Develop and maintain positive sleep routines.

From APIofPeoriaWiki

Q:Help! My 3 year old is having sleep issues. She has always been a great sleeper in the past. We do the bed time routine (brush teeth, read books, tuck her in, prayers, etc) and she would go to sleep with no problems. For the past 6 months, she will wake up crying in the night. For awhile, we could pat her back and she would go back to bed. Sometimes I would let her go into bed with me. Now, she ONLY wants to go to bed with me. In the night if she gets scared, I am okay with it but she wont even start off sleeping in her bed now. She wants to start off in our bed before we are even in it. I used to not mind the co-sleeping but lately she kicks A LOT and I have gotten no sleep at all. Nate goes downstairs to sleep b/c its the same with him. I think she may be having night terrors - she thrashes around screaming NO, NO, NO. I dont mind cosleeping sometimes but I cant go on like this with no sleep night after night - its making me nuts...

Help - what can I do???

A:I agree that it sounds like she may be having night terrors or bad dreams. If she is scared, even attempting to have her start in her own bed if she's not comfortable may prolong this stage. That doesn't mean that it's not frustrating and a little worrisome to put her back in your bed with her! I wish I had some brainstorms for making it work for you if that's what she needs or ideas to get her confident going to sleep in her own bed, but I don't. I'm sure others will, though.

I would do a lot of listening, talking, and validating with her to get to the root of the issue. When DS is having bad dreams, I talk about something good he could think about while falling asleep. That sometimes helps. Also, if you find out that something in real life is bothering her and find a way to eliminate it, the dreams may dissipate.

Three is a very common age to go back to a baby "clingy" stage. It is very scary being a three year old. They are old enough to understand that they are no longer babies and are more entrenched in the real world. At the same time, that scares them and they just want to be with their mommies all of the time. It reassures them that they are safe and that their mommies aren't going to stop being there for them just because they are getting older. To a three year old, they are looking at kids bigger than them and not seeing any mommies around them. They don't understand that they will eventually not want their mommy around so much, so I think they assume that as they get older the mommies push the kids away.

A:Can you start her out in your bed, but set a time limit? So that you aren't keeping her in bed with you all night? If she goes to bed at 7:30 or 8:00, can you move her to her bed at 9:00?

Another idea is the Winnie the Pooh tent. We bought a $15 kid's pop up tent at Walmart and put it up in DD's room. She was more willing to sleep in the Pooh tent. It really helped a lot.

What about crib mattress on the floor? Or a special sleeping bag? Then you are right there, but you still will be able to sleep better. We talked at the sleep meeting about Elizabeth Pantley's idea of on the floor and out the door. Move them slowly out of the room.

Another idea is for you to go sleep in her bed, if you can't get some sleep. Remember that this WILL pass and that the validation and connection that you work for with her will be reaping the benefits for much longer than the actual stage lasts.

A:DS has nightmares and he talks through them (which is how I know it is a dream it's because of what he is saying) and he thrashes and kicks alot. Afterwards he wants to be held/touching me the rest of the night. I can definitely see this as a reason why someone would not want to be "alone" in their own bed. It must be extremely frightening. Is there anything that is going on that could lead to nightmares. It can easily be something that you might overlook as being trivial, but may be very big to her. Since the dreams seem to be reoccuring it is probably something that is also reoccuring and not a one time situation, unless it was a major big situation.

If it's not already, can her bed be moved into your room? Can she start off in your bed with the understanding that once she is asleep she will be moved into her own bed? DS's bed is in our room, he is put to sleep in our bed, but once he is asleep he is moved to his own bed. These days (since there is so much change going on at our house) he finds his way back into my bed sometime during the night though.

I would definitely try to figure out what is going on during the day time, that could be leading to these sleep disturbances.

Night Terrors

A night terror occurs in deep stage 4 sleep and the child does not remember it unless they are woken up during it. A nightmare occurs during REM sleep and is of course a bad dream. A person can very much remember these, even if by the next morning they "forget" it's mostly due to age and not being able to articulate what is scaring them while asleep rather then them not remembering it at all.

A person does not wake during a sleep terror. They *may* open their eyes but they are not awake. They can scream from seconds to 15 or more minutes, but then drop right back in bed fast asleep. If they scream for a short time then wake up then it was probably a nightmare. Both can be brought about due to extreme amounts of stress during waking hours. Night terrors do have a developmental phase though that may be more due to the increase in brain activity (imaginative play, learning, physical play, etc) and so age 3 would be a prime time for them to occur. I have heard that if a child is prone to night terrors that decreasing their physical activity in the last few hours of the day can be helpful, it allows the brain to take more time to calm down and relax before it enters into the stages of sleep. Night terrors occur during deep/slow wave stage 4 sleep. So it is possible that the brain is having to much difficulty slowing down the way it needs to, resulting in the sleep terror.