Nighttime Nightmare

[1DJ]

I've read a lot of posts and general articles but wanted to see if anyone has anything to offer that I've not tried before. My little one is 5 and since birth has been brilliant at sleep, has been able to self sooth and rarely wakes up at night.

Unfortunately over the last couple of weeks something has changed and now she just won't sleep. I've started having to sit with her while she falls asleep, but then a couple of hours later she's back up and uncontrollably crying. From there it's just a battle to get her to just lie down, let alone sleep. Often she won't sleep until early morning and then with just a couple of hours will be off to school.

She has a good wind down before bed and during the day is generally fine. It's like she's a different child at night. Does anyone have any advise of what to try to get past this? The only thing I can think of is to start sharing a bed with her, but I don't know if that's going to make matter worse in the long run.

Sounds like night terrors, my DS5 went through a period of having them, he would wake up and come downstairs absolutely sobbing and would seem scared to go back into his bedroom.

What worked for us was either me or his dad laying with him in his bed & comforting him until he settled, eventually he'd calm down and would fall asleep again. It was happening 2/3 nights a week for a few weeks but then stopped and hasn't happened since.

Has your daughter been able to tell you or explain what's wrong when this happens? A bad dream? Is she scared or in pain? Is something in her bedroom when she wakes up scaring her? Maybe a teddy bear looks scary in the dark

It started like that, and she would then go back to sleep, but not she just refuses to lie down and just cries. There have been nights where I've sat on the floor in her room all night and she will just sit on her bed crying or just sit and do nothing. I've tried putting her to bed earlier, later, stopping any TV before bed, giving her milk again before bed, reading books in bed, white noise on and off, nightlights on and off, Yoto player sleep sounds, music but nothing seems to work. Once she's up, she's just up.

I've tried asking her at the time and also during the day about what's happening at night and why she doesn't want to sleep, but the conversation just goes in a circle and doesn't lead anywhere.

Going by my own experience, when my daughter began having insomnia it was due to stress at school. The school environment was toxic and put her into a hyper alert fight or flight state. So obviously nighttime comes along and she’s too mentally and emotionally wound up to sleep properly. I will also add that I asked about how she was going at school and the teachers told me everything was fine when it obviously wasn’t.