Won't sleep without us

[JulieC1981]

My son has just turned four and he is unable to fall asleep without one of us sat on the floor with him.

When he wakes up in the night and sees we aren't there he calls out for us and the cycle continues every few hours. Or until we give in and get into bed with him.

I realise we are to blame for creating this problem as he is unable to self soothe.

The issue is I am 5 months pregnant and would like to try and undo this behaviour and work to get him to fall asleep without us and sleep through the night.

Any ideas welcome xx

I have been in a very similar situation. My 3 year old was unable to go to sleep without one of us in the room (often in her bed) and with a newborn too, we found it very hard to manage.

We took her to Build a Bear and she made herself a special bear to go to sleep with her. One of us sat on a chair by the bed while she went to sleep with her bear, then each night moved the chair further away (if she was comfortable with that) until we were sitting on the landing with her door open. We bought her a projector nightlight from M&S and explained that it would look better in the dark, so she decided she wanted to close the door while we sat outside.

We started doing this between Christmas and New Year, and now she just needs one of us pottering about upstairs while she goes to sleep.

Just last week, we discovered The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep and similar stories on YouTube. It’s some kind of hypnotic magic- she is asleep within 5 minutes now, when she used to talk rubbish to us and/or make various demands for up to an hour before.

I have no advice about night wakings as she generally sleeps through and if she doesn’t, my husband does go and get in bed with her.

I strongly believe self soothing is a load of old shite, and you haven’t done anything wrong.

Thank you and thank you for your reply.

I love the protector and moving chair idea. My husband was thinking about playing something whilst he is trying to go to sleep so can introduce that too.

Will start with the chair idea as then if we can get to the landing use the protector and then story, just so we don't do too much at once

Thank you again x