How to make your child sleep better in the night?

[Acidica]

My daughter is 3 years old and till now she does not sleep through the night. She will either ask for milk, water or she needs to pee. At times she has bad dreams and she will make noise.


Me and DH will wake up 3-4 times a night to care for her and it is driving me nuts at time.

Does anyone has better idea :idea: what will make a child sleep through the whole night? I will be thankful!

[Bowie]

Hi, not sure if this is applicable for a 3 yo. Since baby, I always have some background sound (a mini fan) on when my gal sleep.


Keeping the room too quiet make any small noise very amplified in night time.

Maybe can try.

[schellen]

Is your girl napping well in the day? If she doesn’t, then she may be overtired by bedtime and will not be able to sleep or sleep properly. When people (not just children) get overtired, our bodies compensate by having a shot of adrenalin. This makes us energetic again but actually is not good for health as it is only a temporary measure. The best is to let her nap well in the day so that by bedtime, she will be tired but not overtired. Once her body’s adrenalin has kicked in, the only thing you can do is to slowly wind her down again. Getting her to bed immediately will backfire on you.


If this is not the case, examine her activities for the day, especially those in the late afternoon and evening. For my DD, if she does something that keeps her excited and "on high" during these times, it is very difficult to get her to sleep soundly at night. She will tend to wake up often and sometimes may get nightmares/night terrors. She is already 7 this year but her sleeping behaviour has remained the same for so many years. To prevent this, we schedule calmer activities for her nearer bedtime. Our parents also know about this so they co-operate.

My DD is also prone to nightmares if she watches/reads something scary and/or violent. This may persist even a few days after the actual thing has happened. Therefore, we are very careful when screening stuff for her to watch/read. Now that she is older, she understands and doesn’t want the nightmares so when we decline her requests to watch/read something, she doesn’t insist on it. Perhaps you can check your daughter’s exposure to media? Don’t take the G/PG rating for shows at face value. You know your child best so check the show out yourself first. Same for books. Some seemingly tame stories may have a scary illustration right in the middle of the book so we always check first. Kids’ programmes on TV may be interspersed with trailers/ads for adult shows so be wary. My DD has learned to change the channel or mute the TV and shut her eyes when that happens.

What I mentioned here may not be what your child is experiencing so the best way is to observe your child during the day as well to get an idea why she behaves like that at night. Good luck! ^_^

[buds]

One question :-


Is your child sleeping WITH you and hubs

OR

is your child already sleeping IN HER OWN ROOM?

[Jav]

Hi,


I have a slight different difficulty in putting children to sleep by themselves in their own room. My boy is 4 & my girl is 3, both of them sleep in the same room. They refuse to sleep through if I don’t sleep in between of them. My helper or myself can put them to sleep and I tried to get back to my room after they are in deep sleep but then in the middle of night, I would get all the cryings. So, in the end, I keep sleeping with them so that everyone have some peace. No matter how I tell my son, he is always so afraid to sleep without mummy. But then, I don’t prefer this arrangement as one day, they would have to go to bed their own. Anybody has any tricks or ideas to share?

[Acidica]

Bowie:

Hi, not sure if this is applicable for a 3 yo. Since baby, I always have some background sound (a mini fan) on when my gal sleep.


Keeping the room too quiet make any small noise very amplified in night time.

Maybe can try.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will try anything to get a good night sleep.

[Acidica]

buds:

One question :-


Is your child sleeping WITH you and hubs

OR

is your child already sleeping IN HER OWN ROOM?

Hi buds, my daughter sleeps with us in our room. She keep asking for me to accompany her every night so that is why she is still rooming with us.

[sunset_dae]

i think waking up in the middle of night a few time asking for milk and water has become a habit instead of need. What time is their last feed?


What i suggest is continue to pat them when they wake up to ask for milk or water. ( i tried this way and it works, DD now is 2 yrs old and wake up at 6am for milk and his last feed is 8.30pm)

u can also play soothing music before they sleep

[Acidica]

Thanks schellen for your post! I did the similar thing too like dimming the light before bed time to wind her down and no scary or violent movie before that.


She goes to nursery for 1.5 hrs in the morning and she naps for about 2 hours in the afternoon. I am not sure is it because she is light sleeper but I will try to monitor her activities like what you suggest.

Would anyone thinks that putting light lavender scent in the room would helps? Personally I like lavender very much. Make me feels good and relaxing

[Acidica]

Hi sunset_dae, I agreed it becomes a bad habit. She used to sleep with my parent in law and the habits starts then.


Her last feed is about 10pm and I going to try to play the soothing music to see if it works for her. I'm keeping my fingers cross and pray hard!