I haven't participated in Works for Me Wednesday for quite a while. Today's WFMW is a backwards edition. In essence: you state what doesn't work for you and hope the blogosphere will help you resolve it. It reminds me a little of an advice column. SO I composed an open letter. Dear WFMW,
My wife and I have been having problems recently with our four year old. Even though she has little to no trouble going to bed in her room. She regularly wakes up in ours. Between 4 am and 6 am she makes the commute and often wakes up my wife with requests for food and or attention. We have tried many things: bribery, a gate and several others. Nothing seems to work when we put up the gate, she either climbs over it or screams until I have to go and deal with her. What we'd like her to do is stay in her bed, or climb up on to her sister's bunk. But most nights she heads on over to our room. We did not have this as a regular occurrence with our first two children.
Is there anything that we can do? Because having our (mostly my wife's sleep disturbed each night) does notwork for us!
Sleep deprived in Suburbia
For more Backwards WFMW head on over to We Are That Family.
Next Time: Things Fortnightly
3 comments:
Been there x4 now. Out of desperation, we made a little pallet on the floor (blanket, pillow and cover). The little one can come in and sleep there only after sleeping in his/her bed first and only if they do it without waking anyone up. If anyone wakes up, it's back to bed! It helps a little and can be slowly phased out. Every single one of my children has gone through this.
Ugh! I'm so sorry. We had that problem with our youngest at that age. I never thought it would end. I don't remember if we ever really solved the issue, she just kind of grew out of it. I think the youngest tends to have more attachment issues. (I know I did.)
Good luck! Hope you get some rest soon!
Peace and Laughter!
We are having that problem right now with my 5 year old. She has never been a good sleeper and has never really slept through the night with any consistency. I found that the more time I spent with her in the middle of the night, the more she seemed to wake up for "snuggle time" with mom. I am finding that she doesn't really know how to soothe herself back to sleep when she wakes up and I'm going to have to teach her.
We also have a little kid's foam sofa thing next to our bed, and sometimes out of desperation we let her come in and sleep on the floor on it next to us.
One new thing we are trying that is working really well is we've told her that if she does a great job sleeping all week, she can sleep in our room all night (on the floor) on Saturday night. It has been a HUGE motivator for her - and has also had the added benefit that she's slept later on Sunday mornings!
With us anyway, we finally had to find something that was a HUGE motivator to entice her to try staying in bed, instead of up with me. Good luck!
Post a Comment