4yo DD has become a nightmare

[Pinkgiraffe2991]

If you make it to the end of this post then thank you! I’m writing this as my 4yo DD is still awake and giving her dad grief, we have come to dread bedtime.

DD has never been the best at going to bed, 9/10 she needs one of us (mainly me) to lie next to her before she will go to sleep. She tries every delay tactic in the book. I rang the school nurses and took on some of their suggestions re getting ready for bed and reading her books downstairs before then going up to bed. We also introduced meditation music and a lavender roll on which helped for a while.

We kept her routine the same during lockdown and gradually she has become worse to the point where we get stressed even thinking about bedtime. We always take her up at 7, and she will mess about until 9/10pm. Getting out of bed, going to her window, I need a drink, I need the toilet, running out of her room and into our bed..if we leave her to sleep alone she follows. I have tried her in our bed out of desperation, but she messes about in there, too!

On the rare occasion she does lie down straight away, she’s tapping the bed, kicking her legs, exaggerating her breathing, pulling her lip to make sounds.

We have recently brought in a reward chart and she doesn’t care, there are no stars on there for being good at bedtime. We have started to remove items from her room when she messes about and she cares when it’s taken away, but carries on straight after. We have tried rewards and we have also tried taking away privileges like her iPad during the day and nothing works.

We are all tired, exhausted and we all end up losing our temper. DD always wakes up happy in the morning and I have a quiet and calm chat with her about what happened at bedtime, why was she doing that and can we try to have a good bedtime tonight. Her answer is always things like “I wanted to play”, “I wanted to sleep in your room”, “I wanted to look out the window”.

Understandably she is ratty during the day due to lack of sleep, and I worry that our neighbours think we are awful people!

If anyone has any advice at all I’d be grateful! I understand that lockdown has been hard on them but this feels extreme.

I feel for you I really do. Have you tried a glow clock? Was really useful for my 4 year old. You may to go.down the super Nanny route. She has a lovely wind down, bath bed and book. Then when she gets up, you take.her back to bed and say no it's night time now I love you. Then she gets up again... You day night time. 3rd time you say nothing and from then on you just have to constantly put her back to bed. No talking. Could take 40 trys but you have to stick with it so she knows you mean business. It easier normally on day 3. Good luck!

@blondiehip I haven’t, but I think it may help actually as the light evenings are definitely not helping. Our routine (and DD) always starts out lovely.. bath, pjs and teeth, a couple of books then we put on “bedtime music” but once it’s time to actually lie down and go to sleep that’s when all hell seems to break loose . Last time we tried the super nanny technique she thought it was hilarious but I’m willing to try it again! DH and I both work full time so I’ll see if I can make any progress at the weekend. Thank you for your kind words and advice

We went through a phase like this at the same age. I would push bedtime back a bit for a start. 7pm is quite early considering she's not at school/nursery and we all have limited options for tiring them out! It's also still really light at 7pm unless your have blackout blinds?

When our DS was playing silly buggers we just lay down with him as it was the quickest and easiest way to get him off to sleep. It usually took about 20 mins. Any messing and I'd leave the room so he learned quickly that if he wanted me there he had to lay down and be calm/quiet.

A year on, he still messes about at bedtime but I just say to him, if you want to play in your room, that's fine, but be quiet and don't shout down for us. Similarly he is free to get into our bed if he wants but again, no shouting down or making a fuss.

Honestly this is just a phase. It's really annoying but it will pass!

Tried all the advice kindly given here, gro clock, later bedtime, super nanny putting back to bed technique, offering DD the opportunity to play in her room before sleep but nothing seems to be working and we’ve just had an absolutely awful bedtime if left to play DD runs out of her room into our room, the bathroom or sits on her windowsill and bangs the glass so we deduced that this couldn’t be an option. Tonight DD told us that she’s staying up all night and won’t be tired, at nearly 10 we told DD she really needs to go to sleep now and we started to take toys away that DD kept getting out of bed to play with and taking her back to bed saying I love you and goodnight. Long story short DD’s room is bare. We have been kicked, slapped, screamed at, raspberries blown in our faces. I can’t believe this has just happened and I’m so upset, this isn’t like DD at all. Is there anything obvious that we are doing wrong? I’m going to ring the school nurses tomorrow to see if they can help. I’m feeling absolutely broken.

Poor you, you must be so stressed. I have a 2.5yo who is up and down with sleeping. My friend installed a saloon style door so could open top half but keep bottom half locked to effectively lock her little one in and ignore. Is there anyway you can stop her from reaching the window and installing a baby gate or something? Another let's her child roam whilst ignoring and she falls asleep where she falls asleep as they have tried everything and where at breaking point.

Sorry not great advice but didn't want to read and run xx

One thing that really helped my DS was making a big thing of having ‘talking time’, for ten minutes, lying down in bed in the dark, after story time. When talking time finishes, then everyone has to be quiet. I would stay with him til he fell asleep at that point. At least that way he was staying in the bed and getting drowsy.

He now sometimes goes to sleep with an audiobook on, again in the dark

Might it help to try and refrain bedtime for all of you, to try and get all of you less tired before making big changes? Sleepover in your bed all together as a v special treat. (Carry her back to her room when she is actually asleep)?

*reframe

You poor things, sleep deprivation is used as torture for a reason! Behaviour always has a function, usually either to avoid something or seek it out. So she's likely either avoiding sleep or seeking out stimulation/your attention. Have you tried acting out bedtime with her toys? It can be a good way to get children to express what their worries about something might be. Is she hyperactive during the day? Any suggestion of not being neurotypical? Does she actually seem tired at bedtime?

