Four Year Old Has Insomnia

I absolutely disagree with giving a child anything to get them to sleep!! As the others suggested just get rid of the nap and let her adjust to getting all of her sleep at night. No doubt she be tired earlier and sleep great once she her body adjusts to the new schedule!
Good Luck!

1 mom found this helpful

I have a 4 year old girl who started fighting nap time about a year ago. I finally gave it up six months ago because I noticed that when she had a nap (usually 2 hours) she had trouble falling asleep at night. I tried giving shorter naps, but she is very difficult to wake once she is asleep. So we no longer do naps, instead we have "quiet time" in her room in the afternoon. Some day cares will allow children to have quiet time in a separate room from the sleeping children. They can use the time to look at books, color, puzzles any quiet activity. If my daughter has a nap, she will not fall asleep before 10 pm either, so I understand your dilemna. If the day care is not accomodating to your needs as a family (for her to go to bed earlier), then I'd look for another place that is more understanding. Good luck.

1 mom found this helpful

I agree with some of the others. A two hour nap for a 4 year old is rarely heard of. My 4 year old will nap maybe once every 2 weeks (and that is only because he's fallen asleep in the car). I would definitely insist they not do this anymore and explain it is affecting her sleep at night and affecting your family life. I hate to think this way but the fact that the daycare is trying to nap a 4 year old sounds like they are being a bit lazy. You don't pay them to have her sleep. I think this is probably your biggest issue. Good luck. I hope you all get some rest soon!

1 mom found this helpful

Hi J.,
you did not mention if your daughter sleeps the nite thru. but I agree that a 2 hr nap during the day is too long for a 4 year old. She should maybe have a 30 or 45 minute nap if needed or no nap at all at that age. Unfortunately most day cares insist that all the children "nap". I would speak with the day care and explain your issue with her at bed time and see if they can make an exception with her- like take her to another room and let her color or play while the others nap..... or give her some task to perform etc- if they don;t want to cooperate I would consider changing day care. Taking naps during the week and not on week end will upset her sleep schedule and if she does good on week ends she does not need to nap during the week.
good luck and blessings

1 mom found this helpful

I agree that nap time is super long. Find another daycare that will not give a two hour nap to a four yr old. Good luck.

1 mom found this helpful

well yes as everyone has stated that her naps are to long my son have been have nightmares, talks in his sleep and gets out of bed sometimes but what do i do just pray for him but it does not happen every night so any way i hear putting Vita Cal under the tongue helps with a better nights sleep my sons has no problem sleeping if he has a bad dream we talk about it he gets it off his chest and falls right back to sleep so you may want to think about the Vata Cal it is calcium which the baby needs anyway kids should get around 600 iu (DV) this has 400 so its a win win to me if the baby sleep threw the night

http://www.shaklee.net/healthydesire/product/20146
read th lable of this natural supplement

I also read in a kids book that Lecithin helps with this also you can read abou it at
http://www.shaklee.net/healthydesire/product/20182
it helps with brain neuro-transmitter production

i wish you all the best I do know pretty much how you feel my son is 8 so have went threw this for the last 6years

