5 year old waking in the night, what should we do?

[Hilly17]

Hi All,

Hoping for some thoughts on this please and any advice.

So my 5 year old DS goes to sleep in his own bed. We have a good routine of bath, reading, stories then sleep, although we have to stay in his room while he goes to sleep as he is scared to be in his room on his own.

Then he will wake in the night and come into our room as he is scared to be in his room on his own. He has night lights but is just scared of the dark and being in his own. Once in with us he will go back to sleep but it means broken sleep for us and sometimes my DH can't get back to sleep when being woken at 2am.

This has been going on for a while and my DH and I take turns to sleep upstairs with him while the other person sleeps in the spare room. This means that we share the broken sleep.

We are wondering whether to move my DS's bed into our bedroom. We have the space but I am worried about doing something to make life easier now but which will set us up for more problems later on.

I know everything is a phase with kids but this has been going on for a while now and we are tired!

Any advice or ideas gratefully received.

We have had this. An idea I gained from here (I think) was to set up a mattress on the floor next to our bed, with bedding of course.
Emphasise as much as you can to a five year old how important sleep is, and how it makes everyone tired (and grumpy!) the next day when sleep is broken.
Do your bedtime routine as normal but state that they can come up at any time and sleep next to you on the floor, without waking you. It did work, they seemed to like the security of knowing that they could come up whenever. It gradually fizzled out too.

My own child has had sleep issues, probably all of them over the years, and now at almost 9 mostly sleeps...... I say mostly we still average one night a week where they come up, usually wake me for some tenuous (to me) reason.
I have been there with chronic sleep deprivation so I know how it feels when every night is broken - I felt broken!

We are wondering whether to move my DS's bed into our bedroom.

Rather than moving his bed, I would set up a spare bed for him in your room. Then encourage him to sleep in his room, but offer the reassurance of knowing he can room share with you if needed.

I would work on getting him to go to sleep by himself using the gradual retreat method.

Mattress next to his bed so when he comes in, one of you goes back with him. That way he's learning to feel safe again and sleep there.

Also can he articulate what scares him? At that age, all sorts of things can create weird shapes.

Also do the routine again as he goes back to bed, including saying goodnight to everything he can see if that helps.

Ds7 knows he grows in the night!! He loves bedtime! Is your ds warm enough?