10 year old can't fall asleep without me in the room. Any tips?

[Blythe1973]

I don't mind staying there until she falls asleep (sat on a chair) but she is now 10 and would be nice if she could fall asleep without me in the room. She doesn't suffer anxiety during the day but at night is scared if I leave room as she is falling asleep and panics. She also has to have calm app on. I just don't know how to get round it, she has never ever gone to bed and to sleep without me there. Or is it something I shouldn't worry about just yet? Anyone else have this issue?

Ironing in the hallway outside her room too for another night - hopefully by the end of the week you have a solo sleeper and all your upstairs chores done

Yes it's easy to say you are making it worse but not nice when they are distressed when you leave etc. easy just to blame the mum. I wouldn't be on here if I didn't care about it.

Great idea.. yes the upstairs of the house will be pristine!

With my DS I sit with him for 5 minutes, then I leave and set a timer on my watch for 10 minutes, after which I check on him. Then a timer for 15 minutes, etc. It's rare that he isn't asleep after 10 mins, but he nods off quite easily.

My DD isn't anxious, but struggles to fall asleep and 'turn her brain off' (suspected ADHD). What has helped: later bedtime, not rushing her through the saying goodnight routine when it is lights out time (which is elaborate at times), not getting cross when she endlessly calls downstairs asking where we are/ why it's so quiet/ etc.

Yea she says scary puppets pop in her head and she can't get them out. That's a great idea thanks.

Oh this thread has made me feel less alone. DD 10 has never fallen asleep without myself or DH in the room. She has siblings who she shares a room with because she won’t sleep in her own room at all.
over the years we have tried everything.
we’ve just given up and have decided to wait it out. It won’t be forever, one day she won’t want us there. Also she’ll remember when she grows up that we met her needs with this and that’s important to us.
DD is autistic and anxious about most things we mitigate where possible and offer reassurance where needed. To be honest her bedtime has become our normal but I know to other families it’s not something they would want to do.

Spray bottle with water and a couple of drops of lavender oil..or the lavender laundry mist stuff. Tell her it scares the scary puppets so they run away or they think its stinky so they dont come near.

Then ask her to think of a story to tell you at breakfast time. With my dc I would start off the story about a little boy who live in a secret treehouse in the top of the tree outside his bedroom window. I would do a couple of lines and then stop halfway through a sentence so that he could take it from there.
then run to the loo because you are bursting, come back and check, then dothe ironing in the hall then come back and check, then nip downstairs to call Granny back, then co e back and check. But dont talk anytime you come back to check, just blow a kiss and only say what you are off to do next.

Ahhh this is wonderful ❤️

@DifferentlyMaybe

'Also she’ll remember when she grows up that we met her needs with this and that’s important to us.'

Yeah this is so true ❤️

I can understand that an autistic child might need you in their room but the poster here child does not have autism.
At 10 years old they should be able to fall asleep in their room on their own. The truth is that you should have stopped this years ago.
I tell her that at 10 that she is a big girl and that your no longer going to stay with her every night till she falls asleep. If she keeps coming back to you say no, its time to go to your own bed and bring her back to her bed.
You need to keep doing this. I also stop all screens, computer games ect. If she has mobile phone take it off her as well and tell her she have it back when she is going to bed and asleep on her own.
If she won't do this I tell her that she will be getting no sweets, money, trips with her friends, no going to socal activities ect until she stops behaving like a baby.
My feeling is that she won't like this but tell her that what happens when she refuses to listen to you. It time you to deal with her. Along with this your entitled to some child free time in the evening.

Good idea but I would say it is calming and helps you sleep rather than scares them away otherwise you're reinforcing the idea they are real. Audio books are a good idea.

A child psychologist actually advised us to 'suck it up' and DC would grow out of it. One night when he was age 11 he just said 'you're keeping me awake' 🤣 and that was it. I know I did the right thing even though it was a total pain in the ass!

Yeah same here.

When she’s gone at 13, l kind of missed her!

Can you gradually withdraw from the room. Ie. Move the chair further away from the bed, and then outside her door (door open) and then close the door (maybe initially for five minutes, then build up the time). Build the withdrawal
up over several days.

She doesn't have a phone etc she is scared and starts crying so I don't think punishing her is helpful.

@Blythe1973 - one of the things that really helped me, when I had Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, for depression and anxiety, was learning to do visualisation.

I was told to picture the depression/anxiety as a big, dark cloud, and then to imagine the cloud getting lighter at the edges, and that lighter cloud spreading until all of the cloud had disappeared. Another one was to feel the weight of it in my brain, and then to picture that weight getting less and less until it vanished.

Might it help if she pictured the scary puppets getting smaller and smaller until she could step on them and squish them. Or picture herself shoving them into a box and locking it? Basically something that shows her that she can take control of the pictures in her head, and make them do what she wants - if she has watched the Harry Potter films, it’s like when the Boggart is transformed from students’ worst fears to something they can laugh at, and this removes the power that the fear has.

