School-Aged Children
avalliere1128
member
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5 year old sleep issues
avalliere1128
member
My 5 year old has been waking up every night between 3-3:30. He yells "Mom" and then won't go back to sleep unless I go into his room and either lay with him or stand their until he falls asleep again. We have white noise in his room, we have a night light, we do "monster spray". We are desperate for some advice. I know the "cry it out" stage is available for us, but at 5 years old it seems he will never stop yelling for me. Suggestions and stories of others experiencing this please 
Re: 5 year old sleep issues
I would talk to him about what he's thinking about when he wakes up. When he wakes up does he feel excited? lonely? scared? fidgety? Try to get him to name what he's feeling.
Remind him that there's a lot he can do at night without needing you. He can go to the bathroom, get a drink (put a little cup in there for him), maybe even turn on a lamp/flashlight and look at a book until he feels sleepy again.
I went through this with my son when he was a little younger than 5. He would call, and it was always something: I need water! My nose is stuffy! I'm scared! I finally realized that what I wanted was for him to be independent at night, but what I was doing by going in to him and solving every little problem was sending the opposite message. Basically, it was telling him: you really DO need to call for me! My husband and I talked to him about why he had a hard time falling back to sleep, then we gave him strategies for solving his own problems. In about 3 weeks, he was back to sleeping through the night. That might have happened without our strategies anyway, but it didn't hurt his independence and maturity to hear that message.