5yo dd driving me spare - she WILL not stay in her bed - all advice gratefully received <pleading emoticon>

[CountessDracula]

DD has always been a pretty good sleeper other than when ill. For the past month or two she has been waking in the night and coming in to bed with us. I just cannot sleep with her squirming around next to me. We sleep in the loft and I hate carrying her down the stairs in the night as she is so heavy and I worry I will slip or drop her (stairs are steep) and dh can?t do it as he has a very bad back. So it?s either wake her up and make her walk down (result ? dd awake and screaming and crying for ages ? no sleep for us) or leave her in our bed (result ? dd asleep, dh and I awake due to her snorting and squirming and kicking off the duvet etc)

I have tried being very firm. I have tried saying no. All of which results in screaming and crying, have waited over half an hour for it to stop to no avail.

I am really at my wits? end. I am knackered and snappy with dd because of it. I have tried star charts, rewards, threats of removal of treats etc etc. Nothing seems to work. I have explained that when I am tired I am grumpy and that this is directly related to her getting into our bed. I just don?t know what to do next other than go and sleep in the spare room which is not addressing the problem at all!

Rigth CD start the bedtime routine a lot earlier than you normally would let her have a bath and then read her a book or let her watch a DVD for a short while so she knows what is coming.

We spoke about having another child a short while ago and then DS got tonsillitus and the broken nights put us right off!

DH's helpful comment was - but you will get huge tits!

this looks good

I am no use, i gave up. I am o my own with dd, so at least more bed space.

I guess being firm and being resolute that she has to go back tohers, yet in the night it's very hard, but you do need your space with your dh.

My life is much easier now we sleep together, and i am just hoping she'll one day want to decamp back to her bed.

my dd is 5 and has been thru quite alot with her dad going, and this started in august when he particularly upset her.

i need a lodger !!

good luck, you must be shattered. I guess the firm thing will have to prevail.

But is it the dark she is afraid of?

I'm afraid I would have laid down the law a while ago

At 5 she is old enough to understand that when you don't get sleeping it's not pleasurable for her the next day.

Is she an only child? (By this I mean can you use an example "Look at ds sleeping in his own bed, isn't he a big boy?")

I would keep taking her back to her own bed as soon as you feel her getting into yours. This is what I had to do with my 3yr old. he would wander over & try to climb in to my bed. I would get out as soon as I heard our door creaking open & put him in his own bed!

i don't have anything to add really, only to suggest you DO sleep in the spare room for a couple of nights. You'll be far better able to deal with the situation then.

pmsl @ firefly's ds !!

how did the album cope against the creme egg tho

ahem. cd. you think you have it bad:

www.we are on our knees

The album is wooden so wipeable!

I marched him back to his bed, eggless!

Maybe not helpful, but our dd, also 5, has been doing this for a long time. We tried all kinds of reward systems, but ultimately, nothing was worth more to her than coming into our bed with us, much to our dismay. In the end, we decided that we know she will eventually grow out of it and, on the nights when she is particularly squirmy, one of us goes through to her bed or the spare room. Not ideal, but for us, better than hours of screaming in the middle of the night.

My impression that sometimes children just want to know that they actually are allowed to sleep in your bed, and once they know they are they stop doing it again. So personally I would go with the flow, either you or dh decamp to another bed when she gets in with you, and hopefully it will pass very soon.

(both dd1 and dd2, aged nearly seven and four, have nights when they sleep with us, and we just let them, but after a couple of nights they stop again)

I am having the same problems with ds who started school in september he is 5.4 put him to bed & he gets in & out all night last night he was still awake at midnight i could not believe it.

He crys, he wants to sleep in our bed it's driving me nuts, i honestly don't know whats wrong with him he looks exhausted.

I also had the delights of dd up from 2-4.30am last night so have been extra grumpy & tired today.

Lots of sympathy it's hard isn't it when all you want is a few hours sleep in a bloody row!

CD do you hear her come in? I saw on a programme where they used a wind chime on the back of the door so they could hear if it opened.

Can you explain to her she needs to sleep in her own bed so that you can be a happier nicer mummy during the day? Maybe if she sleeps in her own bed you go out of your way the next day to do something fun as your part of the deal like make playdough/ painting/ sticking/ a game/ singing and dancing whatever she wants to do?

oh yes we hear her coming alright

So, last night we went out straight from work to avoid bedtime (my mother stays on Thursday nights)

She went straight to sleep for my mum (grrrrrr) and stayed in her bed all night

My mum said she got up a couple of times in the night and she had kicked all her covers off and was freezing (she is often saying she is cold when she comes in to out bed)

So she put them back on and dd stayed in bed all night.

Am stitching her into a sleeping bag tonight and then going to mothercare to get a fleecy all in one thing