4 year old and bed time

Homemade_2

Anthillmob wrote: »

recently our 4 year old girl has been a nightmare to get to go to bed. we have changed her bedtime to 7.30 - 8pm as opposed to 7pm.

she constantly gets out of bed to come down and say she has something to tell either me or daddy. usually its something inane. then she screams and cries and wants her juice bottle or her duvet isnt correct or wants 6 squares of toilet roll. and they have to be ripped off the roll neatly with no rips

and has now taken to screaming rages that wake and scare the living daylights out of her brother who is 2.

we give her the juice bottle [containing water] and the tissue for an easy life but some nights it is constant until she finally gives up and ive gotten angry [ive recntly been prescribed anti depressants].

for the past 2 weeks she has mentioned 'the lights that come in her room at night'. i am inclined to believe her as she always says te same thing....they are red, blue, green and gold/yellow, they float around, sometimes sit on the wall by her bed, she is scared of them.

she has not once changed her desciprtion no matter wether you ask her at night or during the day. she remembers them.

ive told her as a last resort after other theories hve failed on what they could be [she wont have it it might be a planes lights or hellicopter or car outside etc] that they are probably fairies and we had a good chat last night about fairies and how the gold one is probably the tooth fairy just checking for wobbly teeth.

ive even told her i have a fairy at night who's called dave.

but she is still scared. not of fairies but the lights. ive not seen them. obviously.

however, i believe this house is haunted by a 'playful' spirit. there is a thread on the arms somewhere about this.

do i sound like a loon? what can i9 do?

Put her to bed when she gets up without saying a word. Lay her down and walk out of the room, leave the door ajar if you want.

After a couple of days she will twig that she is not getting any attention and wont bother anymore.

Theses issues are very common in children and their imaginations are wonderful, coming out with alsorts of strange things. They are also very good at making you feel as though there is something wrong.
There probably isnt and trust your instincts.

daniel_owen_uk

Homemade wrote: »

Put her to bed when she gets up without saying a word. Lay her down and walk out of the room, leave the door ajar if you want.

After a couple of days she will twig that she is not getting any attention and wont bother anymore.

Theses issues are very common in children and their imaginations are wonderful, coming out with alsorts of strange things. They are also very good at making you feel as though there is something wrong.
There probably isnt and trust your instincts.

Supernanny technique

Worth reading her book, some good stuff inside it.

mumOf2wonderfulkids

Anthillmob wrote: »

recently our 4 year old girl has been a nightmare to get to go to bed. we have changed her bedtime to 7.30 - 8pm as opposed to 7pm.

she constantly gets out of bed to come down and say she has something to tell either me or daddy. usually its something inane. then she screams and cries and wants her juice bottle or her duvet isnt correct or wants 6 squares of toilet roll. and they have to be ripped off the roll neatly with no rips

and has now taken to screaming rages that wake and scare the living daylights out of her brother who is 2.

we give her the juice bottle [containing water] and the tissue for an easy life but some nights it is constant until she finally gives up and ive gotten angry [ive recntly been prescribed anti depressants].

for the past 2 weeks she has mentioned 'the lights that come in her room at night'. i am inclined to believe her as she always says te same thing....they are red, blue, green and gold/yellow, they float around, sometimes sit on the wall by her bed, she is scared of them.

she has not once changed her desciprtion no matter wether you ask her at night or during the day. she remembers them.

ive told her as a last resort after other theories hve failed on what they could be [she wont have it it might be a planes lights or hellicopter or car outside etc] that they are probably fairies and we had a good chat last night about fairies and how the gold one is probably the tooth fairy just checking for wobbly teeth.

ive even told her i have a fairy at night who's called dave.

but she is still scared. not of fairies but the lights. ive not seen them. obviously.

however, i believe this house is haunted by a 'playful' spirit. there is a thread on the arms somewhere about this.

do i sound like a loon? what can i9 do?

i sympathise with you, i really do! although it is a small relief to know that my child isnt the only one like this!

dd used to be an angel when going to bed (she would ask to go to bed and you wouldnt hear a peep until 8pm the next morning) but that has all changed.
She complains about light in her room, we have since discovered that if the curtains arnt exactly right, when cars go past it causes lights to go around the room. DD is now 6,
I also get the inane excuses, she will kick up a huge fuss if the living room door isnt open enough, she has to be perfectly tucked in, literaly rolled up in her blanket, she has to have her favourite teddy, my legs/arms/anything hurts, turn the heating on then turn it off and far many more to mention. I have tried absolutely everything.
i have tried leaving her to scream, she once screamed for 3 and a half hours, i couldnt take any more so had to go back up to her.
we also have an almost 3 year old son who is in the room next to her but he is so used to hearing it he sleeps right through it all :rolleyes:

however i do find that if there is a slight upset in a routine then she is far worse than normal (ie 3 and a half hour tantrum) she normally sleeps at nannies on a friday and that particular day she didnt. can you think of any changes to a routine on a day that she is particularly bad?

im sorry i cant offer any advice, but you are 100% not a loon! (i could have wrote your post myself) as i believe there is something else in my house too, the amount of random things going on in my house is unbelievable.

hope things improve for you soon x

Zazen999

I'd perhaps also stop mentioning Dave.

Anthillmob

firstly thanks to all, suprised im not alone and the arm and leg ache thing isnt just her.

