On average kids are supposed to get more than that, but not all kids sleep the average amount.
Growing up it was a good night if my niece slept 5 hours in a row. Her father is also a 5 hour a night sleeper and apparently has been all his life. Even as a young child I never slept more than 7-8 hours unless I was seriously ill. This was extremely frustrating to me, as I was always compelled to lay down for nap time (as mom used to say “you have to take a nap, mom is tired”) when very young. If I was forced to sleep during the day (as in, forced to stay in bed until I feel asleep from boredom) I would be up half the night, unable to sleep. With that in mind, you might want to prevent her from napping during the day.
It is normal for some people to sleep less than average. That’s their normal. As long as they’re healthy and fully awake during the day it’s not a problem.
Those who sleep less need to learn to be considerate of others who need more sleep.
Key thing is whether or not she’s healthy. If she’s growing as she should, if she has energy to play during the day, if her appetite and weight are good, if she is well most of the time… then maybe she only needs as much sleep as she is getting. This is another reason to mention your concerns at her next check up with her doctor.
I agree with the others who say she needs to feel safe in a dark, quiet house and she needs something to do until she feels sleepy again.
First - when it comes to everyone getting sleep, I say everything is on the table from bedsharing to sleep training, once kids are older than 6 months or so. Sleep is important! People will try to give you shit no matter which end of that spectrum you try - just ignore them, if you’re paying attention to your child’s needs, temperament, and development, balanced against your legitimate need for sleep.
We have used
[ul]
[li]Making bed time a lot earlier (yes, I said earlier!)[/li][li]“Good for a visit with Mommy” tickets - lets the child decide if her desire for your intervention is worth giving up the chance for a little prize in the morning.[/li][li]Making a “nest” on the floor by our bed that is comfortable enough to be slept on peacefully, but not *too *comfortable.[/li][li]Talking about fears, nightmares, letting yourself feel bad feelings until you don’t feel them anymore, being able to live through being scared, self-distraction, and so on (6-ish is a normal time to develop new fears!)[/li][li]Trying strategies from nightlights of various sorts to an ipod playing music on sleep mode, to watching DVDs all night.[/li][li]Brainstorming with the kid to solicit her ideas and get her buy-in[/li][/ul]They all work to one extent or another, and some work at different times. Nothing is a perfect, permanent fix, but these approaches have helped a lot!
Add my vote to “Sounds like she’s not getting to bed early enough” it’s one of those things about kids that seems counterintuitive, but sleep begets more sleep.
I have a 6 year old daughter myself, with a 6:15 wakeup call. She goes to bed at 7:00. We read for half an hour. She is sound asleep at 8, and sleeps until 6. If something unusual happens and she doesn’t get to sleep til 9, for example, she still wakes up at 6. If she goes to bed at 10 or midnight, she’s up at 6. That later bedtime robs her of her sleep schedule and turns her into an unmanageable grump. A day or two back on schedule getting her 10 hours a night, she’s all smiles and sweetness again.
I’d try an earlier (8:00) bedtime and see if that doesn’t help.
Seems like you’ve been medicating the problem with Benadryl and melatonin. IANADoctor but I am a parent of a child with absolutely horrible sleep issues beyond her control. Without medication, she will wake about 5 times per week wide awake for several hours in the middle of the night when going to sleep anywhere from 8:00pm to midnight. It’s likely to do with her autism.
Consider getting this checked out by a pediatrician or a Children’s Hospital Sleep Clinic. There may be something physiological going on.
As mentioned above, you could also try going to bed earlier and routine.
April, many people have given excellent advice here, but I’d like to mention something that jumped out at me from your OP. You said you have an established bedtime routine (good!) Which includes “scriptures, prayer, and a bedtime story”.
Speaking as a person with severe anxiety and insomnia from at least age 5, please consider that scripture can be terrifying. When pondering the delightful tale of Noah’s Ark, all I could imagine were all those children and animals drowning… Nightmare fodder.
At age 6, I was sure that God wanted to kill me because I was BAD. He could strike at any moment, and I would deserve whatever torture he chose.
If the prayer includes the phrase “if I die before I wake”… Nightmare fodder.
Even benign stories can cause anxiety in a sensitive or anxious child. An illustration that looks nice to an adult may cause terror for a child. The Tale of Peter Rabbit was scary to me. The farmer had already killed Peter’s father, and now Peter is being hunted by the murderer in a Halloween style bloodfest.
When I was 5, our school showed us a public safety film about what to do if your house is on fire. I barely slept after that, and my sleep was interrupted by vivid nightmares. I still have a house fire phobia to this day. I was an overly fearful and sensitive child; some kids are. I didn’t choose to be, and being punished instead of empowered didn’t help.
Your child may feel anxiety about any of these types of things, yet she’s not quite old enough to express her fears. Maybe she thinks you’ll belittle her fear as silly and stupid. Please don’t punish her; she’ll only be more afraid. Try asking her questions to figure out what might be causing her fear.
Remember that children have different brains and rich imaginations. Try to remember what it was like when YOU were small and afraid of something that seems silly now.