I’d say this would be something to talk about during the day, and you could think up mental games to play, to practise changing the images in her head in the daylight, when there is no pressure.

Apologies if this isn’t making sense - my brain is fried today, and I’m not sure I’m expressing myself coherently!

Such a relief to hear other people have/are going through this! Whenever I talk to anyone in 'real life' they're in disbelief that this is what we do/have done since our DD was a baby!
She is 7 now, and since 7, we said that we would either sit out in the hallway or walk along it until she goes to sleep. This seems to work, after years of us sitting/or laying beside her.
Unfortunately for us, since just before she turned 7, she has woken up almost every night and won't go back to sleep unless she can see us. Mine and DH's sleep has been very broken for a while!
Because of this, it's putting me off going for the 'next stage' with her going to sleep independently at bedtime.

Lots of exercise- she should be physically tired for bed each day.
Audio book to drift off too.
Re decorate her bedroom to make sure it's a really calm atmosphere.
Look at screen time and how close it is to bedtime, leave a gap if possible.
If it's an issue with the dark, let her leave the light on. My DC who is a dream to go to bed and always has been goes to bed every night with a proper light on.
Pottering around upstairs is always a good idea whilst they transition.
Has she not done any sleepovers/ residential etc yet? If she has then she can manage and if she hasn't that's quite late so I'd maybe start exploring that. Might be quite a good carrot.

You can also try swapping the focus from sleep. So get her used to being in her room at night on her own. It doesn't need to be totally dark, soft lighting and she can potter about, toys in her bed, colouring etc. One of our DCs really struggles with sleep and taking the pressure off sleeping and making the expectation ' I need to go and do the ironing, you need to go and chill out in your room' really helped.

I think it's a very tricky balance between thinking you are being a good parent by always being there and meeting their needs and actually helping them cope with negative feelings. I'd try and stay away from some of those quotes about always meeting her needs because at 10 you are moving into a different stage of parenting pretty quickly. Yes it's not nice that scary puppets pop into her head but she will have bad thoughts, nightmares, come across uncomfortable things for the rest of her life. It's as much your job to teach her that she can deal with those scary feelings, and techniques of how to, as to just give comfort. Acknowledge that it's not nice, it happens to everyone and teach her different techniques like ignoring, making it into something silly, shooting it away, telling it no and that she can always come and get you if she's really scared but her learning that she can deal with this on her own is really valuable for her.

I had a conversation with my 2 sil a few years ago.

We all slept with mum. One until she was 15! We didn’t like sleeping alone. We all matured into normal adults.

Surely a spray to scare the puppets away reinforces the idea that fictional scary thing actually exists and is a threat to be gotten rid of? I wouldn't go down this route.

Not alone OP! My dd is 8 and been a terrible sleeper since birth. She wants me to stay in her room until she’s asleep but always comes to my bed around 4am as she’s scared.
we have tried all sorts sleep patches, weighted blanket, night/projector lights, white noise/soothing music, sleepy creams/bath wash and it goes on and on. Only child and on the pathway for autism assessment xx

When she's a teenager she will want nothing to do with you.
Mums are boring old farts then.
I do sympathise because I can't fall asleep most nights without a calm app on - usually rain or snow storms - and I'm 62.
I get really stressed by my job and occasionally have panic attacks in the night.
Children that age have a lot to deal with, the pressures of school, endless learning and homework, just generally modern life, screens, depressing news on the t.v can be a real stressor.
When I was a kid life was simple, we just didn't have all these pressures as a rule.

“All your upstairs chores”…And role modelling to your anxious daughter how to be a perfect 1950s housewife too!

Op - I’ve no doubt that your dd is scared and you want to be gentle with her but she’ll be at secondary school soon. Like the pp said, this should’ve been sorted way before now - it’s almost become an institutionalised and habitual part of the bedtime routine now.

She needs to develop coping skills and personal resilience to cope as a young person, and in order to do this I think you need to steal yourself to be ‘cruel to be kind’. Tell her that it’s time for her to settle herself and although you’ll be around (busying yourself or reading next door), she needs to realise there is nothing to be scared of, and perhaps she can read by herself for 20 mins before turning the light off and settling down.

Be less responsive of any fuss. That isn’t to say you don’t comfort her if she needs it, but keep repeating that there is nothing to be afraid of. Feelings can be scary but not real. She needs to calm down and get to sleep. Babying her will not help her in the long term.

I was exactly like this as a child. And I’m not an only child. My siblings were fine but I was just very anxious. Every shadow was scary, my imagination would run riot even though logically I knew there was nothing there.

No advice really as my parents tried everything but nothing helped except just being there. I grew out of it at about 11 or 12 I think.

How did this idea go- my 5 year old ( only child ) was the same
it took me having an major operation. And husband trying to look after us both at night to break the cycle .
and it was a case of you call me I will come but I can't stay because I have jobs to do

he cried out a lot at first but once he felt safe husband was on hand he just spoke to his Alexa app - put some sleepy music on and voila