My 3 year old will not sleep at all!?

Question

My daughter has always slept fine, she goes to bed at night about 8:30 but not to sleep, she does not sleep during the day, I do not give her caffine, and we drink sugar free koolaid. She stays up all night and destroys her room completely. She takes all the clothes out of the closet and out of the drawers, almost ever night. Last night I found her at least 4 times watching TV in her brothers room while he was sound asleep. I've tried everything I know to do and I can't take much more of the all night party going on in my house. You would think she would be tired all day, but she is not. I don't know what caused the change in her sleeping habbits, this has been going on for about 3 weeks. Can anyone offer a solution I'm fresh out of them. Thanks

Answer 1

Sounds like it's time to take every thing out of her room. Every night she sleeps like she is supposed to she gets something put back in her room. If she doesn't sleep, you take it back. I would also make her clean up the mess she made, there is no reason she should be doing this. She is testing you and you are failing. 3 weeks? Good grief, after this long she probably thinks this is what she is supposed to do. Be firm, spank her bottom if you need to, threaten to make her sleep in her old baby crib, do what you need to make her stop. You are the parent, she is 3 for cryin out loud.

Answer 2

First thing I would do is lose the TV. TV will overstimulate a child so there should be no TV for several hours before bed and no child should have access to the TV at night or have a TV in their room (every sleep specialist on the planet will tell you this).
Lose the Cool Aid...some kids can be stimulated by artificial sweeteners...besides which, good old water is better for you (if you think they won't drink it...just wait...they'll get thirsty).
Make sure she is getting enough physical exercise during the day. Maybe try an earlier dinner and then run around outside for an hour followed by a bath. If my daughter hasn't had a typical active play day, then we do a hour of dancing/jumping/chasing around. We turn on some dance music from I-tunes on the computer and jump around (she loves it). We do something vigorous followed by a bath, a quiet story and the inevitable 12 hour sleep almost always follows. If she is upset or not wanting to go down for some reason...she goes to sleep in our bed and gets transferred to hers when she is deep asleep.

Answer 3

Do try the bath before bed idea. The idea of a bath is great because baths simulate our body drifting to sleep in the sense that it increases our body temp and then slowly lowers it. It's very calming too!! Try it with a lavender soap that natural has an aromatic sleep smell to it.

Make the bedroom a place for sleep.... not play. Your daughter will begin to associate bedroom and sleep. Read calming stories before bed and try to keep her calm in the 2 hours prior to sleeping.

Besides that; take her to your physician. They'd know what to tell you that would suit you and your daughter best.

Good luck!

Answer 4

Take the TV out of the room for starters.

Come up with a bedtime routine that you follow every night.

If she takes the clothes out then she picks them up by herself the next day.

Make a chart that she can add a sticker to in the morning if she sleeps well the night before.

Answer 5

I have 4 boys, and one of them doesn't sleep well at nights. He constantly gets up and roams around the house. He does get some sleep though. I think it may look worse than it is, she has to be getting some sleep, or her body would have shut down after 3 weeks without it.

I would goto your family doctor and maybe look into some phamisutical help, just to get her body into a regular sleep cycle. People have different bodily demands for sleep, some need more than others. So don't get too worried about it, but definitely see your doctor, just for peace of mind.

Answer 6

I think u must try to make her understand plitely tht she should sleep early so tht she dont get any headache in mornin.If she doesnt listen politely dont u shout !!!
1> Get her a pet dog (if ur budget &family allows)& ask her
to take the dog to mornin walk.He will help u !!! OR
2> Promise her to take her every morning to a garden and also
attract her tht u both will paly any outdoor game eg:-football,
badminton etc..... OR
3> Ask her to play with her friends like racing or else ask her to
do swimmin in evening so tht if she struggles with her legs
in the evenin it will give her good sleep at night.

BEST OF LUCK HOPE U SUCEED !!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 7

Maybe change her bed. My 2 yr old nephew had the same problem so we bought him another bed and now he loves going to sleep at night and sleeps until 7 am.

Answer 8

first thing remove everything from her room and second don't go to bed til you know she is asleep. to get her to sleep lay her down in her bed. and read her a story. you need to make her stay in her bed and go to sleep. spank her bottom if need be. you are the parent make her go to sleep and by the way there is sugar or a sugar substitute in the koolaid. also cut out sugary snacks as sugary keeps them awake too

Answer 9

OMG! I am SO having this same problem with my 3.5 yo son. He just DOES NOT want to go to sleep at night. Once we get him down he stays down, but it’s getting him down that’s the trick. He’s been like this since about 3 yo.

We do have a pretty standard bedtime routine which is: bath, movie, story & lights out. He has his bath and puts on his jammies and we watch the last 10 or 15 minutes of a movie and he knows that when the credits start to run it’s time to go to his room where daddy usually reads him a story. Then we spend the next half hour or so telling him to go to sleep and blocking stall tactics. Sometimes I actually have to stand outside his door for 10 minutes or so to catch him right away and make sure he stays in bed.

You really do need to stay up until she is asleep (unfortunately). Be consistent and be firm. Insist that she stays in her bed lying down even if she’s not sleeping. We let our son take the book we read to him to bed and we’ll often hear him “reading” it to himself which is fine so long as he’s in his bed.

I don’t think that there is a quick easy fix for this situation. You will need to be extremely firm and diligent to rectify this problem. If she destroys her room then she should clean it up herself right away, or have the items taken away (she obviously doesn’t respect them). She can earn them back one at a time every morning after a good sleep.

I would suggest committing the next three nights to putting a chair outside her room and sitting there out of sight until she goes to sleep (have a book for yourself to read while you’re sitting there). Every time she gets up, put her straight back to bed. Do not engage in conversation. If she tries to talk to you just say “Goodnight Jane”. She knows you can hear her but anything she asks for will be a stall tactic.

This has been on-going for me with my son and I find that the nights he goes down best is when I am firm in putting him down. When I get slack on him I totally pay for it. My son’s late night party is usually in the washroom and usually involves water and toothpaste and one time shaving gel. I made him clean up every last drop of the mess right then and there and sat outside his room until he went to sleep when I didn’t really want to stay up till midnight when I have to get up at 6:00 for work, but we do what we gotta do.

I hope you didn’t get too bored reading my answer and I hope it helps you.

Answer 10

at night give her a bath and make sure she is full.she will sleep during the night.