6 Year Old Daughter Not Sleeping at Night? Help...

eliminate milk from her diet - there was a study that came out in 2002 that said that a hidden milk allergy was the main cause of sleep problems in young children. My older daughter NEVER slept though the night until she was almost 4 and I finally took the plunge to see if it was milk. After 5 days of no milk, she was sleeping through the night completely. Another few days and I decided to test the theory and overloaded her with milk products. She was up 6 times that night.
After that we experimented and found she could have ONE glass at lunch, but if she had it at dinner we had nightmares. If she had two glasses in the day, even if before noon, she had nightmares. It has just been in the last 2 yrs (she is 11 now) that she can have milk whenever she wants and not have nightmares.

She had NO other signs of a milk allergy, ever.

She needs to feel comfort in her own bed again... I saw at walmart they have these "night lights" called Mobi Tyke Lights. They are colored night lights that are battery powered and portable, so your daughter can sleep with it right in her bed. It also has a timer that dims the light and eventually turns off in 15 minutes. Its worth a shot. Have you talked about her bad dreams? She might need help understanding what is actually reality. You could also take your daughter shopping to pick out her own dream catcher or better yet buy a kit and make one with her. It might help her fall asleep thinking there is something to prevent bad dreams. You just want to make sure that she is never scared to come to you... but that there are also other ways to get comfort.

Good luck

I recommend that you check out the link below...it has a number of a sleeping tips that other parents have used to get their children to sleep, and it may spark some ideas that you may not have tried yet. Hope it helps..good luck!

http://www.theskinnyscoop.com/search/sleep?utm_campaign=t...

You need to be firm with her. If this is becoming a habit, you need to make it stop. It's not healthy for either of you. The next time she gets up, I would just tell her to go back to bed, and be firm about it. My stepdaughter used to do the same thing as an attention-getter. We told her she had to go back to bed and go to sleep. It took a couple days of her getting up, but as soon as she realized she was going to get nowhere, she stopped.

My daughter went through a phase like that when she was 8. Luckily it was during the summer because she just literally seemed unable to sleep. We tried everything we could think of and nothing helped. We even started letting her turn on the light to read in the middle of the night, had her watch DVDs, thinking she would get tired or distracted from thinking about it & fall back asleep but nothing worked. She was just wide awake & had no problem staying awake during the day. She also did not watch any scary movies, etc. that should have been keeping her awake. We tried to find out if something was bothering her, making her nervous, etc. but she couldn't come up with anything & really wasn't acting like anything was wrong. She would cry sometimes during the night though because she thought something was wrong with her because she couldn't sleep. Eventually (I can't remember how long it lasted) it stopped & she was able to sleep again. She is now scared to sleep at anyone else's house though because she is afraid that may happen again in the middle of the night. Hopefully this phase will not last long for your daughter; I know it is h*** o* both of you. Good Luck!