Dealing with a little girl that just won't sleep in her bed

In My Humble Opinion
61

This thread caught my eye because we’re going through this ourselves at the moment.

In our case, the culprit is our three-year-old (she’ll be four in January), the kiddo we adopted from China when she was 21 months old. She is supposed to be sleeping in the room with her older (8 year old) sister, in a bed of her own. And she very much is not. There are a few special circumstances which seem to make our situation tougher than average.

First, she’s an adopted kid, who spent the first half of her life in an orphanage. As such, we have no idea what she might have endured in her first two years of life, and we don’t want to be associated with her negative past. So, we’re already treading lightly.

Second, she’s a total momma’s girl. She loves my wife, to the point that when she wants a parent to do anything for her, it has to be momma. We’re making some strides in this area (Dad is the one who reads the books and plays trains with her), but for darn near everything, momma has to do it, from pouring her a glass of milk to handing her something in the car. Seriously, if I hand her something and she wanted momma to hand it to her, a crying fit will ensue until momma takes the thing back and immediately hands it right back to her, somehow making everything all right. This goes directly into our third issue…

Third, since momma has to do everything for her, I can’t help with this issue. Really, I’ve tried, but if I even look like I’m going to lead her back to bed, no matter how friendly my manner, she shrinks away from me and screams in blind panic. Momma, of course, can take her back no problem. However, momma doesn’t have my patience, and it eventually wears her down and she caves.

And here’s how it goes with us: we put the girls to bed. The littlest Torqueling then immediately gets out of her bed, not even trying to sleep, and comes toddling out into the living room. All of our coaxing and cajoling is for naught; she basically pretends she doesn’t hear us, stares into the middle distance, and either waits to follow momma to her bedroom or heads straight in to the bedroom if my wife is already in there. Variously, she tells momma that her bed isn’t comfortable, or she’s scared, or she’s not tired, or some other lame excuse. My wife caves eventually, after taking her back to her bed a dozen or more times a night. In fact, the kiddo’s mattress is on the floor in our room right now, yet last night she somehow ended up in our bed.

Nuclear options simply don’t work; she’s not afraid of screaming at the top of her lungs, which wakes up her sister. My wife has tried staying with her in her room for hours, but as soon as she leaves, the kiddo toddles out after her. None of the soother/relaxer strategies work, such as melatonin. She’s one of those kids who actually gets even more wired on Benadryl.

I think we may be stuck with this one for a while. I comfort myself with the knowledge that I’ve never heard of college kids still sleeping with their parents, so I know it must end at some point. However, none of the traditional methods work on her, and my wife’s at her wit’s end. I wish I could help, but I just make things worse.

Anyway. If anyone has any idea of anything that might work in this situation, let me know. None of the traditional methods have produced results.

62

It would also be all right, eventually, if you ignore the crying fit. Not yell at her, not punish her, not explain anything to her - ignore it.

Put a lock on your bedroom door.

Ignore the tantrums. It will probably take a week or so before the behavior begins to diminish. If you ignore it completely.

There’s nothing you can do about what whatever may have happened to her in China. You can only provide a safe, loving, stable and consistent environment now.

Regards,
Shodan

63

Personally, I find it hard to describe locking your door and ignoring your daughter’s knocking as a very “loving” environment. I mean it might work but…

64

Again, natural history is that the behavior usually outgrows by around age 5 … so there will be an end even if you do nothing. Waiting it out with the mattress or sleeping bag on the floor (and trying to do better at enforcing the not in the bed at least part of it) is not an unreasonable decision to make. Quite a few in your position make that choice and the kids grow up just fine.

Our youngest is also adopted from China (at 13 months and is now 14 years old). And while I am personally a hard liner when it comes to developing the sleep habits in the first place at 4 to 6 months of age, and about correcting them if they’ve gone a direction the parents do not want to go by 9 to 15 months … this is different circumstance. To my read anyway both as a parent and as a pediatrician who has had a large number of internationally adopted kids in my practice.

