Sleepless Nights
“A.M.W.” writes: “I have been helped before with your advice, and should now like further advice on my little daughter, aged three and a half. She has always been a very difficult child as regards going to bed and sleeping the whole night. In fact, since she was a year old we have hardly been able to count on having the while night undisturbed, with the possible exception of a month or two before this last Christmas. We put her in the next bedroom to ours as she slept so badly in our bedroom, then she was disturbed by the people next door, who are very noisy, so I moved her back into the back bedroom, and she was quite good until the middle of January this year. Then she took to waking about 9 o’clock and walking downstairs. We stopped this, and then she started to wander about upstairs in her bare feet, and got a very bad cold. The next development was that she would sleep until between 10.30 and 12.30 and then would not settle for an hour or two, although I sat and held her hand often until 3 in the morning, finally taking her into our bed.
The trouble this year first started when I received word from the nurse I had engaged for the birth of my baby in May, that she could not come. C. overheard me discussing it with Daddy, and when I interviewed several more nurses she was at home and would be with me. She seemed to get so bewildered seeing so many and hearing their different names, that I think this started the phase. Baby was born a month ago, and I had arranged for C. to go to Grannie’s for a part of the time that I was in bed, on account of her being so much trouble at night. She went the night before baby was born, and the nurse, whom she liked very much, told her that Mr. Stork was probably going to bring her a baby brother that night, and she would be able to see him the next morning. Baby was not born, however, until dinner-time, and Grannie could not let her come when she asked to come after breakfast. She cried bitterly and Daddy, calling on his was home for dinner, found her very upset and had to bring her back with him. From that day she would hardly leave my bedroom, and every night Daddy had to bath her and out her to bed and hold her hand until he fell asleep. Sometimes she was not asleep until 10 p.m., then she would wake up at about one o’clock and beg Daddy to take her into his bed. We gave in, so that she could at least have a few hours sleep, as she was getting very pale and heavy. I asked the doctor for some sleeping tablets for her, but these had little effect as she fought against going to sleep. She is also afraid of cats, which often come into the next garden, their cat being female; also we found a stray cat dying in our garden one morning and it upset her very much. This was just before baby was born and she seemed afraid even to be left in any room downstairs during the day.
Now that the nurse has gone, she still wakes up and Daddy, who is back again in my room, has had to go back into the other room and take her with him, in order to get her to go to sleep. We tried one or two nights to get her to sleep in her own bed, by leaving her door wide open and the landing light on. But she kept shouting for first one thing and then another, so that finally, after not sleeping a wink, Daddy went back to the other room and took her in with him.
This is the only way in which we can all manage to get a good night’s rest, and as I am breast-feeding the baby, this is essential for me. The trouble is, how are we to break her of this habit of sleeping with Daddy, as it is not good for her, and it is getting on all our nerves, not knowing whether we are going to be disturbed in the night or not. I still hold her hand when she goes to sleep in the evenings, and she drops off in about ten minutes. I might say that she is very devoted to her baby brother, and she has plenty of attention form Daddy and me, as we do not want her to feel jealous of the baby. She is very good during the day, but is always tired nowadays due to lack of sleep. I do hope that you will be able to help us, as I feel we cannot continue in this way for much longer., especially if we go for a holiday soon.”
Your little girl has evidently from infancy been one of those children whose emotional difficulties express themselves in disturbances of sleep. In other children, the inevitable stresses and strains of adaptation to other people show themselves in day-time tantrums, or in thumb-sucking or feeding difficulties, and so on. When, however, the child’s conflicts are shown in this inability to sleep with or without a variety of day-time difficulties, the situation becomes most trying for everybody concerned. The child herself, and the father and the mother and nurse, all suffer from the lack of sleep, and the exasperation of not understanding what it is all about.
What has happened recently with your little girl is that the conflict of feelings connected with the birth of the new baby, and the disturbing events of the coming and going of nurses, the mysterious discussions which she could not understand, and having been sent away to her grandmother’s without having been able to see the baby, have all combined to stir up such anxiety that it is impossible for he to sleep. She probably feels that if she falls asleep all sorts of strange and disturbing things may happen, so that she must keep awake to see what is going to happen.
I wonder whether you did not tell your little girl beforehand that you were going to have a baby, and explain to her that you would need the extra help of another nurse. Your letter gives me the impression that you did not take the child into your confidence at all, and if this is so, this will contribute to her sense of bewilderment and anxiety. The unhappy incident with the stray cat will certainly have contributed to her sense of insecurity. Doubtless, many things are going on in her mind, wonderings and puzzlings, and fears about all these events which she cannot understand. If she could be straightforwardly jealous of the little baby brother, it is very probable that she would not have this wakefulness at night. She is struggling with intense feelings of rivalry and loss, and this trouble is keeping her awake.
I should suggest that you do talk to her more frankly and simply, and give her the sense that you let her share these important events. For the present, I should not try to break her need to have the comfort of her Daddy’s love. She will be able to do without his actual presence at night later on, when these acute feelings connected with the birth of the baby have more time to settle down. Every few months of further growth will make a difference to her feelings. A child under four is still in the most acute phase of emotional conflict. But by the time she is four and a half or five, she will be more settled, and more able to deal with her feelings without being kept awake at night. While she is in this crisis, however, it is best to recognise that she needs more special help. Having her Daddy’s love and comfort will not in itself do her the slightest harm, although of course it is inconvenient for him and for you. But just as in a physical illness we have to give not only special diet and special medicines, but special considerations in every way, so we need to do in a little child’s acute emotional crises.
After the baby is weaned and the whole situation has settled down, you will gradually be able to get her to give up this dependence upon her Daddy. For example, you might very well be able to let her and the baby sleep in the same room. Many correspondents have told me how successful this plan has been with a little girl and a baby brother. The child’s maternal impulses are called out, and she feels so pleased and proud with the privilege of having the baby brother to sleep in her room that this supports her against feelings of rivalry and makes her far less dependent upon her father and mother. If you try too soon to wean her forcibly from her dependence upon her father, you are sure to fail, and to make everybody more miserable all round. If you recognise, however, that the situation is a temporary one, a specially acute crisis, in which the child needs special help, you will be able to help her out of this dependence presently with far less difficulty and worry for everybody. You would all gain from the settled nights, and you do not need to feel that the child will go on needing her Daddy in this way indefinitely. I should certainly suggest your continuing this method for the present, until the baby is weaned, and then try the plan of letting the little girl and the baby share a room, and letting her feel herself a privileged person in this way.
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