What to do when child won't actually stay in bed?

[lollydu]

Daughter is 5, backstory is there's suspicion of some sort of neurodiversity, I have a diagnosis of ADHD.

We've had an absolute shocker of a bedtime and it's been slipping to this for the last 6 months. It's so stressful because there's not one sleep training/bedtime technique that will work with her. She's just constantly calling out and it's a cycle of her telling us she can't sleep, things escalating to her getting out of bed constantly. I try to just lead her back to bed and say it's time to sleep but I'm talking it's just constant as soon as I put her back in bed she's out again and I'm basically standing at the top of the stairs for hours just putting her back to bed and she's swinging between laughing and saying she needs an activity to do because she's not tired to crying when my partner goes up and starts taking things away and being the hard disciplinarian. Then cuddles from me and trying to sort things out for her and settle her and the cycle starts again. We tried moshi kids sleep app tonight but that didn't work. Eventually she settled after the final upset from my partner after multiple getting out of bed and coming to the stairs and cuddle from me, but I just don't want it to be like this? I hate the good cop bad cop routine. I want to help her settle but nothing works, literally nothing! I'm hoping it's partly because of the Xmas holidays and things will settle when she's back at school and routine back to normal. Part of me thinks maybe she's genuinely just not tired and maybe we need to try putting her to bed at 9ish but since these problems have been happening her bedtimes slipped later and so has wake time so we are having to wake her for school still tired. I can't take the chance that we put her to bed at 9 and she still takes 3 hours to settle!

I just don't know what to do, what do you do when sleep training techniques like check ins etc don't work? I even said I would stay with her until she was asleep in desperation but she's just so stimulated she just talks and talks at me, it's the actual settling down for sleep she's so resistant to.

So why are you talking and cuddling? No words either for rapid return or gradual withdrawal

We have a similar but older DD who finds sleep hard and always has. Things we have found that help are huge amounts of physical activity, not a walk around the block, she needs to be properly physically tired out. Football, running, hill walking etc worked for us and she does need 2/3x as much as other kids. Audio books work well too, audible has been amazing, sometimes we just ask her to go to her room and she will chill out just drawing etc. Shes very fussy about covers, bedroom temp etc but that's not the main issue. We've tried the bed time sprays which she quite likes.

Id make sure she has a really good bedtime routine and look at what she can be doing to make sure she's exhausted by bedtime. It sounds like she's a kid who might need more than walking.

Sympathies, a bad bedtime can really sour the evening. In no particular order:

• Lots of physical exercise during the day
• Time outside or at any rate not in your house
• Lots of positive connecting with your DD during the day
• Clear bedtime routine
• Talk to her about bedtime and explain why you want it to change
• Form a united front with your partner
• Talk to your partner about how you're going to do things and if possible, explain to him why taking her stuff away and getting angry is only going to make it worse.
• Tell her to save up her questions for the morning
• Don't engage in conversation
• Be firm if you think she's doing things that will keep her awake (my son will lie in a position he can't sleep in for example, or insist the light is on)
• Tell her you will sit with her until she is asleep, but you're not playing or talking with her.

Good luck!

• weighted blanket
• White noise
• A Yoto or Toniebox (screens bring out the worst in my kids, not sure why)

If you watch her very closely during the evening you might notice she gets a bit quieter around 7/8. This is the ideal time to put her to bed. I read what happens is when the body doesn't get sleep when it needs it the child gets a huge rush of adrenaline as the primitive brain believes there must be a reason they can't rest and so prepares for danger. To get to the correct time make her bedtime earlier by 10 or 15 min night.

I've been there and it was really awful so you have my sympathy. As a punishment once when things were really bad I cut the plug off the tv. It's stayed off for weeks but that was in the days before smart phones and iPads. I have to say the change in my child was amazing. I know now she was completely over stimulated.

What's her wind down routine like? With DD she's in PJ'S for 7.30, we do a bit of colouring or play a game until 8ish then story time in bed along with dim lights (lamp plus room fairy type lights in the shape of clouds etc), after story lamp gets turned off and I put hand and foot cream on her (massage) - she's normally asleep for 8.30-9ish. On days where she has extra energy we do cosmic kids yoga (youtube) as out activity. On bath nights she normally falls asleep earlier

Thank you so much for all the tips ideas and comments, I appreciate it all!

So her bedtime routine at the moment is no screens after dinner so that's probably 45 mins of quiet playing after dinner, upstairs to do teeth and PJs, into bed, magnesium cream massage on legs and arms, listen to me read her a story, then we complete her gratitude diary and have a quick chat about nice things that happened today while we are doing that, then lights out and tonie box on. She's had the tonie box so long now she's just not bothered with listening to it so it might as well not be there.

I've spoken to my partner last night and this morning and we've agreed not to focus on sleep at all, I will allow her a small light and she can do some colouring or reading and just focus on resting her body and not calling out, we don't mind if she doesn't sleep, it's just the heightened emotions that are so difficult. So we are going to try and focus on staying calm and not mentioning sleep at all. I've spoken to her this morning and she seems all up for it and I also gave her big praise and said see you can fall asleep you did it after all! Annoying that it's miserable here weather wise so having trouble thinking of ways to tire her out that don't involve going outside, might need to just don the waterproofs and get out there! She has done cosmic yoga in the past and Danny go etc and loves all that so maybe we will do that this afternoon.

