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My 3 1/2 yr old DD is exhausted and over tired because she has trouble falling asleep at night. She is almost always in bed by 7pm and usually gets up between 6:30-7:30. She does not take naps (she hasn't been napping since she turned 2). Most nights she is awake in her room for 2 plus hours. Last night it was closer to 2.5. Because she is so sleep deprived she is having night terrors. While she doesn't remember them, they are very disruptive for the rest of our household. She isn't scared to go to sleep or be in her room by herself. She happily goes to bed without any problem she just can't seem to settle down. Her room is pretty dark (small night light and the hallway light is usually on). We only bathe her every other night (she has eczema so we can't give her a bath every night). She has a white noise machine that she uses (and has used since birth). I don't know what else to try. She needs to get some decent sleep. I don't want her to nap because on those days where she does fall asleep from pure exhaustion she is up until midnight or later. Looking for ideas on things I can try. Does anyone know if it is safe to give melotonin to kids? How much do you give them? Any other ideas. We are willing to try just about anything. I have the same issues about settling down at night, but the stuff I use to settle myself isn't appropriate for a 3 yr old. This sleep deprived mama needs some help. Thank you.
I wanted to add we do read to her every night. We brush teeth and her and her brother each get two books, so she usually listens to 4 books before bed. They get to choose what we read, but usually it amounts to about 25 minutes of reading stories between the two of them.
I was going through my old posts and realized that never updated this post. My daughter is now almost 7 and we are still struggling with sleep issues. After several visits to the doctor they want her to go to a sleep clinic, but I am afraid it will freak her out having to spend the night in a strange place. Shortly after this post she started to suffer from seizures. It was terrifying and after thousands of dollars on testing, the neurologist could not identify the reason for them. He told us that some children experience seizures during periods of rapid growth. She has since outgrown them. We never tried the melatonin, we were told by our dr. that they can trigger seizures in kids (only to end up being diagnosed with them a few months later). We have tried lavender scented things (bath products and aromatherapy in her room) but that doesn't seem to work as well. We were not able to try the cherries or cherry juice since she is allergic to cherries but are now trying to eliminate gluten from her diet to see if that helps (Gluten allergy runs in my family). My kids don't watch TV in the evenings, except for an occasional family movie night and that is only about 1 a month. Her being active enough isn't an issue either. She has the same problems year round (even when she has swim practice 5 days a week). She also plays soccer in the fall, ballet in the winter, swimming for the spring/summer. She plays outside (weather permitting) for at least an hour every day after school jumping on the trampoline, roller skating, or jumping rope etc. She is always moving and really does need a lot of exercise daily. Her bedtime routine is now much different since she is older. She brushes teeth, jammies, etc then reads (chapter books) to herself for about 15 minutes each night. She no longer wants the white noise, and we tried music earlier in place of it, but that was too stimulating for her (even classical music). Now she prefers nothing. She is very bright (first grade but reads at almost a 4th grade level) and the doctor said she just has trouble turning her brain off. I have given her a journal and hoping she can write down things that on her mind so we can talk about them the next day. I have been doing a lot of research and hoping that the changes in her diet that we are implementing have a drastic effect on everything. We know she has additional unidentified food allergies (she frequently has hives) but it is hard to determine what is from food and what is from environment exposures etc.
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Dried sour cherries or sour cherry juice. No kidding. About 4 oz of juice has enough melatonin to knock a kid out. I suggest a small cup after a bath or other bedtime ritual (maybe a quiet book in a rocking chair?) and before teeth brushing. Dried cherries taste a little like raisins to some kids, and cherry juice tastes like tart prune juice.
Once you get your kid on a schedule you like, you can taper off the juice and their own melatonin should kick in with the lessening of sunlight. A dim or dark room helps trigger melatonin release.
While cherries have enough to help, do not give your kid actual melatonin without a doctors supervision though, since too much an cause seizures.
Night terrors are not caused by sleep deprivation (although hallucinations can be caused by a lack of REM sleep), night terrors are pretty common and probably developmental. Around 3 AM the liver starts to kick out sugar to prep the body to awaken at dawn (in most sleep/wake cycles), and kids/adults tend to wake up partially at that time of night.
Also, napping is a developmental requirement for children's brains, and they actually sleep better at night if they are getting naps as needed. They eventually do grow out of them.
Good luck!!!
