4 year old and sleeping alone

[Hubbabubba7]

For the last three years for various reasons either my dh or me have slept in the room with our 4 year old ds. We now have a new baby. It’s becoming impossible to juggle.
Our Ds will throw a huge tantrum for hours if one of us doesn’t go to bed with him. His bed time can overrun if we aren’t able to go to bed at 8 with him because we have been caught doing something. When one of us has to get up with the baby ( and happen to be sharing with ds) ds will follow us and won’t go back to bed unless we come.
Everyone is tired !
We don’t know whether to do a super nanny style sleep thing where we put him back to bed a hundred times without speaking ? He is one of the most stubborn characters ever and I think it will be the battle of all battles and last weeks!
In addition, we are moving soon and changing nurseries and we only moved and changed nurseries a year ago. I understand that all this change plus a new baby may not make the timing ideal.
Any advice from you wonderful ladies ? Thank you

Dd5 hates being on her own and gets a lot of nightmares. She goes through phases where she sleeps on her own through the night but most nights she'll wake up several times and needs one of us to stay with her till she goes back to sleep. Wh never we've actually slept her in her room we've all got more sleep. When I was pregnant last year I was very worried they this situation won't be sustainable once the baby is here and tried to get her used to falling asleep on her own.

She kind of did. What I did was I'd tell her that I'm off to do a job but that I'll come to check on her in 5-10 minutes (and I would). Sometimes she was asleep then. More often that didn't work so I sat outside her room and waited till she was asleep (a bit like a gradual retreat method), which wasn't fun with my pregnancy backache. Anyway we were moderately successful.

Then the baby came along and everything went out the window. We felt bad about her sleeping on her own so most nights dh stayed with her till she was asleep and on nights when she wakes up multiple times he just sleeps there. We got a pull out bed so they if he does need to sleep there at least it's comfortable. Dh is the one who puts her yo bed as well and yes some nights he has factor in an hour for they if it takes her a long time to talk asleep but mostly she's asleep in 20 min or so.

The baby is 6 months now and we are thinking we will try later agsin to get her to sleep on her own when there isn't so much upheaval in her life.

I'm guessing this isn't ehet you were hoping to hear but for us at the moment this is what works best. we basically stopped fighting it and resigned ourselves to it. I sleep with ds in a room and dh sleeps in dd's room when required (and goes to her in the night when she calls). I have to say some nights when the baby goes to bed early I really enjoy putting DD to sleep. A bit of quality time for us together and I miss sleeping in her room. Stockholm effect maybe

I think if you a new baby now is not the time to make any major changes as she is already dealing with a lot.

8 o’clock is quite a late bedtime for that age. Cant you get him to sleep and then leave?

Thanks both 🥰 we are working on the 8 pm bedtime @Duracellbunnywannabe she is very hard to get to bed !

@Hubbabubba7

Thanks both 🥰 we are working on the 8 pm bedtime *@Duracellbunnywannabe* she is very hard to get to bed !

You are the parents and in charge remember!

Two stage issue
Bedtime is too early imo

Do bedtime first.

Start much earlier. 8 is too late at that age imo. Especially if you are having messing about. It must be closer to 9 before there's any sleeping currently?

Bring 8 back to 7pm over the course of a couple of weeks as a starter.

Then work on the sleeping alone thing.

Easy to say I know. Hard to do.

My dd is 4. I lay with her until she's asleep and then I'll go downstairs. She still wakes in the night more often than not. Either needs a wee or just wants reassurance that we're still there. It must be quite scary as a small child to be left alone in the night. I do tend to just go in and sleep with her if she wakes in the night because I can't keep my eyes open! (She does have a double bed) I am pregnant at the moment so will just see how we go when baby comes along. I know it won't be forever so I just think to myself as long as everyone is asleep that's all that matters.

Until she gets used the baby I would go with staying next to her until she is asleep and then sneaking out. If find reading a kindle or listening to podcasts helps me enjoy the time more as well as staying still and ignoring them so they go to sleep!

Old enough to understand. You need to do a gradual retreat though as leaving completely might be too much.
You think it will take ages but mine did it in just three days. Over an hour night 1, 45mins night two 5minutes night 3. Podcasts help as you can still keep putting him back but it's not as boring. Also make sure your partner is fully on board too.

I'm going to post a note that's saved on my phone, so apologies its not personalised to your situation but I think it might help. Super nanny method absolutely did not work for my stubborn daughter and also I found it really hard to keep my cool doing it for hours on end, when u was already seriously sleep deprived myself.

Our main issue was night wakings rather than bedtime, my daughter would wake at 1:30am like a clock and not go back to sleep, sometimes at all. In the end (after 1yr) we got a sleep consultant to help and this is what we did.

Bedtime passes.
Start with a family meeting, draw up some sleep rules, get your child to suggest and draw them to give them some ownership.

Make loads of tokens together. I mean loads. If the child gets up at bedtime or calls you in the night then that's absolutely fine and allowed, but costs 1 token. Put them in a pot by their bed. If there are tokens left in the morning, the child gets a reward.

We've used penny sweets to start with and then moved on to playmobil. I bought a camping set and split it all up, put the names of all the bits in a pot and Daughter got a new piece at random every morning she had tokens left.

For the first few nights the child needs to succeed. So you need more tokens than they will use. My Daughter used more than 30 the first night. When they're in the swing of it, start to gradually reduce the number of tokens. It took us a few weeks to get down to 6. My daughter started to fail a few times and had to try. We got stuck at this level a while. Eventually we got down to 3 and at some point the system was gradually forgotten. 30+ night wakings down to 1 or 2 was a lot bloody better.

You can look this up, I believe it's called bedtime passes and there's a few articles out there.
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And another thing I wanted to share is that my sister ended up on the same position as you with her 3yo when she had newborn twins. They did have to be more consistent and firm and return him to his room in tears a few times. They also improved his bed, got a Nightlight and a yoto player, things like that. I don't think there was one answer but gradually things have improved.

Oh re my sister they do still take turns to share a room with their eldest, they have 2 single mattresses on the floor now instead of a double, and he doesn't need to be physically touching my sister to sleep now. They're hoping of they decorate his room and get him a nice bed that'll be the next step.