3 and a half, won't stay asleep consistently

[whenshewasgood]

My DD2 has always been a not great sleeper - never napped more than 40 mins, always had random night wakings.

On a good night, she sleeps 730-6 but we get usually at least a couple of nights a week where she gets up at 5am, or wakes up in the night and won't go back to sleep, she plays in her room and whether I stay or not, I can't get her to go back to sleep.

I've tried explaining that she needs to go back to sleep as she's tired but she doesn't understand.

It's affecting her learning - she's so tired for a couple of days after a bad night her behaviour is worse, she won't listen and can't concentrate (she's been assessed as mild to moderate attention and listening problems and I'm sure bad sleep is playing a part).

Any tips?

-We hold her hand to go to sleep initially, so fall asleep with her, but this rarely works at night.

-She's definitely physically exhausted, she goes to a very active nursery 5 days a week.

-Her room is dark, we have curtains and shutters, it's not a light or noise issue waking her up.

She needs to fall asleep by herself at night. I knew when I read your title that you would say you stayed with her to fall asleep.

The things is, when she comes out of a sleep cycle and semi wakes, as we all do, things are different, you are gone and it’s enough to wake her brain fully. Then often they aren’t quite tired enough to fall asleep as easily even if you’re there.

Imagine falling asleep and stirring in the night to find your duvet and pillow gone- just vanished. Wouldn’t you wake up properly, wondering where the bloody hell it had gone?

Most of the time when we come to the end of a sleep cycle and enter a new one just shift position and stay dowdy/asleep. It’s a skill we’ve learnt and one you need to teach dd.

Good luck.

The 40 minutes is the flag to this- that’s one sleep cycle length.

ah interesting - we started doing it when we moved her out of her cot, because she was upset about the change and still asks about her cot as if she'd like it back (but she was climbing out of it all the time).

So I'll try enforcing that she needs to fall asleep on her own - even at bedtime sometimes it can take her an hour to relax to go to sleep on bad days so it is a very time intensive process (this is after the rest of the bedtime routine).

thanks for replying georgie, I got about 4 hours last night and this is at least the second night this week - it's affecting the rest of my life too as constantly tired.

Start with a gradual retreat. So night one, sit with your back to her, right next to her bed. No hand holding, eye contact or talking. You can gentle say ‘it’s sleep time’ once or twice but no more. Then night two, sit further away, night three by the door and night five outside the door, etc etc. And before you know it you’ll be downstairs!

thanks Georgie