4.5 year old sleep

[shadesofcool]

In short, my 4.5 year old won’t go to sleep by himself. We have a bath, brush teeth, read him 2-3 stories, have cuddles and kisses, say goodnight and then myself or my husband will sit on the floor next to his bed until he goes to sleep. He likes his ear stroked (I’ve done this since he was a baby) and it’s how he gets off to sleep. He just won’t let us leave him to go to sleep alone. He also often comes in our bed during the night and he stays there until morning.

it’s really starting to take a toll on our evenings with us sometimes spending almost 2 hours on the bath and bed routine as we have to sit until he falls asleep, which is sometimes 8:30pm. We tend to go to bed early at about 9:30 as I’m ann early night gal and my husband is a 4am gym goer.

im just wondering if anyone has any advice on how we can change this, as gently as possible. I actually love the bedtime routine and love watching him fall asleep but as he’s getting older and were trying to conceive our 2nd child, I don’t think it can continue this way.

thanks in advance.

My daughter is the same, she’s 4 too. It’s just life as far as I’m concerned, she needs support at the moment it is what it is and it won’t be forever.

i had another baby in December and now that one wakes me too. I honestly don’t mind.

It’s a pain when the baby wakes me and then my eldest wakes me coming in our room, but again it’s not forever

Sorry no advice on how to change it. I will say we did get to a stage where she was going to sleep alone every night (we didn’t do anything she just told her dad to go and she would fall asleep alone!) and she was sleeping through most nights in her own bed

But that all went out the window when her sister arrived

My eldest DD is almost 4 and we still have this, she needs one of us in the room until she falls asleep (she likes to twiddle our arm hair 😂). We also have a 5.5 month old - since her baby sister arrived sleep has gone to pot! Most nights DD1 creeps in to our bed! Like previous OP, it's frustrating when we have a tough night with baby, like tonight has been, and then also contending with a 4 year old taking up half the bed too! We've accepted it as a phase for now. I think it's pretty normal, although exhausting!

My 5 year old still basically needs us to sit with her so you are not alone. I'm working on very gradually changing it. I've explained to her she can learn to fall asleep by herself and we won't stay with her the whole time. Currently I leave her for short periods ie a minute or two, say she needs to stay in bed and I'm going to the loo or something. I'm also trying to stop doing our version of the ear stroking or at least stop it once she is getting quite drowsy so she isn't falling asleep to it. Trying to build up to her both falling asleep with me just sat near rather than touching her and also being able to leave the room for a few minutes at a time. About once a week she will fall asleep while I'm out of the room and hoping to build on that.

We have also started having a later bedtime and also she listens to various sleep sounds eg rain, car etc and chooses which she wants.

She does occasionally come and get in bed with us but this has got less frequent, although I don't really mind it.