We have a little one just like yours. We have learned to sit in the room and read whatever we happen to have for me its my school books, for my husband it was the scriptures or Louis L'Amour. It doesn't matter as long as our voice is steady and we don't try to act it out our little one will eventualy fall to sleep. We have found that she just doesn't like to be apart from the family guess she is scared she'll miss out. I have also found when really desperate that putting on veggie tales, or the tv station that has all opera, music has been a life saver. I got that idea from an adult that sleeps with a tv on all night.
Good Luck, Nana Glenda
You have recieved some good answers. I would also watch the diet, how much sugar she is getting. Good diet is very important. You can look up foods that promote sleep, such as turkey & milk. Using lavender is good for sleep, you can buy a bag of it at World Market and maybe put it into a tiny pillow. There is a baby bath product made with lavendar...don't know much about it. Maybe someone else can comment on it.I keep the lavender pillow right by my pillow and I think it helps. Good ol aromatherapy. Good Luck.
Do some research on Melatonin. It is something that the body produces but it is often given to kids and adults. I've heard great things about it and nothing negative.
There isn't an easy answer to your question, but here are some thoughts I have that you might try... It might be worth trying a controlled daytime nap. Put her down after lunch and help her get to sleep, but don't let her sleep more than two hours. Then do put her to bed a little later.. say 8 rather than 7. Have your dinner done by six or six thirty... no snacks, especially sweet snacks at night. Encourage only quiet activities after dinner. Her bath would be her activity on bath nights. Some quiet games or puzzles would be good for the other nights. When it's getting close to bedtime, let her have a glass of milk (calcium is supposed to be a great sleep help and she will get that from the milk). Then have a regular routine of getting her pajamas on, brushing her teeth, and having two or three calming books read to her. Then take her into her room and have a regular routine of some sort when saying goodnight. You might sing a lullaby, have prayers or a quiet talk, and give hugs and kisses... whatever works for you, but do it the same way each night to calm her down. If it helps, stay by her side while she settles down to sleep, then quietly slip out of her room. If it works better for her to go to sleep without you in the room, say your goodnights and leave. It may take some time for her to adjust to such a routine, and may seem time consuming for you until she does settle, but it will be worthwhile for both of you if she starts sleeping better.
Naptimes don't need to be in her bed where she sleeps at night, but you should have a regular place where she takes a nap so that becomes a routine too. Perhaps put a CD of nice quiet naptime music on for her.. and have two or three that you rotate so those are also a routine, but not so repetitive that you get tired of hearing them, and it gives her a bit of variety. Those don't have to be children's songs either. Nice calm piano or organ music works just as well. We also use some of the recordings of nature sounds sometimes.
Regular routines are often what a child needs when having trouble falling asleep, because they get so keyed up during their day, and this helps calm them down at night.
Hi T., This happens with our daughter when she doesn't manage to get all her energy out during the day. These last couple of rainy weeks have kept her inside, and I've definitely noticed that when she doesn't get the chance to run around for about an hour, she has a hard time falling asleep. On the days where she does, she gets to sleep much more quickly. Our daughter is about the same age and sleeps about the same number of hours as yours (no naps anymore either), so I don't think you need to move bedtime -- if you do, she'll probably wake at the same time anyway and then get less sleep despite your efforts. I also wouldn't go the drug route. There's some other underlying issue for her, so you'll want to address that rather than the symptom. Just my 2 cents :) Also, there are a couple of books you might want to read by Jodi Mindell, one for infant/toddlers (Sleeping Through the Night) and one for kids/teens (Take Charge of Your Child's Sleep) -- we read the infant/toddler one (recommended by our pediatrician who was on a nationwide sleep task force for kids) and LOVED it - more practical and humane than the Ferber thing, more efficient with solutions than "no-cry" and helped you get out of bad habits that may have already developed rather than just making you feel like a loser for being in those situations :) (Yes, I read 5 sleep books in their entirety before finally solving our issues with Mindell's book a couple years ago). I haven't read the kids/teens one, but the reviews are very good on Amazon. I would bet that both cover your situation. And their advice is from experts who have studied kids with sleep issues, so it might be more helpful than what the rest of us are telling you here -- not that we moms aren't awesome :) Hope that helps, and best of luck!
My son dropped his naps at 2 y/o as well, but would get 2 hrs of quiet time each day. However he would sleep 12 hrs at night, going to bed by 7-7:30 p.m.
