Advice please..

kas28

I've been with y'all since the beginning but never really post anything except here and there. I am in need of some advice from other moms. DD1 will be 4 in August and DD2 will be 1 in July. Maybe some of you ladies can help. For the past month or so DD1 refuses to go to bed, she will kick and scream. Not just yelling, but screaming at the top of her lungs! She'll kick and come up with almost every tactic to keep either me or her dad from leaving her room. She slept with us till she was 2 but has been in her room for almost a year, so this isn't exactly new. Its getting to where we dread bedtime cause we know it will take a hour to get her in bed, then she'll wake up in the middle of the night and we go through the same thing again. We get up more with her than our 11 month old!

I've tried everything I can think of. We've put a gate at her room so she can't come out but she'll still scream. We've tried ignoring her, laying with her, spanking, not spanking. Putting her back in bed over and over but she screams when you leave her room. I'm just at a loss and need some advice.

She's a very good kid during the day but when she doesn't get her sleep she's extremely grumpy. It's the same situation at nap time too. Thanks in advance! I'm at the point where I'm making an appointment with her pediatrician to see if he can offer any help.

snickersforeveryone

Have you tried a sleep-training method or are you winging it?  I know sleep easy has a section on sleep-training an older child.

GL

kas28

eafogel:

Have you tried a sleeptraining method or are you winging it?nbsp; I know sleep easy has a section on sleeptraining an older child.GL

No we've just been winging it. We never had a problem till recently. I'll definitely look into that thank you.

StokedWifey

Jessie11LU:

Maybe try positive reinforcement. Make a sticker chart, if she goes so many nights without the fight sge gets a prize. Make sure you dont take stickers away, and it cant be nights in a row. So if she gets 3 stickers then reward her, etc.

I was going to suggest this too.  My aunt went through something similar with my cousin and this exact method worked wonders. 

kas28

hijoi:

We are going thru some similar stuff with Nathaniel, who will be 4 in a few weeks. What we've done is just pick one thing we can live with and do it consistently. For us, bed time had to be the same time every night. 8 pm, no excuses. At 7:30, we peed and brushed teeth and read books. Basically all his excuses were covered. Then we closed the door. Each night there wasn't a meltdown, he got to put a sticker on a chart, and got a little treat. Then we extended to a week. It's been working so far.
There's also a click that several people have used that you set for when they can get out of their beds in the morning. They can be awake, just not out of bed til the light changes color. Tot clock or something like that. I think it was on amazon

Yes we've tried the sticker chart. It worked for a couple nights then I guess she realized it wasn't worth it and she'd rather cry. We do bedtime at 8pm. We do potty, then brush teeth and then bedtime. We put her in bed, read a story, turn her fan on and give kisses then leave the room. She'll start asking for one more kids or one more hug one more drink of water and so on. Then when we leave the room for sure all heck breaks loose. I'm sure you can relate, when she starts to scream she wakes her sister up. She begs to get in our bed but I refuse to start that again.

I'll look at the clock for sure.

kas28

dbliesmer:

We went through something similar when I first met H.nbsp; It's no secret DD1 isn't biologically mine.nbsp; When I first met H they shared a room because he needed a roommate to afford the house.nbsp; When we got to the point where we didn't DD1 got her own room.nbsp; It was a nightmare to get her to stay in her room.nbsp; She was so used to H sleeping super close to her or whenever she would fuss H would be right there or bring her into our bed.What worked for us was setting up a routine including a bedtime treat.nbsp; We followed the routine to a T every night. It included tucking her in, reading her a book, a kiss goodnight, and we would turn on a nightlight and music.nbsp; Then the key was we stood our ground and would not let her back in our room.nbsp; It was hard, she would sit outside our door and cry for us.nbsp; I'm not sure if it will work for you, but eventually something just clicked and she started getting up less and less and crying less and less.nbsp; The big thing that helped us was the music.nbsp; Being in her own room I think it was too quiet and might have scared her.ETA: we also incorporated the reward chart for this.nbsp; After so many times of no issues she got a treat or we took her out for a special supper.

Thank you, I haven't tried the music. She has a fan that we turn on every night but I'll see if music helps any. It's definitely hard to hear her cry, not just cry, but screaming to the point that her voice is hoarse the next day.

kas28

hijoi:

Sleep buddy; https://www.amazon.com/SleepTrainingSystemToddlersPreschoolers/dp/B005LKQCHY/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8amp;qid=1370889317amp;sr=813amp;keywords=totclocknbsp;OK to wake clock: https://www.amazon.com/WakeChildrensAlarmClockNightlight/dp/B002RNKOM2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8amp;qid=1370889450amp;sr=81amp;keywords=totclock

I like the first one, I'll show DH. 40 is definitely worth it if this helps!

I've tried googling everything I can think of. Do you think if we put her a bed in our room that would help or make things worse?

kas28

MissMusic:

No advice, but that sounds frustrating!nbsp; I hope you can find a solution ASAP.

Thanks MM!

JustcallmeGG2

Jessie11LU:

Maybe try positive reinforcement. Make a sticker chart, if she goes so many nights without the fight sge gets a prize. Make sure you dont take stickers away, and it cant be nights in a row. So if she gets 3 stickers then reward her, etc.

 To add on this, i think kids sometimes might need instant gratification in the beginning, so you might have to do "if you go to sleep tonight, tomorrow we will....
" and then move up to doing it three nights in a row, etc.  because sometimes kids won't hold out 3 nights waiting for reinforcement.  but the sticker/ reinforcement is a  great idea!

kas28

dbliesmer:

Just curious, what do you do when she does get up and cry for you?nbsp; I ask because she's at the age where she can be very manipulative.nbsp; If every time she cries you run in and check on her, then she could be picking up on it and continuing because she knows you will come.nbsp; She's 4? nbsp;I think when you do your routine be very verbal and explain what you expect of her.nbsp; "you have your room, DD2 has her room, M amp; D have our room.nbsp; We all sleep/stay in our room all.night.long.."nbsp; Be as descriptive as possible.nbsp; Tell her you are there and will not be leaving, but we cannot keep coming in your room to check up on you.nbsp; Tie it into being a big girl.nbsp; And try the chart again.nbsp; If she cries, then you have to stand your ground and do what you say.nbsp; Even if you tell her you will only come in 2x that night and then eventually get to no times.It's frustrating when they won't sleep at any age and worse yet to hear them cry, but I think crying or throwing a little bit of a tantrum may be ok in this instance.

When she starts screaming at night I do get up cause I try to keep her from waking DD2 up. All 3 bedrooms are right near each other. My husband recently got switched to nightshift, he's a police officer, so lately all the pressure has been on me rather than the both of us. At first we thought she was upset her dad wasn't home, but this started before he rotated.

Yes she's almost 4. I somewhat blame myself cause we let her sleep with us till DD2 was born. But she did so well the past almost year, it's hard to figure it out. I'll ask her what is wrong and she just says she doesn't know. Sometime she'll bring monsters up but not very often. I'm definitely going to try the chart again and the clock hijoi posted and see if that helps.