Topic : Sleep Issues

 My 8 year old won't sleep in his bed.  if he tries he is up in the middle of the night and goes into his grandmother room to sleep with her.  grandmother is not well and does not know he climbs in bed with her.  My son states it his way to take of his grandmother and when she goes to heaven he wants to remain close to her. 

I need helo any advice please email me.

thank you

HELP! I am a mother of 3. All of my children have diferent personalities. My 7 year old son occupies much of my time due to his fears of bugs, dark, sleeping upstairs, his own room ect. i am finding my 5 year old daughter doing her own bath and putting herself to bed and much of the time falling asleep waiting for me. its so unfair. my 12 yr old daughter too. I am recently divorced and have moved residences, however this is not a new problem at all. I wonder if I am encouraging this because I feel like he has more fears and emotional needs than they do or if theres a way to handle this while meeting the needs of all 3 children and not losing my mind. I feel desperate and guilty right now for the things i said tonight. i lost it and told him he was killing me and that I was going to talk to his dad and see if hed feel safer living with him. i could never live with out my son. I adore him, and how hurtful of me to put a weight on his shoulders as if he has any control over how long I live. Please help me I am desperate.          

                                                                                           Normally, the best mom I know

                                                                                           Tonight, completely lost patience and sanity

you probably allready have a small light in his room, if not, put it in there. i don't know if you have a music box for him, or a cd with calm music, but that sometimes helps kids too. my advice for a bed ritual is, first put your five year old in bath, and get her to bed with a story, or something you like to do with her, maybe talk with her about her day. while your doing that, you seven year old can play a bit downstairs, or whatever he wants, but he has to do something on his own, you have to make sure that it is time for your five year old ONLY, then put the seven year old in bath, put him to bed, read him a story too, or talk to him, and turn the cd or the music box on. explain to him, that you have to go do something in the house, and that you will be back in five minutes, and that he has to stay in bed. leave his night light on, and leave the cd on, but close the door. if he comes out, just say it is bed time, put him in bed, don't go into any discussions with him, and tell him that you will be back in whatever time there was left. if he does stay in bed, check on him, see how he is, and give him a kiss, or a hug, but don't talk to him, or do anything to make him active. if he is still awake, you can say i'll be back in five minutes. if this goes well, you can make it ten minutes the next week, and longer every time, untill he goes to bed normally. while your seven year old is in bed, you can of course spend time with your twelve year old, i think they will all appreciate their alone time with there mom in the evening. for his other fears just confront him with it. go catching bugs with him, and study them under a magnifying glass. and let him draw pictures of them. also get books for him about them, where they come from, what they eat, what there use is. maybe it's better to start with the books. but if you make it an object of study, instead of something creepy, he might be less afraid of them.

good luck with everything.

annemiek

I am in desperate need of help/advice etc. I am the mother of 3 beautiful girls; almost 4, 2 and 4 months. We're busy to say the least. The problem I have is my 4 year old daughter tends to have some of the explosive behaviors I've been reading about. The smallest things will set her off, for example; putting on her socks, if it is twisted, instead of trying once or twice she immediately explodes into this grunting/moaning/whining thing that escalates into screaming and crying. My husband and I are usually pretty calm and explain that she should take the sock off and try again. Immediately that suggestion is met with 'I can't...I just can't!" Often we'll walk away and let her be frustrated. She will most times continue with her loud frustrations, but will end up putting on her own sock.

The bigger problem is bedtime. Since she was born she has had difficulty self-soothing, waking every 45 minutes to 2 hours as an infant and even beyond into toddlerhood. We have the exact same routine at the exact same time every night since she was 18 months old. She has dinner, bath, book and yogurt, prayers and bed. She's typically in bed by 7:00-7:30 at the latest. What happens is she will get up to go potty (AGAIN), but since she usually does go...we let her. Then after that she has been sneaking into her sister's room often waking her up. She is always ushered back to bed. She screams, kicks and cries at this point. We continue on down the hall in the living room and after a short period of time she's up again...this can occur up to 12-14-20 times a night all the time escalating into screaming from us, spankings, etc. (none of which have helped). She also wakes 8-10 times a night coming into our room to disturb us, disturbing the 2 year old sister, screaming and crying and carrying on all over again.

We've tried sticker charts for going to bed, stickers for staying in bed, taking her toys away, taking movies away, offering a dollar for each successful night so she can earn a new something. We've tried babygates to keep her from wandering at night (she climbs them), locking her door - extreme i know...but she kicks the door for hours at a time, even if i'm sitting outside the door.

Her diet mainly consists of fruits and vegetables and meat, no significant sugar, no caffeine, no soda or koolaid..etc.

Please help!! We're desperate. Her acting out is really hurting our relationship...we're mad, she's mad and it's just not much fun.