4yo will not go to sleep at night

[awilson90]

Currently sitting here in tears because i literally cant take anymore. Every night for months and months, my 4 year old daughter will not go to sleep no matter what. We always had her going to bed around 7.30 and we have to lie with her for at least 60-90 minutes plus as she wont go to sleep without us being there. She just lies with her eyes open and becomes defiant and awful to us.

Before anyone says that maybe shes not tired enough, she definitely isnt getting enough sleep as we cant get her to wake up in the morning and is constantly tired.

Im sick fed up of this. My husband has to go to bed around 9/9.30 as he's up for work at 4am. So it makes us like passing ships. We never get a single minute to ourselves and our marriage is suffering because of it. I cant take any more.

I dont know what to do. Everything feels awful at the moment.

Pls post her full routine including meals and snacks

Have you tried giving her a bath with lavender before bed? And giving her warm milk?

You need to have a strong, strict routine where she has to lie down, close her eyes and go to sleep, and as soon as she messes about/refuses or is rude you give a warning and then get up and leave and close the door for 30/60/90 seconds etc. she’s old enough to understand this and won’t like you leaving. It might take a few weeks but being consistent will help. As the week goes on move further away from her bed until you’re outside the door etc. good luck

Sound hard op! Be kind to yourself. I think @Nightmanagerfan has good advice there. Good luck. ‘This too will pass!!’

What have you already tried?

If nothing then there's lots of options. Reward charts, earlier bed time, audio books, gradual retreat, strict routine and leave.

Yeah have tried reward charts, strict routines, quiet/chill time. Shes tired but as soon as she goes to bed its horrendous. Im at my wits end.

What are her consequences for not sleeping?
When my DS (3) plays up at bedtime or during the night, I explain the next day that I'm too tired for fun things like park or playground and we have a home day. He soon gets sick of home days! But that's only as I know he's not scared, hungry or uncomfy or anything, just being a little bugger sometimes!
If you know there's nothing wrong and she's not scared or anything, at 4 I'd say she should have consequences

OK, my almost 5 year old was like this until around 8 months ago.
She also wakes frequently in the night so I honestly couldn't take it anymore.

We started to put her to bed and leave her, gradually. Fold laundry, have a wee, iron a shirt- doesn't matter. We were always just far too busy to stay with her.
It didn't take as long as we thought. Maybe 4 weeks? Now she just goes to bed.
Yes she was upset at first, whenever she needed us we went straight back in, however we also made sure we left again. We made a habit of walking past the door or speaking to her. We gradually increased the amount of time between going back in until she was fine with 'night sweetheart '
I appreciate other parents may choose to stay with their children, and may not approve of making her cry- but I was on my knees physically and mentally. It was my normal to get 2-3 hours broken sleep a night. For over 4 years.
Now if I could solve the night waking.......

In the end I just gave my 4yo a torch and let him get on with it. Sometimes he’s tired and goes to sleep. Other times he looks at a book or plays with a toy and I hear him chattering away for over an hour. You don’t need her to go to sleep - you just need to acclimatise her to being left.

I'm going to post a note that's saved on my phone, so apologies its not personalised to your situation but I think it might help. Super nanny method of just taking her back to bed repeatedly absolutely did not work for my stubborn daughter and also I found it really hard to keep my cool doing it for hours on end, when I was already seriously sleep deprived myself.

Our main issue was night wakings rather than bedtime, my daughter would wake at 1:30am like a clock and not go back to sleep, sometimes at all. In the end (after 1yr) we got a sleep consultant to help and this is what we did.

Bedtime passes.
Start with a family meeting, draw up some sleep rules, get your child to suggest and draw them to give them some ownership.

Make loads of tokens together. I mean loads. If the child gets up at bedtime or calls you in the night then that's absolutely fine and allowed, but costs 1 token. Put them in a pot by their bed. If there are tokens left in the morning, the child gets a reward.

We've used penny sweets to start with and then moved on to playmobil. I bought a camping set and split it all up, put the names of all the bits in a pot and Daughter got a new piece at random every morning she had tokens left.

