3yr old cries herself to sleep every night

[LilyLiberty]

First of all, important note, I'm not a parent, I'm a babysitter. I have thirteen years of experience with kids, lots and lots of toddlers, and I'm baffled and concerned about this particular situation so I wanted to reach out to the collective Mama wisdom available here. I apologize in advance for this being long but I want to include any background that might be helpful...

I recently began babysitting for a 3 year old girl - V. I am the "second-shift" nanny. The first nanny is with her from 9-5 and I am there from 5-7 every week day. I also do weekends or stay late when the parents go out. Generally we play, I make dinner and give her a bath and then it's time for me to go.V is at the stage where she is doing a lot of testing and having frequent tantrums. For example, each night when I announce what I'll be making for dinner she has a tantrum over what is being offered, regardless of how much she actually likes or dislikes the food. A typical exchange goes like this:
Me: We're going to have alphabet pasta and meatballs, you get to pick the vegetable. Do you want peas or carrots?
V: No no no no no! I don't want it, I don't like it! *Commence hysterical screaming and crying
Me: Would you like to help me measure out the pasta?
V: *screaming and crying
Me: I'd like for you to help me V, but I need you to calm down.
V: Okay. *suddenly is totally fine, happy, helping, laughing, etc.

This will happen five or six times every day I'm there. She goes from totally calm and happy to absolutely distraught in seconds and then back again as soon as I redirect her focus. This happens with everything from hair brushing, tooth brushing, mealtime, putting toys away, toileting (she was toilet trained but has recently started refusing to use the potty and will actually announce that she needs to put a diaper on to poop) -- just everything. I just chalk it up to the difficulties of wanting to be independent at age 3 and move on. She also throws tantrums when you try to wash her hair or comb her hair, so maybe there's a small sensory issue going on, but I'm not sure on that.

Anyway, last night was the first night I put V to bed. I had asked her Mother in advance what her bedtime routines were and felt prepared. We had the usual series of tantrums throughout the evening and then after bathtime I announced that we had ten minutes to play. We did a few puzzle games and then transitioned to her three bed-time books. V chose three books, we read them, and then I said, "Okay, time for bed now" she started having a meltdown.

Initially I just figured that she didn't want to stop having fun and go to sleep but that wasn't it. V never once tried to get out of bed, but literally sobbed and screamed herself to sleep. I made sure she had her cuddly toy, her water bottle, the nightlight, everything was as it should be -- but she was inconsolable. Not, fake-crying for attention, but she seemed genuinely distraught/terrified about something. A few times she screamed "I NEED YOU" so I went back into the room, and she wanted reassurance that in the morning she could go into Mommy and Daddy's room (I had been told she'd ask this). I felt awful about how upset she was and so I sat with her and rubbed her back for a little while but she never relaxed. At one point when I asked her if she could tell me what was wrong she even said, "I need to cry a little"

After about twenty minutes the crying subsided and she fell asleep but I've never seen anything like this before. This child was verging on hysterical for almost half an hour and I was really concerned. I brought it up to her parents when they returned but they just kind of shrugged it off. Her mother said that V cries herself to sleep quite often and that what I was describing wasn't out of the ordinary. They seemed a bit defeated about the whole situation, just at a loss for what to do (they are also really stressed out about the potty regression). They know about her frequent tantrums and say that it really has only started since V turned 3 recently. The tantrums don't worry me too much since I think it is just boundary testing, but in combination with the nighttime stuff I just don't know what to make of it. The other nanny doesn't speak great English so I haven't really been able to get a clear picture of what V is like during the day.

Since the parents go out frequently I'm going to be putting V to sleep more and more often. They've also asked me to accompany them on weekend-trips to their beach house so there will be putting-to-bed issues there too. I'm not certain I should label V's sleep habit problematic, I don't want to pathologize it, but it certainly seems unhealthy to me that a child would get that worked up and panicked every single night. Sleep should be associated with rest and relaxation, not sobbing, right?

Do any Mama's here have experience with something like this? Any advice on handling it or trying to fix it? Alternatively should I just forget about it and let it be? Thanks everyone!

[GoBecGo]

Is the other nanny also new? Does V speak the other nanny's mother tongue, or is she spending every day with an adult with whom she cannot communicate? How long has V been doing this?

My DD1 has on occasion done this, she too would say she needed to cry and would cry, but would eventually calm down and fall asleep, still sobbing. I found it very hard but she's 4 now and not done it for a long time. Perhaps it can be developmental? BUT DD1 was with me, every day, so nothing changed for her but the behaviour. I'd try to find out when this began, that might help you assess why it's happening...?

[LilyLiberty]

The other nanny has been with them for good long while. V doesn't speak Nanny1's language but Nanny1's English is sufficient for them to communicate. It just isn't nuanced enough for me to understand what's going on, she'll just say, "Oh V, very good girl, nice girl. Right V?"

V's mother said that since V was an infant they've let her "cry it out" at night and so she thought maybe now crying was just part of her bedtime routine because of that early experience. Essentially she has been doing this her whole life. The connection to crying it out as an infant sounded like a bit of a stretch to me but maybe not?

When I said in the original post that V's mother said she cries herself to sleep quite often I should have clarified. I guess she has fallen asleep without crying, but it seems like the crying thing is 6 nights out of 7.

