help!!,i have a 4 year old daughter who has never slept through the night.?

Question

she often talks in her sleep thus wakin herself up or she wakes up shouting for me,when i go up she will lay back down and go to sleep,this happens at different times throughout the night.she is in a bed time routine,i take her to bed and read her a story but this doesnt seem to work,i also have to sit with her while she goes to sleep,she says she doesnt like been on her own,i also leave a small lamp on for her

Answer 1

we have the same issue with our daughter she's six now and it seemed to settle down more when school started because she has school all day everyday and she is completely wore out. I too took my daughter to the doctor and the said they thought she just got so wound up and couldn't get settled enough but school seems to be wearing her out and I am only getting up about twice a week now verses every night.

Answer 2

I did this as a kid frequently. My parents took me to every doctor imaginable, and they ruled out all psychological promblems, and finally the doctor told my mom that although some may find it odd, she should put a television in my room, and leave it on a disney movie or something I would find comforting. apparently the light stimulation is better on a tv than a lamp, so my mom went out and got a small tv and left it on the disney channel. When I would talk in my sleep and wake up, I would see the show and instantly be calmed into falling back asleep. I am now 22 and most nights I still sleep withthe tv on, but 99% of the time, I dont wake up until morning.

Answer 3

Were you a night owl when you were careing her. Is there a lot of excitment in the home. Is her bedroom full of pictures and stuff animals or other things, if so remove them. She has unresolved issues, her mind is vivid and racing, like a lamp that refuse to turn off, when you know you have turned it off. The mind is wonderful thing, but can be full of a lot of things, no ones but the person who owns the mind. Have a talk with your 4 year old about what she is thinking, find out some of the things she enjoys and doesn't like now. It will help her later in life, as well as now. Try for fun things to do with her. Her mind is getting to many messages and you must help to turn them off now or it can affect her later, it is now. Watch what you do and say around her and others too.

Silver Birch

Answer 4

Take heart - your situation will, more than likely, improve.
There are some children, but very few, who literally have some impairment in the mechanisms (in the brain) that allow people to go to sleep and to remain asleep through the night. Sleep patterns are established quite early in a child's life, during the first year. What children 'learn' during those early months is important in relation to their ongoing sleep/wake patterns. Your daughter may be manifesting, through her sleep problems, a condition referred to as Separation Anxiety Disorder (unusual degree of anxiety, in some circumstances, being apart - e.g., through sleep - from those to whom the child is attached). If this is true, then you have the power and ability to help your daughter change. You may need some help with this, but such help is, generally speaking, readily available through Child Behavioral Health/Mental Health providers and/or Sleep Disorder specialists in your area. GOOD LUCK

Answer 5

Might just be a phase...I just went through it. My daughter is 4 and has been back to sleeping through the night recently. She'd wake up screaming in the middle of the night, mostly because she had to pee. Sometimes we'd have to take her out in the living room area with the light on and set her in the middle of the floor and let her CIO until she realized why she was screaming - usually ended up she had to pee. Now she just sits up in bed and calls for Mommy or Daddy instead of crying.
I'm glad she's out of this phase though...it went on for 2 years.

Answer 6

Youve let that become her routine schedule. Unless you think she may be having Chronic Nightmares or some other sleeping disorder (In which you should seek some professional help.) you may just heve to let her cry herself back to sleep until she starts to sleep through the night. I know that might sound kind of cruel but otherwise you'll porbally have to continue getting up through the night. Good Luck!

Answer 7

My niece was like this for a long time the doctor put her on a sleeping pill for a while to help her sleep due too nightmares she was only on it for a month, but this was only after they ruled out other things. and she has been sleeping through the night since .
an over the counter (otc) that works well is melatonin but you should ask her doctor first.

Answer 8

First, talk to a doctor if you have any concerns. Secondly, just let her sleep in bed with you.

Answer 9

hey, i was like that too when i was small, i did not want to sleep alone... clarify a bit, she NEVER sleeps? what you should do is to sleep with her till she is asleep..that works, it actually did with me when i was small!!

Answer 10

De-worm your daughter.