6 years of crazy bedtime routines. I need help.

[NotTodaySatanPlz]

I've been putting off asking for advice here as I know it's an absolute ridiculous situation we've got ourselves into but I'll just be honest and see if anyone can help....

Since DD was born she has never been a good sleeper. As a baby her routine would be to fall asleep on the sofa then DP would lift her to her cot where she would sleep for maybe 2-3 hours then wake and wouldn't go back into it until she fell asleep in my bed. Again after a few hours she'd be awake but this time she would be wide awake for 2-3 hours and nothing could make her sleep again. She would just stay awake and cry/babble/listen to lullabies for those hours then fall asleep again. As she got older she wouldn't sleep in the cot until we took the side off and pushed it against our bed which meant that she would just roll in beside me in the night. Still didn't sleep through the night.

Fast forward to now and for the past few years it's been various ways of getting her to sleep. It used to be that one of us would do bedtime which meant going to sit with her, stroking her hand, and on occasions me singing lullabies to her! So we removed the hand stroking and put lullabies on the TV instead as she's always needed the light from the TV to sleep anyway. This worked for a while. Then at some stage she'd ask us to hum along (!!) and stupidly we did it as we saw that it helped her fall asleep a lot quicker. In those times she would usually come into my bed at 4/5am, some nights she wouldn't wake so stay in her own bed all night.

School nights were much, much easier. She was tired enough to fall asleep as long as we hummed and sat with her. She'd mostly stay in her own bed and on a very rare occasion she would get up to pee and go back to bed.

And now we get to lockdown last year, everything is up in the air and with no school she's not tired enough at night. The bedtime routine is taking 2, 3, even 4 hours! We got her a trampoline and made sure to take her walks and made sure the garden was all cleaned up for her to play in. But she would usually moan for me to go sit out there while she played on the trampoline. Some days this was fine but some days I just couldn't. On those days she wouldn't play out for long. Sleep was a nightmare, after those long hours of getting her to fall asleep, we'd be no sooner left the room than she would be out asking why we'd left and if she could just please sleep in our bed. Sometimes we'd try to put her back to bed but as ridiculous as it sounds, sometimes it would be 5am and we'd still be sitting insisting that no, she's not coming in with us and she was staying in her own bed. But, tiredness would win and I'd give in and take her in with me.

Now I've made the worst mistake possible by getting her a double bed as with her coming in to us so often, DP would end up on the sofa and his back has paid the price. So I thought getting her a double would mean at the very least there was enough bed space if we did have any of those nights. DD has just seen this as a green light to get to sleep beside one of us and every night has been a battle. She will fall asleep ok (no hand tickling, no humming, just the lullabies playing while we sit there) and doesn't take more than half hour but as soon as we leave the room we are on eggshells waiting to see how long she'll sleep for. Then we get the tears and sobbing and asking can one of us please sleep beside her. She doesn't go back to sleep. She stayed awake all night from 2:30am because we wouldn't allow her into our bed one night.

I know she sounds like a spoilt brat, which I'd agree with on what I wrote here, but in general she's a lovely girl who helps me around the house and cares deeply. She is very attached to me though and cried a lot when school started back up. If I'm a few minutes late collecting her from school or afterschool club (which she hates going to as it means more time away from me) then she cries again and doesn't sleep well at all that night. She won't go to clubs out of school or stay with relatives unless it's her gran. She plays out with friends for hours if she can but during lockdown she's happy playing with toys at home.

We are at a loss now of what to do. Reward charts don't work at the minute as there's nothing exciting to reward her with so she has no interest. She has shown though that she absolutely can stay in her bed all night when DP had a really sore back and needed injections she knew he needed to sleep in bed so didn't come into us at all for a few days but once he seemed better she was back to square one.

DP thinks she's just such an anxious child that she needs one of us at night and that we should just get the sleep wherever we can whether that means one of us in her bed/her in our bed etc. Then other times he's losing patience at the whole having to sit with her til she sleeps only for her to be up less than an hour later and one of us having to go to bed just so she'll sleep. I'm swinging from wanting to try some sort of strict routine with her and saying why bother when she's not in school and we can try again once things are back to normal.

And as you can see from my ramblings, I'm sleep deprived, fed up and always seem to have a headache these days as the sleep situation is out of control.

