Major problems with a 7 year old and his sleep - please advise me if you have any experience!

[chelsygirl]

hi

my 7 yr old ds2 was once in the dark and distant past a good sleeper, but due to various reasons the last 3 years he has been awful.
he's always had us putting him to bed and always had the same routine. he used to share a room with his big brother but as he kept waking him up we moved the rooms around and now ds1 sleeps fine but ds2 is awful. there's no way they are sharing again as ds1
really needs a sleep (he is 10). ds2 won't settle himself at night, me or dh need to lie with him till he's asleep, sometimes this takes up to 1 hour!!! also he comes into us during the night and he wakes early in the morning. he has a dream that he's absolutely terrified of, he's told us that he can't sleep as he's so scared of this particular dream (he told us about it in detail and for a young boy its pretty scary!)

anyway dh and I are constantly knackered and the lying beside him at night is doing our heads in. we have left him to cry and he keeps ds1 awake till 11pm, which doesn't work as ds1 and ds2 are both early risers and they are both murder the next day

please give me any advise, I'm desperate!

thanks

just bumping this

Oh dear, poor all of you.

Have you talked to him about his dream? He should be able to (mostly) accept at his that it is just a dream. Does it reflect something in RL that he is worried about?

Both of mine have a night light (dd's gets turned off when I go to bed but ds' is left on all night).

I do sympathise btw, ds is 4 and has been coming into our bed/waking us up for months now.

I think he knows its a dream but when he's by himself in bed he's just terrified and thinks the boy in his dream is at his window

he's got some imagination!

Have you heard of dream catchers ? there fethery mobiles you can get that you hang up in the window , they come in many colours , my DD suffers from night terrors , where she wakes terrified in a dream , shes actually asleep but looks awake and is so scared ,we bought her one of these and it helped alot to get her to go to sleep and like your DS she was very scared .might be worth giving one of those ago

thanks worry! can I ask what age your dd is? I don't know if ds2 would "believe" in this idea, is he too old?

ds1 is not great at going to sleep at the moment either - he is almost 7. The situation is not as bad as you describe but what we do now is let him get in our bed, have the bedside lamp on and he has story CD to listen to. We just leave him to it and he eventually falls asleep.

Yes she was 6 now 8 and she still thinks it working , whenever we go away we take it with us to .
Im sure if you ask other mums they may have them to for there DS/DD
My other DS has one to .

worth a try then! do you know where I can get one?

the story tapes are a good idea too, we're really really desperate, I amost feel its affecting me and dh a bit too much

I got mine from one of those shops that sells incense sticks ,candles ,etc they usually have them hanging in the windows, ask around and im sure someone will have heard of them and put you in the right direction .
Good luck .
Its so hard at bed time i know our other Ds 6 comes in our bed every night , evon starts there now , i know its not good but we do put him back in his bed once fallen asleep , he does then return early in the morning for cuddles , DH and i are used to it now and dont get stressed about it , hes not going to do it forever and havent heard of any 9/10 y olds doing it .

A good friend of mine had a similar situation with her now 10 years old DS. He had essentially never learnt to have a good nights sleep. very sadly at about 7yo he told us that he never had a dream - only nightmares .

He couldn't settle. he needed to be checked every 5 minutes, then every 10 minutes - after about 1 1/2 hours he would eventually drop off. He would then wake up screaming in the night. He saw the door handles turn to claws, things came through the window etc....it was all real to him. My friends couldn't go out becasue he couldn't be baby sat.

The whole family were affected. my friend ended up sleeping on a spare single bed in her sons room and part way through every night he would get into bed with her. he couldn't be alone, couldn't do a sleepover or go on a school trip. Last year she asked for a referral to a counsellor and ended up seeing a paediatric mental health nurse at Kings College Hospital. They met this guy fortnightly for about 6 "counselling" sessions. they explored very deep and painful places for both mum and son - but IT WORKED! Now the whole family get to sleep in their own beds every night all night and my friends DS can be a normal 10yo boy.

Just because the "books " say you shouldnt let them come in your bed ,i dont think its always correct , every child and family are different , and im positive your not alone on this one ,so try not to let it stress you both out

Thats very sad , glad thing ok now for your friend .and her son .

Not the same thing but my 8 year old finds it hard to switch off at night mentally. But he likes white noise, so we turn the fan on until he is asleep. If he wakes up in the night he turns it back on and say he likes to snuggle under the duvet with a force 10 blowing in his face...

dd had a dreamcatcher when she went through a series of nightmares when she was around 5and also her aunt bought her some Guatemalan worry dolls which she used to put under her pillow until quite recently (she's almost 7 now)

Atm she likes to listen to the radio to help her drift off.

yes maybe listening to something might help him, who knows

his big brither was an awful sleeper and he's fine now, so we're really hoping time sorts him out!

thats was an interesting post uptomyeyes, we are in Glasgow, do you know if we'd still be able to get help?

My friend went through her GP who originally tried to fob her off with tablets. her son was also a bed wetter until the age of 9, both problems were amazingly resolved by the counselling. My friend strongly felt that her DS's sleeplessness and bed wetting were caused by psychological issues and not maturity or physical problems. Her DS is an exceptionally bright child and he described his head as a TV he couldn't switch of, he lay in bed tormented by his own thoughts and then frightened by the night. I can't describe to you how badly the family were affected by the sleeplessness - it is a miracle she and her husband are still together. The counsellor was able to touch on my friends post natal depression and how she had felt about her DS when pregnant and after the birth. I don't know if you believe in these things, but hearing his mum explain some of how she felt enabled her son to say some of what he felt. All I can say is that it worked and you could perhaps, if you think your sons issue is similar, ask your GP for a referral to child mental health services. My friends both used to say "oh he won't be doing this when he is 5"...."7"...."9" if they hadn't been firm about the GP referral he would doubtlessly still be unable to sleep without his mum being in bed with him.

My friend is a nurse and her husband a doctor and neither had been "believers" in speaking therapies before - they found asking for a mental health referral extremely difficult. But they were at their wits end.

that is so interesting

sounds a lot like us, will see what we can do