DD is 4 with a January birthday. Started school this year and all has gone well, apart from its sent her sleep into a downward spiral (never been great). I would expect it to some degree, but we’re at such a desperate point that I wonder if we’re doing her a disservice by continuing to interact and treat her as ‘normal’. The school haven’t flagged anything - she sticks close to the friends she knows and she is slow to warm/standoffish with her peers. We sometime have tired meltdowns after school, but nothing unusual. Meeting all milestones etc.
Bedtimes are horrific. She becomes hyper and manic. You can read a calm book, but she’ll interrupt constantly, thrash about on the bed, jump on the bed. Just manic. Then she goes to bed and we’ve tried EVERYTHING to help with this. Weighted blankets, massage, audio books, night lights on/off, white noise, lying with her until she falls asleep (1+ hours), breathing visualisations for if she’s scared, sitting outside her room until she falls asleep etc. Nothing works. Bedtime at the minute takes 1-2 hours and involves screaming and shouting. For example, she demands we give her a cuddle, we explain we have given a cuddle and said goodnight and it’s time for her to sleep. She then starts screaming and raging that she needs a cuddle. The neighbours must be able to hear. Her younger sibling goes to sleep with this racket every night. If I relent and give her a cuddle, she’ll be downstairs within seconds demanding something else. And it’s combined with slamming doors open, stomping her feet. And goes on for hours.
We’ve tried to teach her that overnight you don’t wake people. That sleep is important for people etc etc. But overnight she comes into our room and makes a demand, e.g. take me to the toilet. We explain we’re sleeping and she needs to go to the toilet and that we can come and tuck her back in after. She stamps, screams and shouts. Endlessly. Literally endlessly. Until we end up having to take her downstairs for her to scream and shout away from her sleeping sibling. If we were to meet her demand immediately, it would be met with another demand and I think a child of that age should understand not to demand things so rudely and disturb a whole household at 3am.
I don’t know what we’ve done. I think we both have a positive relationship with her usually. At the moment it isn’t, because she’s so tired during the day and her behaviour is awful because of it. We can’t turn a blind eye to her hurting her sibling or manic behaviour. When she’s in a period of sleeping well I don’t think there’s anything ‘off’, but when it’s like this it feels like we have a child with additional needs and lack of understanding. But is that normal for this age?