Forgive my directness from the outset here. The issue is your half-ass approach, due to lack of clarity over the way you want to parent.

Children (adults too) need to feel safe and secure to sleep well. We tend to use the word "comforted". Your DD needs a source of comfort in order to feel secure and safe enough to relax and sleep. She's not going to sleep well without that feeling of comfort. Don't under estimate the value of comfort - comfort is a need, not a want.

Question is, how does she achieve that feeling of inner comfort? The answer comes down to parenting style.

So basically their are two approaches to your situation. Either:
(A) Attachment Parenting - you are your child's source of comfort
(B) Independence - your child learns ways to self-comfort

By trying to do both, you are in fact achieving neither. She's depending on you as a source of comfort, but it's not always given when needed. She is not being given a chance to learn independant sleep, but are expecting independant sleep at times. So noone is sleeping.

So either :
(A) Attactment Parent. Committ to one of you cosleeping with your DD at all times, all night, every night. Don't begrudge it, or resent it, learn to accept it as part of family life.
(B) Teach Independent Sleep. That means teaching her ways to feel safe and secure without you there. Initially she will hate this and fight against it, because she knows no different.

If (A), you need to first develop that trust that the parental comfort is always there, 24h a day. Only after she's confident in that on-tap comfort will she be confident enough to need less. Over time, very gradually, she will need less. You won't be cosleeping with her at 16yo!

If (B), because she's got to 6yo without learning self-comforting mechanisms then she's going to be upset, distressed and angry to be made to learn. But she can't learn unless put in an uncomfortable position where she has to learn.

So if you do not have the emotional resilience (yourself and your DH) to deal with her anger and upset, don't approach independent sleep. You must be 100% consistent 100% of the time, long term and all of the time no matter what. You cannot half-ass do it - as you have found. Either do it, or don't.

If you don't have that emotional resilience as parents right now, do attachment parenting. It's ok to decide you can't cope with that level if disruption right now* and to put it off until a later date. But stop half-doing things as you have been doing things. Cosleep and attachment parent instead. Because half-doing things and ending up achieving nothing is more damaging than either of the other options.

• on putting off dealing with this until a later date - worth noting as an aside that if you teach independant sleep consistantly and thoroughly, it'll be a quite quick fix. It would not be unreasonable to expect to see a significant difference within a week. And within 3 weeks to have left these disruptive habits behind completely.

I think that was very good advice from the PP. I didnt read every point that carefully as it was a long post but something that jumped out was using the tv to sleep.

I think screens might seem helpful but actually might take things worse. I'd say no tv in the bedroom.

I think the advice from the PP is the best (personally I'd probably give in and attachment parent for a while as you sound very stressed). But one other thing I didnt see you saying you'd tried is a little mattress on the floor beside your bed. Apparently I was terrible at sleeping on my own and this us how my parents got around it - I could come in and sleep in their room but didnt wake them up.

Thanks both for the advice, I can't argue with either as I know it's all true. I definitely don't want to cosleep any longer. It's killing DP and mine's relationship and adding to DD's neediness. She needs taught independence but where do I start?

Which is the most important part to start with, going to bed by herself or staying in bed all night?

Going to bed by herself...
Can't believe all I just read above!! Crazy routine!!

I can relate as I have a half assed approach too and I fully admit that. I co sleep with DD and we have 2 double beds so if I want to sleep with OH then I can, lucky my DD doesn't wake up once asleep so I can sneak out but now I've got so used to sleeping next to her it's me that can't shake the habit! I don't know the answer really either but I know one day she will want her independence so I hold onto that!

It is insanity now. And the craziest part? We have much older children and never, ever had any issues with sleep/bedtime. DD was born when the elder two were late teens so DP and I have over indulged on enjoying her childhood years as she is our last due to health reasons. I do flip flop a lot from what we need to do as I 100% know she hasn't got like this of her own doing and we are to blame so when she's crying I feel guilty that it's not her own fault that she can't settle so I need to find a way of helping her settle without us because I do think it's affecting other areas of her life too.

It's not too late to see a sleep consultant.

Back to basics and zero big girl priveledges..

I agree with consistency and back to basics. She’s old enough to maybe be part of the conversation to agree a bedtime routine but then you need to stick with it every single night. She might not sleep much at all one night, or be super disruptive but you have to stick with it. Truly the worst you can do is flip flop like PP said. Inconsistency is really hard for kids to deal with.

