Almost 4y and never slept by herself

[Julia27031986]

Hi,

I have a daughter that is almost 4 years old and she never sleeps by herself,since  her birth I had lots of problems with her sleep,she was a very diffucult baby,always crying due to the lack of sleep,she always needed my breast to fall asleep and stay asleep,since her birth she never slept the whole night without waking up,even now she needs my help to go to sleep and at night she wakes up and comes to our bed to sleep with us.....anyone had this problem? how did you solve it? is there a hope for my daughter and me or it will always stay this way??? pls help....i have 2 more children one almost 2 years and she is a good sleeper thanks to Tracy because I followed all her advices and achieved great results and now with the baby of 2 weeks I am doing the same but struggle with my 4years old daughter.....

[consmummy]

I really don't know but all I can say is at 4 years of age at least you can reason with her, so maybe a reward chart might be the way to go. Perhaps couple that with Gradual Withdrawal, take it slowly and you might get progress that way.

[clazzat]

I'd agree with pp - she is definitely old enough to understand a conversation, so you could explain to her that she is a big girl and should be sleeping by herself.  She can also tell you why she comes through to you - and then you can address the issue.  It's possible that she is waking and being scared of the dark, or is having bad dreams or something like that, so you can talk her through any problems.

I think you probably do need to do Gradual Withdrawal, as her need for you to be there to sleep is very firmly ingrained, but I'm sure that you can do it.  If she would respond to a reward chart then that might help, but you will know best if there is another way to encourage her to stay in her own bed that might work better.

[Julia27031986]

I did all this already,especially talking to her,trying to explain why she has to stay in her bed ect but without succes and reward chart also tried,it worked for 1 day but then she didn't care anymore about bein reward if she stays in her bed....when she wakes up she doesn't cry she just comes to our bed and sleeps .....no crying no requests for anything....

[clazzat]

I think maybe you need to just take her straight back to bed, then, and keep doing it until she gets the message - no talking or interacting, just take her hand, put her back to bed and leave, as often as you need to until she stays in bed. By this age she could be pretty persistent, so I would think that you should be prepared for a few nights where you really don't get much sleep.