My daughter has hated sleep since she was born. We have had the same bedtime routine for over 2 years. Jammies, potty and teeth, book, kisses and hugs. She gets her night light and to listen to her music. She is in her own room and after she falls asleep we will bring her into our room. We will not bring her into our room unless she is asleep (fyi- we enjoy cosleeping and most likely will not stop. Her room is upstairs and ours is downstairs and we all enjoy it)
We start bed at 800 and i am out of the room by 815-820. She will either whine or start crying most night. Other nights she will lay in bed for hours!! I put her to bed at 810 tonight and she is still up!! 2 1/2 hours!!
Have you ever had this problem? What did you do?
I agree with Dawn, but I also wonder what the daytime routine is. Kids who are not physically active enough have a difficult time being tired and falling asleep.
If she is not physically active every singe day, for several spurts of time throughout the day, then I would up her level of physical activity, and see what happens. And of course, choose to co-seep or don't---what you are doing now isn't working for her.
If a person is not tired they will not be able to just shut their eyes and be asleep. It's boring in bed so she's obviously just not ready to go to sleep.
She is most likely one of those people who don't need as much sleep as you want her to have. There isn't much you can do to force her to conform to your ideal of how much sleep she needs.
If you don't want a battle anymore then adjust her bedtime to something later. She does not need as much sleep as you're trying to get her to do.
Other than seeing if the doc will prescribe her a sleep aid I don't know what to do. When the kids just will not fall asleep I let them sit with me on the couch, all comfy and snugly, and we watch Disney if it's not Shake it Up or some other show I don't allow. Of course no action shows or anything like that. Just enough volume to make it a struggle to hear. Something to attract their attention long enough for their minds to be distracted. They fall asleep before they know what happened.
That happened today. He threw a huge fit and hubby brought him to me. Hubby went for a walk....lol.
I fought the battle for a few minutes but finally realized he just was too wound up mentally. About 10 minutes after I turned on the news he was out.
This won't get any better the way you are doing it. She expects to be in YOUR bed because you all co-sleep. She wants to fall asleep in your bed. I think that the only way to work this out is to either co-sleep or don't. Straddling the fence is what's causing the problem.
Dawn
I know how it is. My 7-year-old is still this way (minus the whining and crying, thankfully). Some kids just don't need much sleep, and he is one of them. He's at an age now where he will usually just lie quietly and daydream or hum to himself until he drifts off, but it was rough when he was younger.
However, I agree with both Dawn and Victoria that other things might be adding to the problem. Out of curiosity, what is your rationale behind not bringing her into your room until she's asleep? If it's that you want some adult time, could you just bring a book for yourself and snuggle with her for a while until she gets sleepy? Is it possible that, since she knows she'll end up in your bed, she's staying up in hopes that she will get the comfort of having you next to her as she drifts off?
Increasing physical activity in the afternoon has helped us some. If the weather doesn't cooperate, your daughter could jump rope or do tumbling exercises in a den or playroom, or you could challenge her to see how many jumping jacks she can do, etc.
My 4 year old has never needed the recommended amount of sleep. My daughter attends pre-school full time. During the week she's up between 6:30 and 7AM, will usually take a nap at school, which means that she is not falling asleep for the night until sometime between 930 and 1030PM, usually around 1000. We also co-sleep but we don't switch beds. We all head upstairs around 8:30, brush our teeth and put our pjs on. Depending on how long that takes she gets 3 or more books read to her and then its lights out by 9:30. On the weekends she doesn't take a nap (and hasn't for 2 years now), usually up sometime between 7 and 8 AM and asleep between 9 and 930 at night. Have you tried a later bedtime? It really made a big difference for us. Also, for us we have to watch the physical activity/excitement level close to bed time. All it does is rev our daughter up more and that includes a bath. We spend the time after dinner doing "non-exciting" things like watching TV or reading.
