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Not wanting to sleep alone

SebastianU
SebastianU's picture
Posts: 8
 Joined: 2009-06-25
 Dad Points: 24

My wife gets home at 9pm and by that time I have the younger kids in the bed and sleep most of the time. Our 5 year old has slept in the bed between us since she was able to walk. And now that she is getting bigger my wife wants her to sleep in her own bed. We have tried this and all she wil do is cry all night or come runnng in our room and get in between us. Most of the time when my wife comes home she will be sleeping and I'll be on the bed watching tv. When I move her to her bed she screams like she's being murdered until she get back to our bed.

What do I do to get her to sleep on her own again?


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Submitted by SebastianU on Thu, 06/25/2009 - 3:40am.

Zadokk
Posts: 11
 Joined: 2009-04-11
 Dad Points: 45
It sounds like your daughter

It sounds like your daughter has gotten used to getting what she wants which means that teaching her that the parents are the boss is going to be a little slow and painful at the beginning. You need to explain to her that it is time for her to start sleeping in her room, compliment her by saying she is a big girl and thats what big girls do. Make this a positive switch. Thats the easy part, the next part is going to be tough and you will want to give in before she does. You will now have to put her in her bed and make her stay there. She is going to scream and cry and scream and cry but you have to stick with it. If you at any point give in and let her come back to your bed, you have just made things way more worse. The first couple of weeks of this are going to be tough but if you stick it out, she will learn that she will not be able to stay in your bed. Lastly, do not let her stay in your bed at any point after that. If she has a bad dream, take her back to her bed and stay there for a few minutes with her to comfort her but again, give her compliments on being a big girl and how well she is doing and then leave her there. It will be very tough but it the best thing to do. Make sure that you are both ready for this as the screaming is hard to listen to. Good luck guys.


Thu, 06/25/2009 - 7:17am

philsloan
Posts: 2
 Joined: 2009-08-12
 Dad Points: 2
yeah, we tackled the problem

yeah, we tackled the problem really early, while our daughter can't yet move herself out of bed.  A great book is "Solve your child's sleep problems" by richard ferber, MD.  I was skeptical of some of the methods, but our daughter sleeps well on her own.  The begining is the worst.  You'll have  to deal with her trying every trick in the book to get you to break.  Plus, you have the added complication of a kid who is able to get up.  I haven't read through the parts on older children in the book, but I know that it has a lot of good suggestions.


Wed, 08/12/2009 - 7:11pm

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