[justKate]

Gosh, that's hard. I recently skimmed "Tears and Tantrums", can't remember the author now, but it describes how crying is a form of release that people do need. So sometimes the need to just cry is really valid and shouldn't be discouraged, necessarily. Not that you were discouraging it, just that sometimes we have tendency to see crying as a bad thing.

If she were my child, I would guess that the daytime and bedtime crying are actually not related so much. I would see the earlier tantrums as expressions of frustration/growing independence and the bedtime crying as tension/stress relief. It sounds like you met her needs by going to her when she needed you and providing a safe place to cry.

Does the child speak the primary language of the daytime caregiver? There might be some extra tension there if not, and then with you being relatively new to her.... Not that these are bad things, just sources of tension she might need to release before calming down at night.

Good luck with her. It sounds like you're doing a great job.

ETA: i just saw your post about the language issue. does V seem over- or under-stimulated by the end of the day?

If she's been CIO-ed, then maybe she's just needing reassurance that you're still there. Do you have any walkie-talkies you could use with her? So she could call you on the walkie-talkie if she needs you instead of having to scream. Hmm. Just brainstorming...

[LadyCatherine185]

JMO, no expert, and my DS is only 23 months old---

I think it is a combination of things. 1) She is left with caregivers all day and late into the evening. It seems she rarely sees her parents. This really just breaks my heart. 2) sure, her age, testing boundaries, etc 3) could she be not getting enough sleep? Maybe she is really tired in the evenings and that is why she is having so many meltdowns for you. How many hours a day average does she sleep? Does she still nap? 4) definitely having to CIO as an infant has damaged her, IMO. It sounds like she has just always had to cry herself to sleep. she knows that nighttime means no one is there for her. that would definitely be terrifying to me.

I just feel so awful for that little girl. Thankfully she seems to have a very sweet, caring Nanny2! Perhaps you could try "changing" her nighttime routine while you are there? Even if she cries the whole time, tell her that you will stay with her until she falls asleep. Or leave the door open with the light on in the hallway?

[GoBecGo]

I would think that nanny1 not being able to speak great english is actually quite a big problem - if you look at how most of us interact with kids we need to know a LOT more of their language than they in order to interpret what they're trying to tell us, give them new more astute ways of saying things and teach them how to communicate. V may well be suffering from spending her days with someone whom she cannot learn her mother tongue from - does nanny1 use her OWN language with V? Imagine spending all day trying to talk with someone in a language NEITHER of you speak well - that would be very frustrating and difficult for most people, of any age.

[Snapdragon]

aww, that is sad. It sounds to me like she needs her parents to be present with her a whole lot more

[madskye]

Can you talk to Nanny1 about her sugar intake? Mood swings like that and the kind of hyper-emotional behavior you describe usually equal too much sugar in my daughters (now 5) behavior.

Maybe make sure she has no or very little sugar after you come on at five.

Also, what would happen if you just talked to the little girl about bedtime. What does she think she needs to fall asleep peacefully?

[blessedwithboys]

poor baby, it is probably a detachment issue bc of her parents constant abandonment. please stay in the room with her until she falls asleep, so she will know that at least one person in her life cared enough to be there for her. it may seem like a small thing, but it will be there in the back of her consciousness when she is an adult.

[LilyLiberty]

Nanny1 and V have a pretty strong bond despite the language issue -- though I do notice that V is much less verbal than most other 3 year olds I've cared for. Now that I think about it, given that she is so quick to resort to having a tantrum I suppose it is possible that during the course of the day she gets frustrated trying to explain her needs to Nanny1 and thus just resorts to screaming -- easily intelligible in any language.

As to sugar, I have no idea what she eats when Nanny1 is around but I only prepare whole foods for her and the only sugar she gets is fruit for dessert.

As far as the sleeping: I've just been reluctant to change her routine when I'm not with her every single night. This is a child who absolutely craves routine (we do pretty much the same activities in the same order every day -- she looks forward to knowing exactly what is going to happen next). I'm wary of introducing something new that she finds very comforting only for it not to be available for her the next day. That said I think I will be staying with her from now on. If for no other reason than it was too heart-wrenching for me to sit outside the door and listen to her sobbing.

I think I will take the gentle-presence approach and we'll develop a routine for when I put her to bed, I'll be careful to explain that this is how Nanny2 puts her to bed, that Mommy and Daddy might do it differently. A song, rub her back for a little while, and then I'll sit in the armchair in her room (where she can see me) until she falls asleep. We'll see how it goes. Yesterday when I left she told me, "Bye! I love you! When, when miss me at bed then you can cry little, kay?"

Translation: "Goodbye! I love you! When you miss me tonight you can cry a little, okay?"

[Xerxella]

Wow. That is sad. But, you sound like a great nanny. Follow your instincts. Stay with that little girl til she falls asleep. Someone should be there for her.

[djenya]

How sad. I'd think she's lonely or scared at night. And you seem right on about the language difference and her tantrums. Sounds like you are doing a wonderful job with her.

[BeanyMama]

double post whoops.

[BeanyMama]

It seems to me the daytime tantrums are more of a lack of ability to express disappointment/anger/sadness rather than boundary testing. It must be so tricky for a three year old to have 2 nanny and 2 parent caregivers doing trade-off in a single day. Her coping mechanism is outbursts, I would guess. Which is why she "needs to cry a little". Especially if she's CIO every night of her life It's normal in her world. It breaks my heart to read what she told you at bedtime about missing her. It sounds like you're a great nanny, keep on! Hang in there for her at night.