I used to work at a summer camp where we taught a behavioral management philosophy called “hard to soft” essentially setting firm boundaries that everyone understands (mummy and daddy need uninterrupted sleep at night to be good parents, which means everyone in their own bed) and sticking with those all the time (hard) means kids understand exactly where the limit is and after a pretty short period, you won’t need to reinforce them regularly because everyone understands how things work.

I could be described as an attachment parent but I would say what you have been doing is not attachment parent but permissive parenting which is not good. I don’t often agree with @FATEdestiny on sleep but I do on this occasion.

If you are going to continue to cosleep then I would do the following;

• as much exercise as possible, running up and down the hallway, get her to invent exercise programmes, make cushion stepping stones, go noddles other video work outs
• no TV /tablets after dinner.
• wake her up at a set time each day
• no tv in the bedroom. My 4 year old sleeps with a dimmed bedside lamp on, she always needs the light but it doesn’t seem to disturb her.
• ideally no toys other than a few cuddly toys in the bedroom
• stay with her while she goes to sleep, cuddle her if needed but don’t interact otherwise. If she want to talk tell her it’s time for sleep. Just repeat the same phrase over and over and don’t engage in chat. I use AirPods and listen to podcasts when I put the toddler down.
• no humming, stroking or singing
• if she wakes during the night then one of you get into bed with her rather than her getting into your bed
• it’s fine to then leave when she is asleep as long as you return as soon as she asks for it. DH used to leave DD1 when she was asleep but I used to always just fall asleep myself
• only when she is used to this and it’s been working for a period of time start to introduce the idea that after stories you will go and do a set task eg clean the kitchen and then come back. Give a sand timer or something so she know when you will be back. Keep doing this and going back after the set time. Eventually she will start falling asleep by herself and start slapping through without needed a parent to come into bed with her.

You need to be consistent for this to work.

*sleeping. Definitely don’t slap her!

@NotTodaySatanPlz

Hi OP 👋🏻 Firstly, I’m not going to be harsh with you or make you feel stupid or a failure, I want to reassure you that you are doing ok and that your daughter is obviously just struggling to adjust to the differences in your parenting style. Please remember there is no perfect parent and that we all do what we have to to get through.
Secondly, you need to get DD to Grans for the night so you two can have a break and enjoy each other’s company, light some candles, play some music have a romantic meal and “reconnect” if you know what I mean hehe.
Thirdly I would suggest the next morning, sitting down with a notepad and pen with your morning coffee and go through the things that you would like to change.
This should illuminate the issues that you are implementing that may be causing the problems and the subtle ways you can introduce change.

I think we have to remember that children at this age are fragile and need a lot of nurturing through even minor change. She is old enough to understand so explain the changes to her and perhaps help her to understand why you will all be happier for the changes.

Start by tweeking things like your bedtime routine. Read to her instead of TV, put done lavender on her pillow, get her a nice warm camomile tea with honey, give her lots of cuddles and pillow talk, let her get her worries off her chest and then tell her she’s got to stay in bed and you’ll come and check on her in 10 mins.

Maybe start there and see where it takes you. You CAN do this, and you shouldn’t feel foolish or ashamed for being where you are now

Lots of Love
And Good Luck xx

I've never heard of Permissive Parenting before but after reading a bit about it I'm sure our parenting style does lean towards that in the bedtime madness.

However, I do think I need to point out that our older kids are excelling at school, well mannered, never in trouble in or out of school/university and have never had anything other than praise from teachers/family members etc. So we aren't terrible parents, just too lax on bedtime authority with DD which is why I posted asking for help as I feel we've gone too far down the road of permissive and lost the balance we had with our boys which was more authoritative.

I can see that this approach isn't working for DD as she is anxious in school/around others and has some problems forming friendships however once she is forced to branch out (the teacher changing her to a table of children she doesn't usually play with etc) she does slowly come round. I do think the bedtime issue is causing her to be too attached to me in particular so as much as I could very easily sleep beside her every night I know it's not doing her much good so I want to fix it. I want her to be independent not for my sake but for hers.

@Thatwentbadly

*sleeping. Definitely don’t slap her!