Bedtime/discipline.

[quaz]

That's not the best title.

Here's the situation.

I have a 5 year old. She was a VERY high needs baby. From birth, she had an absolute need of touch. Any non-mommy device equaled torture device for her. She'd scream in her car seat, bouncy seat, anything. At 1, I'd have to hold her hand to go to sleep.

At 5, she still NEEDS me at bedtime. On a personality profile, she would be a high Feeling sort of person.

The problem is that she still will take forever to go to sleep. If it was just a matter of me doing a bedtime routine with her, and then going... no biggie. If it was just a matter of me laying next to her for 5 minutes... no biggie. The problem is on many nights she just won't go to sleep. She is exhausted, but will not go to sleep with me there. (She doesn't even attempt it, because she keeps trying to talk to me, and ignoring doesn't work either). She won't go to sleep without me there. (actually, we've had stretches where she will, when I've tried a positive incentive outside her door, but the incentive eventually fails).


I've tried about every method to move her past this and it doesn't work.

Does anyone have either a positive parenting or gentle discipline approach that will help her past this?

I have 2 other kids, so just staying in her room indefinitely is NOT a solution.

Tammy

[octobermom]

Have you talked to her about it. Told her that you don't mind comforting her and laying with her when shes goes to bed but that you alos can't be staying with her all night and sometimes it seems you staying makes it worse. HAs shes made any suggestions with something that could help her? At 5 I'd start there..

Deanna

[sweetest]

At around 5 dd starting sleeping alone, too. Quite on accident we found out that she would go to sleep if the dog (a chihuahua) was with her, because she wasn't alone anymore. Before our beloved Labrador retriever died she also slept at the foot of dd's bed.

[ewe+lamb]

My dd was very much like yours until we started doing yoga and used the relaxation techniques before she went to sleep lying in bed, goodness me it worked - you may want to see if you could do that with her it saved my sanity!!

[mom2grrls]

What is her sleeping schedule like right now? Perhaps an earlier bedtime is in order to make sure you don't miss the "sleepy" window. One thing I used with a couple of my kids is "I have xxx to do right now, I'll be back in x amount of time". I'd even set a timer if that made them feel better about me returning. usually after a few times of that they would be asleep. You could work on her with different relaxing techniques too like deep breathing, counting something, perhaps some soothing music.

[quaz]

She has had soothing music in her room for about a year. We've tried the leave technique, and that sometimes works, but only sometimes. Often, she will stay up until I get back, or I think she is asleep and 40 minutes later she comes looking for me.

We've tried talking, but that hasn't helped.

What I started doing is I changed the 3 minutes off laying with her, after all her bedtime routine stuff. Instead of 3 minutes, she has 5 minutes to do whatever she wants. Then I leave.

That has worked for several nights in a row.
It may be just a short lived phase, but it is at least temporarily working.
Tammy