For the first few nights the child needs to succeed. So you need more tokens than they will use. My Daughter used more than 30 the first night. When they're in the swing of it, start to gradually reduce the number of tokens. It took us a few weeks to get down to 6. My daughter started to fail a few times and had to try. We got stuck at this level a while. Eventually we got down to 3 and at some point the system was gradually forgotten. 30+ night wakings down to 1 or 2 was a lot bloody better.

You can look this up, I believe it's called bedtime passes and there's a few articles out there.

Also- going to sleep now is far quicker!
Used to be up to 3 hours
Now if she's awake past 30 minutes it's unusual.
We don't ask her to close her eyes, stay quiet.
We do insist that she stays in bed, no lights on other than her night light.
She often sings, plays with her teddies, sometimes looks at her bedtime books.
We leave her be.

We have a Yoto player and a night light, it's been a god send! Read a story, say night night and then put an audio book on the Yoto. It's honestly best thing we have bought DS4 by far. Transformed bed time in our house.

The other things helped over the years is pottering about doing jobs upstairs, like folding washing etc so she knows I'm just there. And another stage was popping in to check on her every 10 mins until she was asleep.

She's got a red night light (red doesn't interfere with natural sleep hormones) and listens to a cd of children's meditations. And a weighted blanket. We have alllll the props but at least she goes to bed and sleeps through most nights. She's 7 now, her sleep issues started age 4.

@Indecisivelurcher thank you for the sleep passes idea. DTS1 (6) has always been a terrible sleeper and still can't just go to ruddy sleep, even when thoroughly exhausted - he'd still have to mess around for an hour or so. This is definitely not helped by DP pandering to him

We've cracked the 'getting up too early' with a gro clock but that was also a fight...

DTS2 - brilliant sleeper, always has been. Usually straight to sleep, sleeps straight through, wants more sleep in the morning. DTS1's tantrums and meltdowns (caused by lack of sleep) have taken their toll on everyone though

Have the same issue and following for advice. My little one hates being alone but will spends hours wasting time in bed when we give her company

@LapinR0se just wondered if you could post a good routine for this age pls?

Hi @Yumchips does she go to school or preschool?

@LapinR0seShe's with a childminder atm. I drop her around 9 and collect at 4.30. she'll be starting reception in September. Thanks

Lying with her at bedtime is only worth it if it works. It doesn't work any more. I'd g9 for some tough night training.

Ok I assume she has no naps at the childminder, even sneaky 10 mins in the car?

We had similar with our 4yr old and cracked it just before Christmas. Maybe it was luck I dunno 🤷🏻‍♀️

We ended up putting her bedtime back by about an hour. She goes to bed at 9pm now sometimes a bit later sometimes earlier. She's still doesn't want to get up in the morning though! This bedtime will change when she's up a lot earlier for school. She currently sleeps to around 8-8.30am maybe a little earlier than 8am on my workdays.

It was a reward chart that worked really. We asked what she really wanted and she said aquabeads so we told her if she wld go to bed by herself for a week we wld get her a big set. She got a star for every night she did it and then the set the day after.

She complained a bit after she got her "prize" but we said no ur a big girl now and uv proved u can do it. Sometimes she plays up a little and comes bk down or I might end up lying with her for 5/10mins until she drifts off (very rarely though) but on the whole she's been great since.

@LapinR0se no naps at all I'm afraid. She gets tired sometimes but will always refuse a nap.

Good, there shouldn’t be any napping at all.
6.45-7am wake up every single day including weekends. Use a gro clock if possible.
7-7.30 breakfast with no sugar eg porridge, dippy egg, peanut butter on toast. No screens in the morning.
9.30 fruit snack
Outdoor play
12 noon lunch including decent portion of protein. Yoghurt.
1-2 quiet time no napping
2.30pm carby snack eg toasted crumpet or a slice of fruit cake
Outdoor play
5pm TV or screen curfew
5pm dinner, more carb based than protein, plenty of veg
6.30pm glass milk and a banana
6.45pm wee, teeth, bed, 2 stories
7.15pm lights out

Thank you @LapinR0se that's so detailed and helpful! I really appreciate that. Can I ask how long I should use this routine for, as in age range.. will it still be appropriate at 7/8 years old?