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.

Yes definitely looked at PDA and it does resonate for my daughter. Even after all the trouble we've had the last few nights she settles when she decides, nothing I say or do will get her to do it before she's decided she wants to. So I think the key is just focussing on keeping her in her room resting even if she's not sleeping but that's the bit I'm struggling with. She has always been high needs and needed lots of input from me and her dad, she's only just started going to the toilet on her own and only then sometimes and very often still needs me to sit on the stairs while she goes. And she just says she doesn't want to be alone. But when I'm there she's constantly trying to engage with me and I can't cope with it, I know I just need to ignore and be boring! It's so hard, I will keep trying. It's like I know she wants me there for comfort but also I know she needs to be on her own to actually settle so she needs both things at once!

Do you get enough downtime of your own to recharge separately? It makes the world of difference to how i am as a parent when I'm overstimulated and overwhelmed compared to when I've had an hour (or a day!) whatever i need to recharge my batteries?

Not really - my own ADHD diagnosis was a result of pure overwhelm and having such a high needs child to be honest! And I used to use the evenings to practice piano and destress but now evenings are taken up with this and then once she's down I just want to go to bed as well. Feel like I'm in the trenches of parenting at the moment but I always tell myself everything's a phase and it will get better. The hardest thing is feeling so alone with it, no one really knows how bad it gets at home. She's the absolute light of my life and I love her so much it hurts, I just want to do the right thing by her but just feel in my gut we are doing it all wrong and need help, I've gone a bit astray here from the pressing issue of sleep but it's all related xx

Do you (or would it be possible for you to) have a cat?

My DD used to scoop one of the family cats off its perch on the sofa and take it to bed with her (often to the cat's annoyance). She'd read in bed to the cat, cat would usually make itself comfortable on the end of her bed and she'd have company - of a disinterested and largely huffy - sort. It helped her to not want me around quite so much. But then we had a house full of animals at the time and she adored them all, I realise this might not be possible for you!

I love that idea and would love any excuse to get another cat lol as our cat is definitely not my daughter's biggest fan - she's quite nervy and my daughter's energy is just too much for her. She does quite often choose to sleep at the end of her bed though and she likes that, but no chance recently as she's just too hyper!

One positive, I dug out a weighted blanket that came with our Emma mattress last year and we've never used before and she absolutely loved it, she says she wants it always. I rolled her up in it like a little burrito.

That's good! Weighted blankets are great.

If she's anything like my kids they are very attached to their toys so your dh taking away her toys is never going to help because she might need those to regulate herself. Mine have tons of stuffed animals and some days they like to pile them all up and sleep in amongst them. Our pets won't oblige with cuddling so they also have a weighted toy that they find very soothing. I think it's called a hug a lump. Make her bed as attractive and comfortable as possible. At this time of year i put fluffy sheets on the bed too.

Mine also have one of those aurora projector lights from Amazon that they find soothing. I put it on while they're in the bath and turn the ceiling light off and they lay back watching the lights. Seems to help calm them down before bed .

I have to add that my DD didn't cuddle the cat - the cat was there purely for purposes of company. She moved on to rats when she was older, they would give every appearance of hanging on her every word! But you do have to like rodents and not mind them in bedrooms for that to work - we had a house full of almost every species, so rats were the least of my worries, if they kept my DD in her room.

Hi OP, I just want to say my 6 year old sounds quite similar to your DD and I'm taking comfort from your thread too. Her sleep isn't quite as bad as yours atm but we had our third child a couple of months ago and since then it just seems to be getting worse and worse. She wakes 2-4 times a night and it often takes 2-3 false starts to get her asleep, although she is generally asleep by 8.30 at the absolute latest so not dead late like yours. I know she really needs to be asleep before 8 though otherwise she's so tired and grumpy the next day especially when she's got school.

Anyway I'm reading and probably going to try some of the tips from your thread so thanks!

I was going to suggest this

I have recently been diagnosed with autism/adhd and so has my daughter. I could never sleep as a child, my mum ended up installing a little lamp under my bunk bed so I could read quietly in bed

My DD is allowed to read/write/colour in quietly in her room if she cant sleep. Shes almost 10 and didnt get to sleep till 2am this morning. She was up at 8am

You really need to consistently try the same thing for 4 weeks and expect a fall back occasionally but still carry on. Don't give in. Only offer calm non stimulating activities.
You could get stories on audible to play her that are more her age...or get a disk player and borrow some from the library free.

What would happen if you left her to go to the toilet on her own?

@Oioisavaloy27 she would meltdown, scream, cry, take my hand and try and drag me, say things like "if you don't come with me I will smack you". Lots of bargaining and manipulation tactics. We have overcome it now and she will go on her own but it was only very recently - I think some of it stemmed from toileting issues we had when she was younger to do with withholding, there was lots of anxiety associated with the bathroom. She's still very sensory around noises and hates flushing the chain you can see when she does it she runs out of the bathroom and I have to encourage her strongly to go back in and wash her hands. It makes me laugh so much how she hates loud noises if she's the one not in control of them, give her a toy microphone or a drum and she doesn't give a shit and will scream the place down but someone flush a chain in her vicinity without warning her and she will put her hands over her ears.

None of these quiet activities work for her, she's not interested in reading yet unfortunately, possibly listening to an engaging audiobook would work but again I don't want to try anything new for a few days and just try and let things settle before I try anything else. The quiet colouring turned into another over stimulating crafting session where she was demanding scissors etc to cut things out so we quickly moved on from that one. She is honestly exhausting but I love her so much and just want to fix this. I will persevere and post back with any hopefully positive updates :)

My DD was like this until she was prescribed melatonin. If your DD has an assessment for ADHD then ask if they can prescribe it.

Total game changer for us.

This is such an unfortunately common experience. Both of my daughters have masked throughout school, up until my eldest was Y9 and she couldn’t hold it together any more. We didn’t have schools support for either of our girls diagnoses. It does help of course, but the assessment panel will be very aware of masking and of how often it’s missed by staff in schools. It was so vindicating to eventually get to the truth after years of being parent blamed/ shamed!

You need to be careful she seems to be manipulating you a hell of a lot and you are letting it happen and she's only young, Sen or not she still needs to learn resilience and you are making things worse for her by giving into her all the time.