Posted by Cyndi Fernandez on January 05, 1998 at 16:14:01:

Hi,

I have a son, 3.5 years old and we have been having lots of trouble getting him to sleep. This has been going on for quite some time, and has been getting progressively worse. It used to be "bedtime battles" for the most part,but now he just won't go to sleep.

Here is an example:

Last Saturday night, I tried to put him to bed at 9:00PM. He hadn't had a nap during the day, and had gotten up at around 8:30AM. We had the regular battle about going up to his room, and finally ne made a deal that I would let him watch a movie in his room if he would go up and lay down in bed. I brought up a Sesame Street video, about 30 minutes, and got him into bed. After the video, he acme downstairs.. saying "Hi Momma, I woke up!" I told him that it was still night time, and that he had to go back to bed. The battle starts again. I go upstairs with him, and read him a story while he is in bed. I leave, and in about 10 minutes, he's back downstairs. I put him up and lay down on the floor next to his bed with him, and he's acting silly, jumping around, etc. I leave thinking that I am only a distraction, and he comes down in a few minutes again. Finally, I put him up there sternly, telling him that if he comes down again I will close his door and hook the latch (which I *HATE* to do and I would never leave him locked in all night, just until he falls asleep) but he still wont stay in bed. So I take him up, scold him, put him in bed, and close and latch the door. He then has a full blown tantrum, kicking and pounding on the door, throwing himself against the door, screaming and crying for about an hour. This of course wakes up his little sister sleeping across the hallway. So after about an hour I figure that he must be pretty tired now after all that energy has been expended, so I bring him down figuring that he will calm down and fall asleep watching a movie... which he did at about 3:30am or so.

Next morning, he is awake and running about at about 7:00AM. Nobody else is awake yet, no alarm clocks or anything... he just woke up. I tried to make him take a nap Sunday afternoon, because he was tired, but he wouldn't. Sunday night, same battle, but it ended a bit earlier at about 1:00AM, and he woke up this morning under his own power at about 8:30AM.

He is tired, I can see that in his face. He will get his blankie and curl up in a ball on the floor or couch, and you might think he was about to go to sleep, and all of a sudden, as if he knows that he is going to sleep and he tries to stop it, he will bolt up, run around a bit and be wide awake.

We have got the Ferber book and tried the suggestions that appear to be relevant to his behavior, but nothing seems to work. We have tried a "calm down" period before bed, feeding him before bed, not feeding him before bed, playing with him in hopes of tiring him out, warm milk, baths, singing, stories, videos, sleeping with him in his bed, having him sleep with us, and even chaging rooms around upstairs because at one point he kept saying he could see "a man coming out of the wall" and he wouldn't go into his old room at all.. but now that it's his sister's room ,he goes in all the time.

Any suggestions?
Thanks, Cyndi

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