Lydia82 wrote: »

Could you give her one of those cameras for children? You could get her to take a photograph whenever she saw these lights, you could also get her to take pictures of other things so you weren't highlighting this particular issue.

she got one for her birthday, maybe pop it in her bed with her

mummy_Jay wrote: »

Have you considered rearranging her room and giving her a torch. This way if the lights are reflections from car lights or street lights in her room you may get rid of them. Also look round the room see if there are any shiny objects that might be reflecting light. Also how thick are her curtain? if they aren't that thick it may be worth considering lining them so they let less light in. The torch will let her check what the light are.

Also have you consider talking to her about having a guiding light/ spirit (or in this case fairy) that watches over her to keep her safe. If you could relate it to a lost member of family coming back to check on her (maybe one of your grandparents, someone you can show her a picture of and talk about in a positive way), she might feel less frightened by it.

But even if you irradicate the issue, she's now got into a habit and you will need to break that habit too.

re the torch. she has 2. for night time toileting which she refuses to do [wears a pull up], when she is asleep thats it nothing disturbs her.

tonight started off good. i went up and lay in bed with her for 20 mins after daddy had read her story [her request for him to do this]. she told me all about her day. rubbing her eyes and yawning.

then she wanted daddy again. so we swapped [boris wont go to sleep unless its on our laps, something we have to change].

he came back, boris had just fallen asleep when all hell broke loose. stomping around, then movedto the bathroom and started banging the bath. we ignored it but this was met with full on exorcist routine which woke boris who then decided to join in as he copies his big sister whenever he could.

completely ignoring them, and turning the telly off in the living room, i shut the gat between the 2 rooms and went to the kitchen and say down to dinner with the OH.

they screamed and bawled, we totally ignored them and ate.

after finishing we sat and talked ignoring the kids who had now finally given up screaming and bawling and were looking at us like we were the mad crazy things. then we told them, including the dog who was very confused, that it was bedtime and we all went upstairs. they got in their beds and havent heard a peep from them since.

wether this is a totally wrong way to go about it i dont know but tonight it worked. and ive had no mention of lights either tonight.

strangely, even though i was annoyyed i didnt once feel the anger rising in me. im assuming my anti depressants are kicking in, i was very firm, raised voice but not shouting.

mumOf2wonderfulkids

Anthillmob wrote: »

wether this is a totally wrong way to go about it i dont know but tonight it worked. and ive had no mention of lights either tonight.

strangely, even though i was annoyyed i didnt once feel the anger rising in me. im assuming my anti depressants are kicking in, i was very firm, raised voice but not shouting.

i'd say if it works it cant be that wrong. most of the time, tantrums like that are for attention once they realise that it doesnt work then they settle down.

I just had a very very stubborn child who never backs down..........
most definately takes after her mother

delain

I have eye issues and i used to see 'floaters' which is like she has described. Take her to your GP and get her referred to an opthalmologist. Ghosts, pfft :rolleyes:

S1976

Hi,

I have twin 5 year old daughters, and they are as good as gold all the time except at bedtime - they have created a 'nice' fuss since aged about 4 at bedtime. Oh anything from lights to noises to bed uncomfy anything and everything, unfortunatly it is a phase most children go through at some point and just one of those 'things' once a child starts nursery/school their mind takes a change from being safe and secure with parents all the time to suddenly creating their own protection, it's human instant and perfectly normal, it's at this age children develop night tremors and sometimes nightmares, thats why some children suddenly start to wake in the night again at this age, but as soon as they wake usually they have forgotton the night tremor and can happily go right back to sleep without to much fuss, again perfectly normal it's a sign they are starting to breach out with their own independance and need to go through this phase. Best thing to do is simply ignore it, they get out of bed put them back - do not try to solve all their problems as they simply will create more it's also a time when they test boundaries. My daughters go to bed with a torch and a book and although it takes them about an hour to go to sleep so long as they are now quiet and resting it doesn't bother me, they no longer constantly get out of bed or create issues (well sometimes they still try to lol) try to ignore it as much as you can as best you can and it will get better

Anthillmob

tonight was all good, she made a promise to mu mum earlier today taht she would behave at bedtime and go to sleep. daddy read her a story, i went up and said goodnight then it was i want daddy one more time, then mummy and on it went. threats of no book [daddy promised to buy her a waybuloo book tomorrow if she stayed in bed] and threats of phoning 'nanny honeybunch' had no result. screaming and exorcist routine started. because boris is happily fast asleep we have had no choice than to bring her down te stairs.

she is now sat on the sofa over the other side of the room with no telly on and no toys. daddy is in the kitchen with the dog and im over here on my laptop. we are totally ignoring her. she is yawning but still refusing to go to bed. stubborn madam. maybe when she does go off ill ensure she is awake at 6am. or is that just mean? lol

again every excuse in the book. i gave her her torch and camera.

no mention of the lights.

however she did mention she could hear people shouting and i assumed it was a couple outside getting in their cars when i looked out of the window earlier but just heard our detatched neighbours going at eachothers throats again.

we couldnt change the kids room over to ours as ours is very very small and just abouts fits our bed.

Indie_Kid

Anthillmob wrote: »

maybe when she does go off ill ensure she is awake at 6am. or is that just mean? lol

Do you usually let her sleep in until whenever, or is she up at a se time each day?

It would depend how you look at it - you want her to go to bed at a certain time, to ensure she gets enough sleep.

(I am aware I am waffling and I can't quite explain what I'm trying to get at - sorry!)