would rather not do this, but hate the rows and shouting more. We figure that in a few years she won't want this anymore as she will be a surly teenager and will think we are losers.

Her 5 yr old sister has kisses and a song, gets up for a wee within 5 minutes of us leaving the room, but goes straight back to bed and then is normally asleep within 10 minutes. No drama - very easy.

They're just different. My 10 yr old is, and always has been, a very sensitive, slightly anxious child, but is also incredibly stubborn. The bedtime stuff is the downside. On the very much plus side she is very in touch with other people's moods and looks out for her friends and family if they are down, often before other people have noticed they are down. She notices the little things; she is normally the first to spot new glasses, new earrings etc and compliment people on them. She is kind, cuddly and incredibly loving.

I really feel for you as it's soul destroying knowing that EVERY NIGHT is going to be like this. I used to really dread bedtimes and hated when it was 'my' night to put her to bed. In all honesty, I would really rather not be sitting upstairs waiting for a child to go to sleep every other night, but it means there is little to no shouting at bedtime now. This may not be the solution for you, but it's what we have done.

Neither of my DC have been easy sleepers.

The thing that made the most difference for us was agreeing visit times. So we would pop up and stick our head round the door every 10 mins. Then after a week or so, extend it to every 15 mins etc. It is a pain as you don't get to sit and totally relax, but if you share the visits with DH it's not so bad and infinitely better than listening to endless shouting and crying!

(Before DS2 could tell the time we would just tell him which number the clock hand would be pointing to - so 'Mummy will be back when the big hand is on 4' or whatever.)

If she is worried about being alone then ignoring her isn't going to help her feel more secure...Which is ultimately what is going to help.

Sorry for the essay!

Move bedtime to 7.30. Tell her she can stay up later because she's a big girl now so she won't need to keep calling out for you any more.

Sounds hard. I’m sure you have, but have you sat down and asked what it’s all about? Why do you keep calling me? I’d want to hear what she says to that during calm and close times between you, not asking when you are exasperated in the evening. Like what are the feelings under it all.

It sounds really hard. Take a look at an Instagram child therapist called Our Mama Village. She’s got some good ideas.

Have you tried melatonin?
It might save your sanity..

We had this.

I printed out a chart with the days of the week on and bought an inexpensive item that they really wanted and put it in a prominent but unreachable place in the house.

I asked them to decorate the chart and stick it to their door and told them if they went to bed nicely 7 days in a row they could have the item. Importantly I got them to tick the day off on the chart before they got into bed, almost like giving them permission / release from feeling like they needed to play up

We then built on that by saying e.g if you go to bed nicely all week you can stay up later on Friday/ watch frozen on Saturday etc, because I wasn't going to get into the habit of buying a bribe every week

I had similar with my son who wouldn't sleep. I took him to a homeopath and we all talked it through. Money well spent. It was amazing.

I should have added to my earlier post that it’s really important to discover why she is shouting you and what is bothering her. My dd was so afraid of monsters under her bed that being told off for shouting us all night long was entirely preferable to being on her own. Once we had conquered the fear through reassurance then we could work on breaking the shouting us habit. Until then NOTHING would work! It’s like someone offering you a million pounds to stay in a room with 200 snakes (or whatever you are afraid of) and then wondering why you just won’t stay put!

I'd say consequences have to fit with the act so not going to the park or having a tablet won't make sense to her? I think it's better to avoid conflict over bed if possible. Does she like imagination games? If so the two of you could lie in bed and imagine you're in a castle/submarine/whatever. Make up a story about what's going on. Weave in princess sleepy/captain bunkbed/other daft sleep themed characters until it becomes a fun treat each night. Breaking the cycle of tension may make her more inclined to sleep knowing you're more relaxed? Also to me 7 is very early to put a school aged child to bed. Maybe 8 or even 9? If she's up until then anyway there's nothing to lose by trying it. Maybe she just doesn't need as much sleep anymore. I also find summer is much better for getting the kids to bed as they can be run round outside to tire them out then see it's getting darker and therefore night. Winter is awful because there's not that visual transition from day to night at a sensible time.