The only two nights we slept all night last week where on the weekend when I let her crawl into bed next to me. Last night was probably the worst night so far. She got up at 1am, I led her back to her room 5 times and before I knew it it was 5 am. I let her stay in the living room since it was 5am. At some point she had gone back to her bed, and we all slept until 7:15am. It was rough. Though both my son and daughter got ready this morning without any fuss despite the restless night. I have decided to give the sleep mat on the floor in our room a try. She was resistant, but I told her the only options she has as of right now are to stay in her bed or sleep on the floor in our room. So she said she would see how she feels tonight. Poor thing, I know how it feels to be insomniac. However, I am less sympathetic to her persistence in waking me up when she can’t sleep. Hopefully this mat thing will help.
My 6yo is in bed at around 7pm on school nights, sometimes a little later. He’s up on his own between 6 and 6:30 every morning, then on the bus at 7:00. I’m absolutely amazed that your daughter is able to function well on so little sleep. If my kids don’t get enough sleep, they can be difficult later in the day.
I ended up putting her preschool sleep mat on the floor in our room. She at first was hesitant to use it when she woke up at 2 am this morning, but I told her her only options were to sleep on the floor next to our bed or to go back to her bed. Shortly thereafter she was fast asleep on the mat, and we all got much more rest and were much happier this morning. I know this is just a temporary fix, but everyone got a long much better and everyone felt better. And at this point that is all that matters to me. I will battle the expectation of her staying in her room later.
This has been mentioned before, but I want to repeat it: she has no control over whether or not she slept all night. You shouldn’t be proud of her. She didn’t do anything. If you celebrate this with her as an achievement, it will mean that when she wakes up in the middle of the night tomorrow or next week, she will feel like she failed somehow, that she disappointed you.
What she can control is what she does when she wakes up. If she stays quietly in bed until she falls asleep, celebrate that. If she gets up, comes silently into your room, and falls asleep on your floor, celebrate that.
I’m not sure I entirely agree- I think celebrating happy moments doesn’t have to be value-laden. Sometimes it’s fun to celebrate little wins in life- a tooth falls out, getting a cast off, a good night’s sleep. While you might not want to use the word “proud”, per se, it’s ok to mark the moment. It’s also possible she woke up, laid quietly in her bed (yay!) and fell back asleep. It’s possible that knowing she could sleep near mommy and daddy if she needed to gave her a little confidence to not panic when she woke up. Those are behaviors to be proud of.
The trick is not looking upset when, inevitably, she has another disrupted night. And I do say inevitably, because even the best sleepers have rough nights, and learning new habits is a two-steps forward, one-step backward experience.
One can express shared joy and relief that she got a good night’s sleep, but I agree that “proud” is a value laden emotion that could become troublesome later. (I find it’s very often those little word choices that land us in the therapist’s chair many years later, as opposed to the big mistakes our parents feared they were making.)
I haven’t been able to say anything to her yet. This morning I had to leave before they woke up because I had to make a work meeting. So I will avoid the use of the word proud or any other value laden language. I plan on asking her how she feels and give her some ownership over the situation. I want to make her feel like she’s got some control over what’s going on and kind of ascertain what her feelings and thoughts are about it. Thanks for the advice everybody!
We’re trying the gate and it’s working… better. He largely stays in his bed and we leave the door open and the hallway light on so he seems happy to not be separated from the house. I thought he’d just roam around his room but, surprisingly, he mostly stays in bed and looks at books or a toy until he drops off. Last night he got up and pushed the gate out twice but it makes a clatter when it hits the floor so both times he just got a gentle scolding (“Go back to bed, buddy”) and the gate restored. After the second time he stayed put.
I tried sitting in the chair next to him for a half hour or so, not talking to him but just being present but it not only didn’t seem to help him fall asleep but gave him something to be upset about when I finally got up. And the next night he was all “Sit in chair? Daddy sit in chair!” at bed time so it only added an issue. Luckily, the new gate plan seems to have cut that off quickly.
I’ve tried that Supernanny trick where you lead them back to bed without talking to them and lay down in bed and you don’t engage them and keep doing that all night until they fall asleep. But honestly my kids find that to be a game. And as an excuse to stay up and keep coming into our room and we keep having to walk them back to their bed and they are getting the attention that they want. So that little strategy has never worked for us. And everyones sleepy and tired and cranky in the morning. So it may work for other people’s kids and it’s definitely worth a try, but we just found it doesn’t work for us. I was personally shocked when the mat on the floor worked. I thought she was going to sleep there every night until she was 12 or something. We’ll see how tonight goes, but it was a definite positive step in the right direction
The Suppernanny method is phenomenal for little ittie bitties who need the safety and security of their parent nearby while they are learning the self soothing techniques to get back to sleep. It also works for helicopter parents who think they have to fix everything, to teach them that is okay, even preferred, to sit by quietly and not engage while the child sorta it out for herself. It’s cruel and counter productive for older kids who know how to fall asleep but just can’t. Think of all the insomnia advice for adults. Rule number one is that when you can’t sleep, you get OUT of bed, so you don’t begin to associate your bed with sleeplessness. Can’t sleep: get out of bed. Won’t sleep: Supernanny 'em. It’s a fine distinction, but an important one.
I think you need to treat this exactly the same as if she comes into your room and sleeps on the mat (particularly without waking you up) - “Thank you for letting Mom and Dad sleep last night”.
It appears that you don’t know that she did sleep through the night - all you know is that she didn’t wake you up. Since that it is the behavior you want to encourage, that is what you should talk about. It has the added benefit of not making her feel bad about waking up (if she did) - as others have said better, she can’t help that.