3.5 yr old daughter afraid at bedtime, I don't know of what!

amother

Wed, Nov 30 2022, 9:39 pm

My daughter is close to 4 yrs, has some delays. Mostly speech/expressive language. She understands Everything, totally knows what's going on, but cannot express herself properly. (she's in a special ed. preschool, receives speech therapy)

Lately she's been giving me a very hard time going to sleep.

She seems very ready for bed, cuddles up with me, says shema, and then suddenly, while her two sisters that she goes to sleep with are under their covers ready to close their eyes, she announces that she doesn't want to go to sleep.

I put her in her bed, sit with her, sing to her... She jumps up, refusing to lay down, or lays down and then gets up and comes downstairs, again and again...

For a while I thought it was a behavior thing, but lately she really seems scared to go to sleep. The way she's all ready and sleepy and suddenly pops up and insists on coming out of bed. And her latest thing is she sometimes gets into bed with my 8 yr old daughter, often falling asleep with her.

The hardest part is trying to talk to her, see if something's really bothering her, but she just says things like "I don't wanna sleep!" or "Ewy bed!"

I feel like there's something she's thinking but can't figure out how to tell me. Sad

Any advice?

amother

Saddlebrown

Thu, Dec 01 2022, 9:39 pm

Nightmares? It usually start around 3 but if she's delayed maybe now.
I have a 2yr old playgroup. A few yrs ago I had a kid that gave his mother a hard time to go to sleep, he got scared from me telling them the chanuka story! (believe me, told on a 2yr old level it wasn't scary) but he had a lot of imagination!