Someone also said we are trying lots of things but abandoning them when they don't work first time which is also true! I'm just so unsure of what is a good idea and what is a waste of time. I will persist with the sleep butter and the diary as even taking sleep out of the equation I think they are nice things to do. But will persist with the things I'm going to try tonight and give them a good go.

Thanks for all your help xxx

You definitely need to stick to one method consistently for a few weeks. Also hyper activity is a sign of being over tiered when you just can't turn off so anything stimulating might make it worse. Good luck

A bit unusual but I know that this method has worked for some children.

Work out what time she is actually falling asleep (eg 10pm) and keep her up until then. Hide clocks if she can tell the time. Just keep things calm and don't make a fuss. Then around that time take her up and do a quick routine. Hopefully she's more sleepy by then. Keep a regular wake up time. Once the 10pm has started working, reduce by 15 mins per night until you get to the time you want.
I know it probably sounds awful but you're not really getting a calm evening as it is so might be worth a try.

This is still extremely undermining and will progressively destroy both your relationship with dh, and dd's relationship with her father.

The best thing to do, if you must intervene, is privately suggest to your dh to calm down and comfort dd himself (what they call rupture and repair).

I'm not surprised your dh gets cross when you are so undermining.

I was actually thinking about doing this, I will discuss with my partner. She does seem to consistently fall asleep eventually around 10pm it's just so late and with school looming etc it seems a bit of a risk to keep her up in case she doesn't settle but worth a shot. Thanks xx

@LetsNCagain I appreciate what you're saying although the only person he's getting cross with is my daughter rather than at me undermining him. and if we're going to go there, it could be argued that he's also undermining me by going back on what we discussed and agreed upon with regards to the approach. By comforting her I'm sticking to what I said I was going to do the night before which was respond to her in a supportive way and not get angry with her or use discipline methods that I do not think work at all. But I also agree with what you said with regard to asking him to go in and repair the damage he creates rather than me doing it, thank you for the suggestion.

But he's undermining their joint decision not to punish and shout! If he can't keep his cool, he should stay clear, not shout at a child and force the OP into the position of needing to calm things down at all.

Audio books were a life saver for mine - she could get absorbed in the story. I just used tablet and the ones on Spotify and put it away from her/told her not to touch it.

Lots of people talk about physically tiring kids out but sometimes I think they need wearing out mentally rather than physically.

Two wrongs don't make a right. It makes a bedtime shitshow

My autistic daughter was like this when she was small - very anxious around bedtime, struggled a lot with sleeping. We had to remove any clocks or the nightlight device we had in the room that had a moon for bedtime that switched to sun when she could get up as she'd just stare at them.

At first my husband or I had to model what the rest time/quiet activities were - we got one of those cushion chairs that folds out into a mattress that we put next to her bed and we took turns sitting there there, reading/writing/similar in dim light, little to no interaction. If she got up after we left, we'd repeat that for a bit. Slowly we did it less and less until it wasn't done at all.

As she's gotten older, she's found other things that help including having multiple duvets - similar to the weighted blanket already suggested, but she likes to basically make a nest and being able to adjust where the additional weight is, having a long winddown routine including a mix of physical activities and relaxing playlist of meditations and music, and now also has a clock that goes dark but she can tap or clap to see the time (it lightens with a loud noise like a clap) and just enough light to ease her about what's going on her room without it being fully bright enough to disturb her going back to sleep.

What is she doing during the day? It's not just a walk round the block for the day is it?

A gratitude diary for a 5 year old is it a bit much is it not?

It says from age 6 (she's 6 very soon) and very age appropriate, lots of stories and pictures - she is very sensitive and I found it lovely to talk to her about her day and the nice things we did. It only took 2 mins to fill in and she enjoyed it. So I think I will keep that up. I don't think it's a bit much at all, but thank you for your opinion.

If she's your only child and you have a nearby pool I'd get an annual swimming pass and go swimming every night 18:00-19:00, showered and PJs on at the pool, home to a toast or banana supper then into bed.

I'd also investigate weighted blankets or toys If more appropriate for her age.

Getting a chair in her room near the door, put her to bed with the light off but fairy lights or whatever on, audiobook on for her. You wearing headphones and watching whatever you want on a tablet or reading an ebook. No eye contact or talking from you just picking her up and returning her to her bed.

The best thing I ever did though is just put DD to bed at 21:00. In her teens she was diagnosed autistic but as a tot after years of struggling to do it at 19:00 and her not falling asleep till 21:30 when I put her to bed later she also fell asleep at 21:30.

I'm suffering with a 2 year old doing this, but as she doesn't have the language, she takes off all her clothes and wees, and destroys her room. Had to get rid of cot as she would kamikaze out of it.

We struck gold last night. Put her in the car and went for an hour drive. Peace at last! Dunno if it would work with a 5 year old though!

Have you tried story tapes she can lay and listen to?

*tapes - showing my age lol

Ok if she gets it that's fine however I would have thought 5 was a bit young for something like that, how much exercise and fresh air does she get per day?

We do have a tonie box that she's had since she was 2 but I think it's getting a bit boring for her now so maybe we need to look into audio books, something that will catch her attention better. I will look into audible as a result of some of the suggestions here, thank you xx