I have a 4 year old little girl who over the last couple weeks has been throwing fits and causing a huge ruckus at bedtime. Up until a few weeks ago she would go to bed after a story, a snuggle and a drink of water and have no problems. Now its like pulling teeth to get her to go to bed, is this a normal thing that kids do? I'm a first time mom and feel horrible to let her cry herself to sleep but feel like if I give in and go in there every time she will just keep doing it.
Does she say why she doesn't want to go to bed?
Ask her what's changed in her mind.
I would put a nightlight in her room and get her a Dreamlight pillow. Both
very effective.
Make sure she has a lot of activity during the day so she's tired at night.
We sometimes go to a very nearby park or walk to ensure out little one has expended energy.
Also, maybe adjust her bedtime a little later (30 mins) if she's not tired yet.
Have there been any changes in her daytime routine? Maybe try a bath before bed to help soothe her. One thing that has helped my little ones is having the DreamLite. It is nice because it is like a nightlight but not as bright as some. She might be having more intense dreams that are causing her to not want to go to bed. I know my five year old has been waking up with bad dreams more often than before. The only change in her life has been starting Kindergarten, so I guess that could be causing her bad dreams. Does she tell you why she is not wanting to go to bed? Does she get up or just cry for a while? You are right to not give into her fits, but you need to try to figure why the change has happened. It usually does not happen for no reason at all. Bed time used to be a challenge in my house, but it is a piece of cake now! I hope this will just be a short phase for your little one.
A 4 year old isn't a toddler anymore mom...she's a preschooler now. She's growing up.
You don't say what time she's going to bed, what time she gets up, what sort of sleeper she is normally.
If she's been going to bed pretty early chances are she's just not needing that much sleep anymore. Keeping her up later will probably fix your issues.
Also she may just be going through a stage and in the next few weeks she'll be right back to normal.
My grand kids each and every one, as an infant, would get up around 7:30-8am and take a morning nap then an after noon nap then an early evening nap then down for the night right around 9pm.
About the time they turned 1 they were down to one nap during the daytime hours then when they got picked up from child care they'd nap on the way home. Once the get about 10 or 11 months old the infant room teacher starts getting the kiddo down to one nap per day. That way when they move to the toddler room they'll be on that classroom schedule. When they turn 2 and more to the preschool classroom they take a little bit shorter nap and so forth to the 3 year old preschool classroom and the pre-K classroom with the 4 year old kiddos, this age kiddo takes about an hour nap.
If they take a short nap in the early evening they don't need to go to bed until later in the evening so they'd stay up until 9. Our kids go down nearly every evening easily and don't have any issues very often.
Have there been any changes in her normal routine be it a new daycare staff or teacher? Any changes on your part that may be hard for her to understand? My 3.5 year old keeps growling once we finish story and prayer time and when we have (on rare occassions) gone in and tell her to stop, she usually responds with, "I just want you to know I still love you". While it may be endearing, it is nothing more than a ploy for us to allow her to stay up. If nothing has changed in her life, I would let her cry it out. Start with 10 minutes then increase it to 15 or 20 and see how that goes. We also have a "twilight Turtle" that projects stars onto the ceiling. I think it stays on for about 45 minutes than shuts off. While i loev it, please know it will eat through batteries quickly! Best of luck A.!