Sorry for the questions! There's that book about a rabbit that loads of people swore by for sending their kids to sleep. Or books about not wanting to go to bed might hell explore it with her? I think Charlie and lola might do one, and I've definitely seen others in the library (obvs online purchase only at the moment).

Also, regression is really common among children at the moment due to all the free floating anxiety... But this does seem an exacerbation of an existing problem. Which anxiety will also cause :(

We have been having a terrible time with dd who is 4. She’s gone from a pretty good sleeper to atrocious, with the last 3 weeks being unbearable.

She’s been refusing to go to bed, becoming manic and violent which is so unlike her. We decided that to reduce her anxiety she could share with me for a while and DH would go in the spare room.... this helped a tiny bit but she was still not crashing until 1am and the entire evening was dominated by her antics.

We tried every strategy we could think of and even had to restrain her on one occasion as she was going to hurt her brother.

Then she was tired all day, leading her to have shocking behaviour all day too. It was like a vicious cycle that couldn’t be broken and it was all so out of character and so upsetting.

I ended up ringing the GP in a right state and they were really supportive. They prescribed an antihistamine which is also used as a short term sedative for children, which we gave her for the first time tonight. She was out for the count at 8pm, in my bed.

The hope is that we can help her to get to sleep for a few nights, catch up on her rest and hopefully her mood and behaviour will become more manageable. Breaking the cycle basically. I’ll let you know how it goes....

I never thought I’d be sedating my child but honestly she has become out of control and so unhappy, that I was prepared to give it a go for a week. It’s not an option for everyone I’m sure.

How's it going @Pinkgiraffe2991?

@Misty9 we had a great night on Thursday, I couldn’t quite believe it! We saw the neighbours DDs (similar age) when we went outside to clap, and I said to DD why don’t we have a competition to see who falls asleep first, you or the neighbour kids.. she ran for her life to brush her teeth, ran into her room, turned her light off herself and went straight to sleep! I was giddy for about an hour afterwards because I couldn’t believe it had just happened 😂 sadly it’s not worked since and it’s gone downhill from there, last night was slightly better than usual as we were all better rested but tonight we were back to DD messing about and kicking DH while laughing.. we only got her to sleep about half an hour ago

I know it'll be an unpopular suggestion, but when i went through a similar phase at about 5, i got my bedtime routine, my stories, my cuddle, and then i was put to bed and my dad tied my bedroom door shut with his dressing gown cord. Apparently i fucked about and made a racket, eventually fell asleep on the floor, and they had a loud few nights (bottle of wine to the next door neighbours) and by the end of the week i was going to bed like a human not a demon. Probably would have people wringing their hands and calling the NSPCC these days, but you do seem to have exhausted every other avenue.

You're not alone.
Bedtime had been gradually getting worse in our house with our 3 year old twins since all of this covid stuff. I think it must be the change in routine/life has suddenly changed so much.
We'd have the odd phase of messing about before, but this is consistently going to shit.
I just found an article online, and we're going to try a later bedtime tomorrow night. We've got nothing to lose.

Hi @Pinkgiraffe2991 I just wondered how things have been?

I posted above about our dd who is 4 and bedtime struggles.

Sadly the sleeping meds only worked for us the first night, the rest of the nights they seemed to have the opposite effect and make her even more manic.

We’ve been on a bit of a journey, co-sleeping in with me and then co-sleeping in her room, then separate beds in her room. Now we’re staying with her until she sleeps and we’re all in our own beds.

But.... getting her to sleep is still a nightmare and it’s midnight most nights 😭

I can’t believe that 6 or 7 weeks ago she would be asleep 20 minutes after we tucked her in, after a really positive bedtime. I actually really miss my little girl so much as she seems like a different person at the moment.

I hope you’ve been having better luck than us.

At what time does she wake up? Does she nap at all during the day?

@gillian1980 I relate to what you’re saying so much. Prior to lockdown bedtime would take maybe half an hour to an hour - DD would sometimes try to mess about but it would never last long.

I’m weary, this is every single night. DD starts off telling me she’s going to be a big girl and sleep by herself, tonight she got her pjs on, teeth brushed, books read no problem, lay down to go to sleep.. it’s after this point that things go pear shaped! We can’t put our finger on why. DD seems to get bored and declares she can’t sleep.

We’ve tried some of the supernanny techniques this week which took 2-3 hours. We’re all very tired and like you I just want my lovely DD back.

@grey12 DD is falling asleep around 10pm and wakes between 7am

*And 7.30am. Sorry hit post too early!

I just wanted to come on and say @Gillian1980 and pinkgiraffe we are having the exact same problem with ds who is 4. By god it's draining. Last night it was midnight and tonight it was 9.30 which was a win in my eyes. He's aggressive and manic and screams to wake up his sister on purpose. I think it's the lack of socialisation with other kids and the stress of lockdown. Ds is a fiesty but lovely kid normally, I hate telling him off and the person he has become is so difficult. I have started a points system which helped a little bit tonight towards a big toy he wants but normally nothing works. The light nights are a menace too. I have no magic cure but I wanted to show solidarity. It's bloody tough!

Just to update, I made a doctors appointment for DD today as we’re still struggling and they have referred her to the ADHD clinic and for some blood tests I absolutely hate the idea of a label being put on DD, but at the same time it may mean that we will be able to understand and approach things differently.

I understand not wanting to label but I hope you get some answers and support @Pinkgiraffe2991

Things here have massively changed since returning to school this week. Things are still difficult but nothing like as challenging and dd is asleep by 9.30 ish most nights now which is a huge improvement.

I read “the gentle discipline book” and it made a lot of sense so have been following a lot of advice in there.