6 Month Old Sleeping Better than 6 Year Old!

Sounds like she needs reassurance that you're there, will be there and will always love her - even though you've brought this little interloper in to the house. (as I've heard illustrated - bringing a new baby home is like your husband bringing home new wife and saying "I'll still love you the same as before"). Ask her how she'd like to help with the baby. Follow her lead. She may also be going through a developemental surge - either physcially, emoltionally, mentally. Just when we figure our kids out they grow & change. It's not fair!

As bed time approaches set up expectations for the night. Tell her you know that she can sleep on her own and you expect that she'll do that tonight - and how proud you'll be when she does. Marke sure she's getting a lot of outside physical activity that will tire her out - and have a calm environment around bedtime. Set up a goal - after 5 nights through you'll get her a treat (inexpensive toy she really wants, trip to her favoirte playground, etc.) and make a little chart with stickers for that 5 day period. - so she can see her progress each morning. Have her help you make the chart, select the goal-prize, pick out the stickers, stick the stickers each morning. Remind her that she's able to make these decisions and take control becuase she's maturing from a little girl to a bigger girl. Remind her that it's sometimes a little difficult to grow up and leave one stage behind - but you look forward to her growing in to the next stage. Then move it out to 10 days, etc. If she gets up in the night go in to her room put her in bed and tell you you'll sit on the floor by her bed until she falls asleep - but no sticker that morning.

Positive reinforcement all the time - ignore the unfavorable outcomes as much as possible. Set up expectations in advance. An 80 year old sunday school teacher taught me this when my kids were toddlers - my kids are 11 & 14 and I still use it -adjusted for age of course!

Best of luck!

Night terrors are typical of this age --waking up in the midst of very realistic-feeling dreams and being unable to shake the images or feelings. They tend to come on suddenly, so the fact that she was sleeping well before now is unrelated.

Do you remember waking in the middle of the night alone, terrified of something? I once woke up convinced that a murderer had killed everyone else in the house, and once still being able to see the witch that was hiding in my closet... my eldest woke me because the monkeys were jumping all over my bed and the fireman was spraying the fire hose through the window all over my bedroom: with her eyes open and telling me all about it.

Talking to her during the day about nightmares and what to do about them is more helpful than reassuring her of anything irrelevant like your love or her safety. Neither of those pieces of information are helpful to handling nightmares.

Did she do this prior to your mommy/daughter vacation too?

I'm getting the same sort of responses from my 6 year old when I try and have her sleep in her new room. Her room is downstairs 1 level from ours which is a bit uncomfortable (for both of us). I just posted a question about it myself. But when she comes out of the room, she'll say it was because "my bed got cold" or "had a bad dream" or "it sounded like you were gone". Some reasons sound valid, but not sure if she woke up and because I'm not there and she's used to me being there she looks for me or if she's actually scared.

I put a baby monitor in her room and told her to call me (don't want her trying to run upstairs while half asleep). I think she forgets to and if I'm in a deep sleep, the movement isn't always enough to wake me.

Have you tried getting a monitor set up in her room? Some have 2-way communication where you can reassure her, she can hear your voice and maybe fall back to sleep.