4.5 year old sleep hell

[Teaandbiscuits16]

I didn’t think we’d be 4.5 years into parenting and still dealing with sleep issues but I guess that shows my naivety!

My 4.5 year old son has never been a great sleeper and since he’s been 2 seems to have bad patches every few months.

In the last few months (since starting school) it’s gotten worse and despite settling fine at bedtime he’s terrified to be alone if he wakes at night and has spent the last few weeks sleeping on a duvet on our bedroom floor from about midnight.

We’ve tried the usual rewards, bribes, consequences but nothing works with him. We consistently returned him to bed without engaging for a week, which took hours, with no result. DH and I both work full time and we have a 2.5 year old so spending hours each night coercing him back to bed isn’t sustainable.

Any advice other than accepting him sleeping in our room? We don’t have the space to keep a mattress in our room so he’d have to sleep on covers or cushions.

I am in a similar situation with our 3y3m. We struggle with getting her consistently sleep ok. She makes improvement and that's fine for a week or two then something upsets her and then she is awake repeatedly in the night again.
She has reflux and allergies and for us this destroys her sleep.

Our current routine is both of us putting her to be bed we do stories next to daddy on the floor then another story in bed and she goes to sleep quite easily now. I stay with her until I sure she is in a deep sleep then I sneak away. When she wakes in the night I go into her and stay in her bed - being 5ft is a blessing! We go back to sleep together and then when I wake up with a sore hip go back to my bed. If she wakes at 5 onwards or has woken up 3 times by 1 am we bring her into our bed. When we go to bed we make sure is propped up on her pillows and cover and that helps. We had started putting a t shirt and vest under her PJ's to make her a bit more cosy. Since doing this she seems to sleep more deeply as she hasn't moved as much when we check on her and she's usually still under the covers. It doesn't make much difference on her frequency of wake up but she seems less knackered in the day so maybe her sleep is better quality.
We do have the luxury of having a space room so once every 2 or 3 weeks my partner will stay in the other room and for that night she comes into the bed when she wakes up so we all get a better nights sleep. I feel like a broken record when I complain about her sleep and still being tired which makes it harder

Honestly I’d just let him sleep in your room.
I still remember being scared when I woke up in the night, and I just wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep in my own room. My parents tried everything but in the end let me sleep in their room.

Hopefully if he knows that’s the plan he won’t be anxious about the possibility of waking up.. and maybe he’ll stay asleep better.

My DS is only 2.5 and so far mostly sleeps really well by himself but we had an awful night last night. DH ended up sleeping on the floor next to his cot after we tried to get him back to sleep for about 2 hours.. If they’re genuinely scared I don’t know what else you can do really.

Thanks for your replies. It’s so difficult. His wake ups are getting earlier now, around 10pm, before we’ve even gone to bed and although he doesn’t seem to understand I can’t have him asleep on our floor before we’ve even gone to bed.
He settles at bedtime at 7pm without issue. When I ask him why he won’t go back to bed, what it is, he just says he doesn’t know.

Last night we were up from 10pm-12:30am with him but he eventually went back to bed after a lot of tears. He’s exhausted in the mornings and in a very bad mood obviously.
I feel like I’m failing him but I don’t know how to help when he won’t tell me.

Have you tried being cross!? Sanctions today because you are too tired. So no shop /activity /TV because you need peace and quiet as you are too tired... School age dc need to understand grown ups need things too. And that sleep is important however old you are.

@Santaiswashinghissleigh Oh yes, tried that. Explained to him that mummy and daddy can’t play his games with him because we’re so tired but he doesn’t seem to understand or really make the connection. It’s so hard not to get embroiled in conversation with him in the night as if we try to not engage with him he just cries his eyes out and shouts, waking his little sister.