4 year old sleep and behaviour

[Wheeeeee]

I'm not sure whether my just-turned-4 year old's behaviour is normal, whether we're parenting him badly, or whether there's something else going on.

He's a bright, imaginative, articulate child but so defiant and his sleep is a real issue. He has always slept badly but finally started sleeping through at nearly 3.5 and we thought we'd finally cracked it. Not so. For the last couple of months he's been waking up around 4-5 am bellowing for one of us. He won't go back to sleep without one of us there and even then he sleeps really fitfully. We have a consistent bedtime routine and he typically goes to sleep between 7 and 7.30 pm. Sometimes when he wakes up he says he's hungry, but he generally has an enormous dinner around 6 pm so I'm not sure we can realistically feed him any more before bedtime!

We're not averse to co-sleeping in principle but it doesn't help - he just figets and chats to us until we give in and get up. He has a gro clock and he knows he's not supposed to get up until the sun appears - but he just yells for us instead. My gut says it's a combination of separation anxiety and low sleep needs but I'm open to other ideas. I'm pregnant and on my knees with tiredness.

The defiance - he's a happy, charming child right until you ask him to do things he doesn't want to. This includes getting dressed, cleaning his teeth, getting ready to leave the house (even for activities he really wants to do), going to the toilet, washing hands etc etc. He will ignore, displace, distract, and eventually lose his temper to avoid it. He is so stubborn he will practically (or actually) wet himself before acknowledging he needs the toilet, and he's been toilet trained for 2 years so it's not that he lacks the ability, neither is it that he's genuinely distracted.

Sometimes gamifying things works, sometimes turning it into a competition, sometimes nothing works, even sanctions e.g. loss of privileges. Natural consequences have no effect - he doesn't care if he goes to nursery in pyjamas. It's exhausting. He will never just do as he's asked. As an experiment the other day DH tried to get him dressed 'nicely' and it took 90 minutes.

Is this just normal 4 year old stuff that we all go through? Any advice welcome!

I hope someone has some advice that works as your post could easily have been written by me about my 4 year old son. It really is exhausting…

A few ideas.. unfortunately not on the main issue of sleep as that one I have had but haven't found a magic answer either if waking too early and just fidgeting! (I use a yoto and just let it be on until a decent time, but he doesn't sleep with it on, and will start calling again after about 20 mins or so..! Feel your pain)

Toileting - mine is very similar, learnt to never ask him to go to the toilet (now 5 but been doing that for about a year) even when he's very obviously needing it. I just let it happen that if I noticed he was doing the wee dance, I'd zip my mouth, say nothing, and either he'd take himself or he'd wee himself. If he wee'd himself it was important he cleaned himself up and put the clothes in the laundry. He did a few times but then sort of self learnt not to do it..

Getting dressed we do now before anything else. No playing, breakfast, literally nothing until he has put his clothes on. That was a dramatic decision for the first few days and met with a lot of anger especially as I would just calmly remove him from going to his toys, put the clothes next to him again and say 'nothing until clothes on'. After a couple of weeks he did start dressing with no drama. It's a bit annoying as he has his clothes for the day on before breakfast etc so inevitably they sometimes end up with some milk on them or whatever but I'll take that

Shoes being the last thing we do, continue to be a bit of a battle..

It's hard. Discount worms, ear infection, toothache, thirst and teething.

Make sure he has access to extra blanket and visiting the loo in the night. Does he have a red night light?
Hopefully he will get better.

We got our older children used to only ever having their father tend to their wake up night needs, in readiness for the breast feeding newborn being my domain. That worked well.

You might have to have a matress on floor in his room for DH to snooze on near him sometimes.

Kind of a relief to hear other people have the same issues, although I would wish for all of us that it gets better!

@user1492757084 all good thoughts but...he has all his teeth, no signs of ear infection, toothache or worms. We have tried both with and without a night light, and he has water next to his bed if he needs it, but he rarely does. He has blankets and has never needed the loo in the night since becoming dry at night at 2.5 (in fact the battle is getting him to wee first thing!). We already have a mattress on the floor that DH uses but he either just stays awake trying to chat to DH, or dozes back off only to wake again 15-30 minutes later.

@HAF1119 I do think getting him dressed first thing might help, but I'm not sure either DH and I can face it at the current 5 am wake time - whoever is up with him (generally DH because he's a star) is usually trying to keep him quiet so at least the other parent gets some sleep. I'm definitely going to try the toilet thing though, will get DH on board once we're both awake enough to talk rather than grunt 😅

Yes! I agree with a lot of this post. My dd sounds a lot like yours and we have found that less nagging (for want of a better word as I'm sure you don't nag really) works better, as there's least to resist/push back against iyswim.

