Helping 4yo get enough sleep - Please help

[millingtonsmummy]

I posted a couple of weeks ago in behaviour & development as I have concerns about DDs exhaustion. I believe she needs more sleep than the average 4 yo but I'm lost in how to help her to get the sleep she needs. Can anyone offer any pearls of wisdom.

I'm pretty sure the crux of the problem is early waking but I can't be certain as she has a groclock and stays in her bed without fail til the sun comes up. I ask how many stars were left when she wakes and she always says 1 but I sometimes hear her earlier than this entertaining herself with her teddies. Her bedroom curtains are well lined but it's never totally dark in there. Her tiredness has certainly been worse the last month or so which fits with the lightest mornings.

The problem is from the moment she gets out of bed in the morning she's tired, sucking her thumb slumped on the floor cuddling teddies & generally being grotty. This morning has been awful with not a moment where she's not been complaining, yawning or crying, by 12pm she'd reduced me to tears as I don't recognise this little girl who is constantly miserable and glum.

Until the last few days she doesn't nap in the daytime except the odd 15 mins on car journeys. She's in bed now and has been napping for around 1 hr, she'd prob sleep all afternoon if I let her but I know that the sleep she has now is directly knocked off her night sleep by her dropping off later in the evening. She's usually in bed 6.30-7pm and falls asleep within minutes. It seems the earlier she goes to bed, the earlier she wakes.

So if she spends most of her waking hours tired and miserable why won't her body allow her to sleep more? What can I do?

Do full on blackout blinds make that much difference?

Does anyone have any experience in wake to sleep for children of this age?

Should I bin the groclock or alter the settings so when she's waking at 5am+ the clock tells her it's the middle if the night?

Does anyone else's 4yo nap & how do you make this work with bedtimes? She starts school in Sept so napping in the day can't really be a long term solution.

Thank you for any advice! xx

If my 4yo naps in the day he is a nightmare to get to sleep - well maybe just a slight PITA - gets up to go for a wee several times, takes over an hour, even two hours to settle..then he is tired in the morning....so I do as much as I can to not let him sleep in the day. Sometimes he will fall asleep in the car at some point in the afternoon but I try not to let him sleep beyond the car journey (ie if just need to grab some milk/post a letter I will wake him and take him into the shop/to the post box etc even though it may seem cruel not to let him snooze.

I would recommend trying to get your DD through without a nap - see how she does. Maybe the daytime sleep is what is causing her to wake so early? If she was really sleep deprived you would have to wake her in the mornings! You may find it easier to bring bedtime ridiculously early when you first drop the nap (DS went from a 7pm to 6pm bedtime as he was a) exhausted by 6pm and b) a whingy grump by about 5.30pm and although I adore him I couldn't wait any longer for bedtime. I gradually bumped his bedtime back over quite a long period to the 7pm it is now. Also keep afternoons as low key as you can in the first few days.

Also no harm in trying the same gradually thing to make her bedtime a bit later - see if it does.

Also - yes to blackout blinds...the early sunrises really will not be helpful and IMO they make a huge difference.

The only thing I will say is try a "sleep diary"....it sounds like faff but worked for me when I was having problems with DD sleep when she was nearly 3. Just write down every day fora week/fortnight what naps she has, what the routine was before bedtime, what time was bedtime, what time (if known) she fell asleep and what time she woke. Was she tired/grumpy the next day. If you can be faffed maybe google sunrise time too :-). If you make a change (eg to bedtime) you will have in black and white a record/note to see if there is actually a change. Without writing it down you can get yourself in a tizz of working out what actually has had an impact, what has not.

Sorry will stop waffling now. But mostly blackout blinds.

Try taping foil to the window with masking tape - it should block out all light.

Sounds daft, but does she get plenty of exercise during thr day? It's the only thing that made a real difference with DS.

It's the longest day tomorrow.. mornings will start getting darker soon

Thanks for your advice. DD dropped her daytime nap months ago but in the last week I've let her have 3 naps in her bed because she's been so shattered. I personally don't think it's helped as she usually goes to bed at 6.30/7pm and falls asleep within a couple of minutes. Last night after 1.5hr nap in the day she finally dropped off at 8.30pm. She didn't really come out of her tired grump until about 5pm regardless of the sleep! I do think she slept in a bit this morning though, 6.30am(ish)??

I might try the foil idea tonight thank you! If there's enough in the kitchen draw that is.

She gets quite a bit of exercise I think. She's at preschool 2.5 days a week and doesn't stop when there. We swim, gymnastics, ballet each week and weather permitting she likes a good run around the garden and bounce on trampoline.

A diary's a great idea, then I can see if there's any relation to activities, food, naps etc.

Thanks again ladies. xx