Please Help. 10 year old boy can't sleep alone in bed!

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Hi. I hope you can help; give me advice or point me in the right direction for help. Our 10 year old boy won't sleep alone in a bed. He sleeps with my husband and I in our bed. However when he's tired he will fall asleep alone on the sofa while watching TV. Our son is doing very well at school, is very confident and is not being bullied. When we put him in his bed, he can't get to sleep because he gets very stressed, to the point of being sick. On holiday recently, my husband slept beside him on a separate bed and even then our son couldn't get to sleep, stressed out and my husband gave up at 2am and we all took to a king-size bed at the hotel. A 4 night stay at school camp is looming next month for our son and we don't want him to go "cold turkey" in front of strangers and his school chums. Any suggestions? Thanks

Has he always slept in your bed? Is he frightened of any specific?

Let him fall asleep in your bed and both go sleep in his bedroom?

Try this sleep CD www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00000J107/ref=dm_dp_cdp?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1287777689&sr=8-2

Put him in his bed with a hot water bottle and a special toy? Night light? A nice book to read if he wakes up. Bath, warm milk and banana before bed.

Rewards for sleeping on his own?

Can you sit with him his room till he drops off - then sneek off? Or if you have to stay - don't give in and
take him back to your bed.

Stay awake with him one whole night and then put him to bed at his normal bed time the following day - exhausted and in his own bed.

Run out of ideas now sorry and imagine you have tried most of them.

Natural Sleep Inducement by
Dan Gibson - Solitudes - suggested Cd sorry. great reviews.

Sorry, no direct experience, it sounds really hard.

On the basis that you can just try lots of different ideas, can I tell you about my 7 year old son.

Earlier this year he started to get really afraid of being sick, but only at bedtime. He'd seen friends being sick on a sleepover, and been woken up by his little brother being sick, so had some memories of it being horrid, but had no sickness himself ever.

It got to the stage where he wanted to be with me the whole evening, would just sit quietly - or fall asleep on the settee, but wouldn't stay in bed.

Amongst other things, I bought some bach flower remedy and told him that it would first stop him being sick and later stop him thinking about it.

I don't care if it's a placebo, he thinks it works and it smells like medicine and is virtually tasteless.

One of the hardest things to do was talk about it with him during the day - i didn't want to make him think about it when he was happy. but I had to try to understand what he was afraid of. Even now I'm not sure that I understand if he was covering up worries about starting a new (junior) school. You don't say what he is afraid of, your son, do you know?

All the best, I know it's not easy. You're abso right about not going cold turkey. Good luck.

Can you try letting him listen to story tapes/CDs in bed? My DS used to fall asleep to these.

Earlier this year we had a car fire outside DS's bedroom (downstairs). It totally freaked him and destroyed his ability to sleep as he is the onlt one who has a bedroom downstairs. He came in with us for a bit, and in the end we re-did his bed. New pillow etc. Made it feel different and also special and new & it really helped.

Good luck

All. Many thanks for all your suggestions. My husband is redecorating his bedroom so that will be one suggestion down and a few more to act upon. Hopefully we'll solve this soon and I'll let you know what works.