PLEASE HELP 3 Year old with a sudden fear of going to sleep

[zippytiptoes]

We are at our wits end...can anyone give us some advice? We have a 3 yr old who has epilepsy and is on Limotrigine (20mg - morning and night) Since she started the drug she has refused point blank to go to bed at night even though she seems hang dog tired. I'm am pretty sure it's the Limotrigine but the consultant says it is just a behavioural phase. It's odd that she's never, ever done this before and has always been a perfect sleeper. Over the last month we have, in desperation, restorted to letting her fall asleep on the sofa or putting her in our bed, then carrying her through to hers before we go to sleep but this is just not practical or how we want to go on.

Our GP has prescribed some sedative which we are very reluctant to use as it just seems like a sticking plaster and not a way to properly resolve the issue.

Just now, she is upstairs howling and screaming, keeping our six yr old awake. She is trying to reason with us about why she shouldn't go to sleep. It's awful and we both feel so guilty just leaving her, but the controlled crying thing is a last resort. We just keep going into the bedroom and giving her a brief cuddle then putting her back into bed telling her "It's bed time now". Our whole family are really suffering and we're all really tired and snappy and I'm just not sure if we're doing the right thing. The consultant wants us to give her increased dose of Lamotrigine a chance to work, but we feel we are unable to continue like this as it's just doing us all in!

Does anyone have any advice or similar experiences please?

Our three yr old DD has just emerged from a couple of months of something similar. I still need to lie down beside her on the bed as she goes over. We tried everything, but she seems to have worked through it herself and goes to bed reasonably willingly without tears or recriminations. All I can suggest is lots of cuddles and reassurance and remember it's just a phase. It could be that she feels different on the medication, or finds taking the medication stressful? We also found with DS who was a bad sleeper that avoiding talking about grown up worries, such as work, in front of him, really helped. My stress from a day at the office was transferring to him. He started going down more easily when we changed our habit of talking through work when we came home in the evening. If you're worried about the new medication she could be picking up on that, they're incredibly smart little blighters.

Thanks loads for that. We ended up ringing the hospital last night for some reassurance because she was obviously having seizures in the middle of screaming and I was worried about her getting so stressed.

Tonight was a little easier....only 20 minutes of screaming as opposed to over an hour last night. I felt a little less guilt too which helped. I think it's def the medication though and I'll call the hospital in the morning. Thanks for your response though. It helped a lot.

Have you asked why she doesn't want to go to bed? My DS 3 is now having bad dreams and gets a bit scared ("There was a voom in my room" - damn Dr Seuss!) - if its something to do with this we use Monster Spray - sounds silly but its just a spray bottle with water in that we spray a couple of times in his room and it really makes him feel comfortable. Or reward charts work well in this house.

I would try and ask DD what it is about going to bed she doesn't like and see if you can work from there.

Sorry about the epilepsy, I can understand it adds even more stress to this but I hope you get through this stage :)