Be Blessed

Hi J.,
I had a similar experience with my oldest daughter, but not to the degree that you have with your daughter. Mine is basically a night owl. When she was 4, she was in preschool at a center that was also a full-time daycare, so they were required by law to have the kids lie down for a certain amount of time. I also didn't want to switch her to another school b/c the one she was at was so wonderful and I didn't want her to experience that trauma. What I worked out with my daughter's teachers was that she would lie down for one hour, and if she wasn't asleep, they would allow her to have a book to look at while she was on her mat, or allow to to get up and do a quiet activity. Unfortunately, very often she would fall asleep right at the one-hour mark, and I would arrive 2 hours later to find her still sleeping. I would then find myself putting her to bed at 8:30pm and spending the next 2-3 hours putting her to bed every 5 minutes or so. It was exhausting and frustrating. It went on until she was finally developmentally able to lie down for that hour at naptime and not fall asleep. It took a long time. Part of the problem was I think the teachers really WANTED her to sleep b/c then they got a break and could get some things done that they couldn't do with kids running around. I had to keep telling them over and over what a hard time I was having at bedtime, and finally they started letting her get up (instead of pushing the hour to an hour and a quarter or an hour and a half to see if she would fall asleep!). But, my daughter never slept with us (none of us got any sleep when we tried it if she was sick or something), and she hasn't ever had nightmares. Is it possible your daughter is having night terrors? Different from nightmares b/c they seem awake during the terrors but in reality they are asleep. From what I understand it is incredibly scary for parents but the children don't remember it and eventually grow out of it. I believe it is important not to wake the child from a night terror but just soothe them until they lay back down and are calm again, which it sounds like you're doing. My youngest is now 4 and I can see her developing into a night owl as well, but she is at a preschool where they only lie down for 30 minutes a day, so she doesn't fall asleep. I've noticed recently that often when I put her to bed at 8 or 8:30, she will stay up and play with her toys for awhile. I just let her. As long as she is staying in her room I'm happy. If she's not ready to fall asleep yet, then she can sit in her bed and talk to her stuffed animals until she's tired enough to close her eyes. Is this something your could try with your daughter? I've always heard/read that TV is stimulating and you shouldn't let your children watch TV for one hour before bedtime. If you have a very sensitive child then music might have the same effect. Have you considered having her evaluated by a child psychologist to make sure there aren't any underlying issues at play? Okay, one last bit of advice, my niece was a terrible sleeper from the time she was a newborn. My SIL let her sleep with them for quite a while, but then when they moved to a new house when she was about 4, they put her in her own bed but my SIL would lie down with her until she was asleep. Once her daughter was asleep she would get up (if she hadn't already fallen asleep herself!) This kinda helped to transition the little girl to her own room/bed, without the scariness of not having mom or dad nearby when she was trying to go to sleep. She started sleeping better at night when she wasn't sleeping with her parents (I think co-sleeping is great, but it can also make for a restless night when the child starts getting bigger and you're all kicking and shoving each other all night long!). She is now 12 and sleeps on her own just fine. I hope this helps, if nothing else to just let you know you're not alone! Good luck to you, I know what you're going thru isn't easy.

Wow! You sure have an unusual problem there. I'm not sure if this will help, but it may do so here goes.

As a child I barely slept, I would stay awake late into the night and always was the first up. I slept (so my mother tells me) only about 6 hours a night. This changed a bit when I came into my teens. As an adult I suffer from terrible insomnia, sometimes I sleep only 3-4 hours a night and feel sick because of it. My dreams are vivid, and I have a lot of nightmares. It seems this is bought on by any form of stress, I'm just "highly strung" I guess.

As an adult I have discovered 5-HTP to be absolutely fantastic. It's a serotonin precursor, your body needs it to produce serotonin which is required to sleep. My body seems to need this. Its natural, you get it from health stores. It takes about 5 days of taking it daily to build up enough in my system for it to work. If I take it daily my insomnia is gone. There are no side effects, I certainly have noticed none. You cannot take it with alcohol or some prescription medications, but that's probably irrelevant for a 4 year old.

If you wanted to give this a go a naturopath may be able to help with advice and dosage.

I wish your daughter a good nights sleep!

Hi J.-

I understand your reluctance to create a problem with the daycare, but if they do naptime the way other daycares my children have attended do then they should be able to at least wake her up earlier if not eliminate the nap entirely. In my experience daycares have a set minimum rest time (could be an hour). They have all the children lie quietly for that long and then allow those not still asleep to get up and play quietly while the sleepers are allowed to continue sleeping until they wake up on their own. It could be that your daughter is the last one left sleeping (as my daughter always was) and that her sleeping 2 hours is not really the school norm it's just that she is so tired that she continues to sleep. I would say you should talk to them about it and see if this is the case. If so, ask them to wake her up at the end of the required "quiet time".

By the way, my daughter went through a phase (about 6 months) where she was having night terrors quite regularly. It is very scary and I completely understand where you are coming from.

Best of luck to you,
K.

Hi J.,

I went thru this last year, and my daughters pediatrician recommended Melatonin. It is a natural sleep aid. I was not at all in favor of giving my child medicine to help her sleep, but this worked excellent and I realized that I needed to get sleep as well. I would crush up a 5mg pill and I would give it to her with some yogurt or something she liked and about 30 minutes later she was ready to go to bed. I only had to do this for a few weeks and then she got in the habit of going to bed around 8 on her own. You can get Melatonin at any drug store. Hope this helps and good luck.

Share your concerns with your childcare provider (I own one)and arrange to have her do an activity vs napping. Given your satisfaction with them, I would expect they will be more than happy to do so. We've a number of children that same age not taking naps and will have them do a quiet project or do some reading during nap time.

Warm bath before bed with SUGARFREE Hot chocolate Milk when warmed up has sleeping properties natural