That said the hard line “extinction” method (as described by Shodan) would work … albeit at this age and with the specific past history involved taking only a week or so may be a bit optimistic. And with the attachment issues that all of us adoptive parents are thinking about … well, not for me anyway. Option two is the most famous of the “graduated extinction” methods: the Ferber approach. That one is standing outside her door and checking in on her briefly every several to every 15 minutes, then slightly variable lengths of time: “I am here. I love you. I’ll check on you again in a few more minutes.” Again … several weeks. If you do that you must wake her up at normal wake up time, deal with the overtired sleep deprived preschooler, not let her have any more than her normal naps, and stick with it consistently for the weeks it might take. If you cave you have just reinforced the screaming as something that works.

The other choice is the same variant of “graduated extinction” I suggested to the op. (Mom in her room, starting next to her bed, then gradually over many multiple nights gradually farther from the bed, in doorway, in doorway where face is not seen, outside of doorway, to not there but poking head in every few minutes of variable lengths of time.)

In this case you may want the lock on your door so you can enforce the back to her room with Mom in middle of the night. (Since otherwise mattress on floor or not she is able to sneak into your bed without waking you. With lock that cannot happen.)

It takes maybe a bit longer than the hardline approach during which no one sleeps while she screams it out for several hours each night, but everyone is getting more rest while the process is in progress. Simple reality is that few families can handle the stress of the hardline extinction approach at this age, especially in this context. Most of us will crack.

And while this may sound silly it does help: have Mom wear the little one’s blankie on her neck or tucked under her shirt in the evening and put it the little one’s bed at bedtime. Smell is a very primal emotional sense and being able to smell Mom when falling asleep and trying to fall back asleep is very effective a being part of a “transitional object.”

Whichever approach you choose, decide and stick with it with consistency. And good luck!

65

Children need limits. That’s part of love. It’s not all of it, but it is part of it.

Mommy and daddy love you, mommy and daddy are considerate of your feelings, but mommy and daddy are in charge, and we have decided that you sleep there and mommy and daddy sleep here. You can come and get us in an emergency, but “I insist on sleeping with mommy every night” is not an emergency.

Children can learn where they fit into a family without it becoming abusive or neglectful. Children have feelings that should be respected. So does everyone else in the family, and growing up involves being shown that this is the case, for themselves as well as everybody else.

Regards,
Shodan

66

It just seems to me that enforcing limits could be done in a more loving way than locking the door and ignoring her pleas. YMMV.

67

Here’s what you do, but you’ll need full commitment on this or this won’t work. You need to pretend your bedroom is even scarier than hers. Hide scary things like evil looking dolls or masks in your room, pretend to find it then freak out. Tie a fishing line to a sock with an orange in it then sling it over a hanger in your closet, run the fishing line into your room so she won’t see it, to your bed so that you can pull on it in the middle of the night and cause a thumping noise in your closet and wake both of you up. Occasionally, when she comes to your room, stare at an empty corner and wave, and ask her if she can see the thing with the red eyes. Pay a neighborhood kid to scratch at your window once a week. Get some pig’s blood and smear it on her face when she’s asleep.

68

You mean like this: http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/27/52/26/2752262082766c2f35b180243231d152.jpg ?

:smiley:

It’d be impolite of me to suggest that some posters might take this idea seriously.

69

Internationally adopted children follow a different track in learning to sleep through the night than do other children. In particular, separation anxiety at bedtime is a positive sign that your daughter is bonding. That’s not to say you shouldn’t work to overcome the anxiety, but the last thing you want to do is approach it in a way that makes your daughter feel that she’s on her own, without parental support and connection. That may (or may not) make sleeping easier, but it makes a whole host of other thing harder.

Rather than regurgitate advice, let me recommend this book, Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child. It has a whole host of good advice, including a chapter on overcoming sleep problems.

70

That’s the exact comic I had in mind!