Bedtime is out of control

[Pleasehelpimexhausted]

I have DD, 4.5, and DS, 10 months. DS sleep is very hit and miss, some nights he wakes once briefly in 10+ hours, other nights he’s up every hour or two, there’s just no pattern to it.

The main issue however is DD. When DS was a baby, DP moved into her bedroom (she has a double bed) so he could sleep while I did night feeds. However that arrangement seems to have stuck and he still sleeps in there now. DD has become totally reliant on having somebody there at ALL TIMES - while she’s dropping off, when she wakes in the night and when she wakes in the morning. If not she will scream to the point of almost vomiting and scramble over her stair gate to run after us. It’s beyond tiresome and we constantly give in for an easy life.

Further than that, she won’t ever be in a room alone during the day. She simply follows me around the house, even if I leave her in front of the TV and go to get something from another room. If I stop her she screams and screams and screams. If asked she won’t really explain what’s wrong.

I just want my evenings back. The days are hard enough but it’s worse when you know evening/nighttime is just an extension of it. Constantly on edge waiting for DS to wake up, and DP spending an hour sat on DD’s floor just so she will go to sleep. If he sleeps elsewhere she will usually wake up and start screaming, waking DS in the process.

does anyone have any advice please? Sticker charts etc simply will not work; she won’t care. She just screams blue murder until we do what she wants and I’m sick of it.

I’d be quite hard on the screaming at 4.5. I tell mine they’ll be in the room furthest from me if they scream.
Train her to just come and find you. My youngest does this and just climbs in bed with me and usually goes back to sleep without waking me.
All sleep in the same room but she stays in her bed not yours
Go cold Turkey and endure as week or two of chaos and even less sleep and until she gets that she has to sleep on her own. I failed at this one and quit after 3 weeks.

Yeah at 4.5 they know what they are doing. I literally tell mine to leave me alone if she's following me round 🤣

If praise and rewards won't work then it does sound like she feels genuinely scared to be alone to the point of being a bit phobic about it. It's not her fault, it's because she's been so used to always sleeping next to someone I guess. Have you tried chatting to her about her fears? This might help her to process them. Hopefully it is a phase but I think I'd try to do gradual retreat at bedtime and get to a point of her falling asleep alone first so that she freaks out less when she wakes up alone.

It's been a long time since mine were4.5 so this post is caveatted!

However if she is struggling to be alone daytime then you will find it very very difficult to crack the night time. Can you do some work on being independent in the day time settling to play independently and leave her for short periods of time and building up with rewards. Then once you have this cracked look at night times?