Not saying that bad behaviour should be ignored. More that you set the boundary and then don't pester. E.g. "if you don't go to the toilet when you need to and your trousers get wet you will need to help mummy clean it up before we play/watch tv/watch" whatever. Then just say nothing and see what he does. I have found this actually works well and 9/10 my dd will just take herself off. I have started then rewarding her for these times. For the times she doesn't go I say very little except, "let's clean up" and make myself very boring during that process so it doesn't became a game.

Same with getting dressed. "We need to get dressed before we start the day/play/eat" then say/do nothing when he pushes back just hold the boundary of no fun before he's dressed. Might want to do this one on a non school day to start!

I like this method because I actually get less stressed myself.

Re. Sleep that's a tricky wake up time for getting back off to sleep but if everything is very boring before 7 (or your ideal wake time for him) it may make getting up less appealing?

Also. Hate to say it but you could potentially be re enforcing the wake through your good intentions of trying to help him/the other parent get rest and staying with him.

Could you try saying something brief like "it's still night time, go back to sleep we love you" and just repeating until a decent wake up time or he goes back to sleep? If he's anything like my dd this will at first be met with outrage but if you're consistent he will quickly get the message. (We have Ollie the owl and he's brilliant for this as she can see he's still blue)

@crabapplejam those are all very fair points and I'm going to try the less 'nagging'. I do think part of the challenge though is that 'boring' is really hard to achieve for my DS - he's perfectly happy just sitting and nattering at us. Which is lovely in a way! But it does mean that unless we literally move to another room and ignore him, he's still getting his own way.

Of course, I can try withdrawing my attention, but that actually does feel potentially quite emotionally cruel, and he's already quite an anxious/clingy soul, so I worry that I might make things worse instead of better. Last night, for example, when he was messing around at bedtime, I calmly told him that I was going to do some jobs in the next room and would come back when he was ready to listen. He ended up totally distraught and once he was in bed was tearfully telling me he wishes he could be with me all the time forever.

You're right, I wasn't thinking to get dressed at 5am hehe! Sorry if that was misinterpreted!

I do -

Wakes up between 5 and 6am - 'it's still night time' - take back to bed, if he looks sleepy I won't take the yoto in will leave him in quiet, if I can see it's a lost cause I take the Yoto in and leave him with that and some cards to pick so it plays books.

If he calls etc I just say it's still night until 6am on a weekday (he's at childcare 7.30) 6.30 on weekend.. that's when I say it's time to get up and expect clothes before breakfast/playing/anything else

Mine doesn't have issues with teeth but I suppose you could do clothes and teeth before doing anything else to try to get him to do them or he'll end up with some mornings no play.

I'm not going to say it's perfect even now - but not allowing to be 'up' until a set time has helped.. even if he doesn't go back to sleep he's pretty keen to play and have breakfast by the time we reach the right time and just gets on with getting dressed without issue which is nice!

@HAF1119 ahh I get you now. I do think a similar approach is worth a try, though I'll need to get DH on board - bless him, he's determined to try to get me more sleep before DC2 arrives - I just think maybe we're in a 'short term pain for long term gain' scenario right now 😅

Yeah definately go short term pain! I also realise about the clingyness you've said. I guess try to find something he can do quietly in his room which keeps him engaged enough to not miss you, but is a little calm and boring. Unfortunately the only thing we found was a yoto and they aren't a cheap solution!

Is he falling asleep too early? Ds1 has always been an early sleeper/early riser and needed 11/12 hours (even now at 8 he’s asleep by 8:00 and awake at 7:00ish )

ds2 is a whole other kettle of fish, he’s 3 and only seems to need 10ish hours a night and just does NOT sleep well if we try to get him to bed ‘early’ we’ve realised we were trying to use his brothers sleep needs for him and it wasn’t working, it’s taken 3 years for us to realise but now he falls asleep around 9 and sleeps through until 7ish.

@HAF1119 he has a Yoto and this week we have started encouraging him to listen to stories when he wakes up early, it's worked on two days but other days he just got upset and still wanted one of us. Baby steps!

@QforCucumber possibly, although he does get noticeably ratbaggy by 7 and once he's been persuaded to stop faffing and actually get into bed he does fall asleep quickly, which I've generally taken as a sign that he's ready to sleep. Though that might be a function of the early wakes of course!

Off topic but try going into more on the Yoto app, then podcasts. There's so much on there for free it means there's new stuff to listen to (games like Simon says etc on there or quizzes for kids/specific topics) which makes it a little easier to engage them :)

You may know of this already, I did not!

Ooh I didn't know that, we've just used it for stories and the sleep radio! Sounds great!