When he was about 3 he started having trouble falling asleep by 7:00 and would be more like 9:00 p.m., but still waking at the same time in the morning! What I did was changed his bedtime since he was getting older and growing I figured I needed to adjust his sleep schedule. Therefore, we wouldn’t begin our night time routine until later and each week went about 30 minutes later each time. Within a month we would start his night time routine at 8:00( it was 6:00). It took a couple of weeks to adjust but before we knew it he was sleeping from 8:30-8:45 p.m. until about 7:30 the next morning. We always end the night with reading books in his bed. Our bedtime books are about nighttime (Good night moon, Good night Gorilla, Moon in my Room, etc.) which soothes him into a wonderful sleep.Throughout all this I reamined very patient and never became agitated or nervous. Your child is just changing (growing) so maybe her schedule needs to as well? It worked for us… maybe it will work for you?
Also I agree with Hannah's post about no sleep aids. Good luck!!!
What you need to do is make sure you have a good bedtime routine, which does not have to include a bath. Turn the tv off an hour before bedtime, and try to dim the lighting, use lamps if possible instead of overhead lights. Try to have the same routine every night, for example, brush teeth, 2 books, then bed, where you tuck in and say goodnight. This works well for our daughter, but she is 3 and still takes an afternoon nap, then goes to bed about 7:30-8, whenever the eye rubbing starts. We find it much easier to get our child to sleep if we follow a routine like this, as she knows what to expect, even if she manages to con us into an extra book or two sometimes. :-)
Children this age need 10-12 hours sleep per day, whether with nap or without.
You may want to try reading her chapter books. I read the entire first three of the Harry Potter Books to my now 16 year old when she was too young to read. It worked like a charm. I think having no pictures to looks at helped, because she would eventually close her eyes while I read.
I agree with all others about staying away from melatonin. Ask your pediatrician if you really want to use it, but there are so many different ways to get your child to sleep, and using a supplement at that age is not a good idea.
Everyone has different circadian rhythms. Our son is a night owl - always has been, but he's awake early every morning no matter what time he goes to sleep. That's just his body (he's 3.5 too).
Around his 3rd birthday we started having struggles with sleep. Our pediatrician said it's likely his body going through different phases.
I do agree with the other moms that 7 pm is really early for a kid that age - especially as the days are getting longer. Also, I haven't heard that night terrors are associated with being sleep-deprived. Our daughter has had them since she was 8 months old. They're really common in kids from 3-10 years-old in particular.
I'd say, more than anything, her inability to fall asleep is a sign that she's just not ready at that time. If she has toys in her room, books, etc. they're all stimulating her to a certain degree.
I don't have any good advice because both our kids fight going to sleep each night, but I do know that routines are critical.
Does she get enough exercise during the day? What kind of foods is she eating in the evenings. Carbs are energy. If you're doing pasta, etc. she may be getting too much energy that way and having a hard time settling down.
Try putting her to bed a little later. I think 7pm is a little early. Also, do you read to her before bed to settle her down? No meds - please!!
She needs a nap. A 3 1/2 year old needs sleep and they need a nap. Try making the nap early in the day. The 2 year old that I watch eats lunch at 11am and then is down for his nap by 11:30. We have to pick up my boys from school so I want to make sure he gets his nap before that. I can't remember for sure but I think my boys napped after they had their lunch at noon, probably down by 1pm. Try to not let her nap after 3pm.
I would avoid giving her anything medicine Natural or not...not good. You wouldn't want her to have to rely on that stuff the rest of her life. Have you tried letting her listen to music (lullaby cd) at night instead of just a noise machine? Every child is different some kids I know go to bed really well after a warm glass of milk.
I don't actually think 7 is too early at that age, without a nap she needs it. And she's overtired, so keeping her up right now won't help. Sleep terrors are absolutely worse when the child is overtired, and you can help avoid them if you track when it happens (my son is about 1 hr and 15 minutes after falling asleep) and wake her gently before then (at an hour) to restart her sleep cycle.
Overall, it's a huge cycle you're in, as overtired kids have a very hard time settling themselves down, making it harder to get good sleep, making it harder to go down next time. I would say grab Marc Weissbluth's "Healthy Sleep habits, Happy Child" if you haven't read it already, he has great advice. I would also say that 25 minutes for reading is too long, I've read that the whole bedtime routine (teeth and potty included) shouldn't be longer than 20 minutes or so. So reading should probably be more like 10 minutes. I think the trouble could be that she's laying down, hearing stories, and perhaps feeling ready to sleep, but as it goes on, her brain senses it needs to stay up so a chemical is released to stay awake, making it virtually impossible to sleep until it dissipates. Shorten the whole process.
Lastly, I am a huge white noise fan (we all use one) but try some quiet music and see if that helps. My friend's son was struggling too, and it took him months to be able to find the words to say he wanted music.
Good luck!
