My 10 yr old son Dakota will NOT sleep in his own bed. Every single night he sneak's into my bed. Then proceedes in stealing our cover's and kicking the living day light's out of us.

We have tried telling him NO and even went as far as buying him a sleeping bag so that he could sleep on our bedroom floor if absolutly necessary. NOTHING work's if we say NO he stand's there out of reach screaming at the top of his lung's until we cave or he wakes up his sister and baby brother.:(

When questioned why he say's he just wakes up in our bed. I honestly don't think he even remember's his night time theatrics. Has anyone else gone thru this? Is this a phase boy's go thru? How do I make it go away?:confused:

Cherity,
Is he walking in his sleep possibly?
Justin use to come into our bedroom when he was younger, but it was because he was walking in his sleep and had NO clue.
He did outgrow that. Now he sleeps in HIS room.... ALL night.

Love,
Vickie

Next time, let him settle in there, then go sleep in his bed. :D

Seriously though... I would find a way to stop it... deal with whatever short term consequences happen... you can't let him control you. Lock your bedroom door maybe? I agree it's not going to be any fun having the other kids woken up but every time you let him win you are reinforcing this behaviour.

I guess my final answer, Regis, is calm, slow quiet words and firmly refusing. The louder he gets, the calmer and firmer you should be in refusing him.

I've tried the calm thing but let's face it I'm NOT the nicest person at 2:00a.m. I even tried chasing him back to bed and tucking him firmly in with a word of warning that the only thing to be afraid of in this house is ME!!!!!!!!! only to hear little sneaky foot steps behind me on the way back to the room. I mean this kid is persistant.

Heh, I never said that _I_ was capable of taking this advice... :D

lol

I don't know APC he answer's question's appropriatly so I would think he was wide awake.

I am not sure how to reply to that. I have a 2.5 year old son and he is sleeping in my bed at night as well. My husband sleeps on the couch because he gets up early in the morning and he only gets 3 hours a night and he thinks if he sleeps in the bed he wont wake up.

I have been trying to figure out how to get my son to stay asleep in his bed all night long. I mean he will start off there and around 3 or 4 or 5 he ends up in my bed. Sometimes it is even sooner than that too. I have put him back into bed several times after him sleeping in my bed and say an hour later he comes back in there. Sometimes I don't even hear him. Just depends how sound a sleep I am.

So if anyone has an idea for me I would like to know too. I know my son does not sleep walk because he gets up and screams looking for me until he relizes I am in my bed. I mean I can sleep in his bed with him and he will be fine.Some people have said it is just a security thing with him because he wants to be right next to me. I don't know though.

Well, he has gone through a lot of changes recently and I know you have also mentioned the issues in school too. If he is coming in during the middle of the night he may be asleep and not even know he's doing it.

My husband used to walk in his sleep when he was younger. Stress and anxiety made it worse. One time when he was in high school his parents had to stop him from leaving the house at 2:00 am in his underware. He never remembered it either.

I know I went through a stage when I was about 5 or 6 too. My room was too quiet. My mother was so upset with my father when he put a black and white TV in my room but it did help me sleep.

Mickey we went thru that also with both our kid's. What we did was buy them a cutesy little sleeping bag. We slowly moved them to the floor then to the hall until they had reached their room. Took about a month but they stayed in their room.

Tara when I read your reply it really got us thinking that you may be on to something. With three ADD'ers and a baby our is nothing BUT noisy during the day. So, we made a quick stop at Walleyworld tonight and picked up a cheap cd player and a Mozart cd of his own that he just adores and a nightlight that is a little brighter. I even went as far as to give him my body pillow I used during the last month's of pregnancy. Wish us luck.

Good luck Cherity
I'm out of ideas here.......
:)

Thanks Claudia

Tara you mentioned the bullying he was getting at school. Well, thing's are different in a totally different way I'm not even sure it's well I don't even know how to put it. But, I almost feel like this bully is stalking Koda. Can kid's stalk each other? Maybe, this is part of it. But, half the time Dakota cannot play outside because I lie and tell this kid that Koda is grounded. He call's not 5 minutes everyday after Koda get's home from school and is so persistant and get's so angry when Koda has other friend's. I'm not really sure what to make of it. I'm sure this is another thread but I can't help but wonder if it's all related.

About the sleeping thing, I slept with my son till he was almost 7.
Felix still sleeps with his Dad when he's there. I am a light sleeper so when we got a bigger place he had his own room. He was pretty upset, and said I didn't know getting my own room meant I'd have to sleep alone. So I would lay with him till he dozed.
I got tired of that as he takes forever to unwind. So I bought him the Hobbit C.D rom set, a C.D player, lamp for the shelf by his bed. At first I would lie with him and try to tell him our usual stories or read, but he wanted to listen to the C.D's (anice surprise) so I got to escape.
He plays storys on C.D to sleep everynight. I tell him stories still too when he goes to bed on time. And I've heard him put them on when he wakes in the night. He is a very deep sleeper so he rarely ever wakes, lucky me, I paid my dues for the first three years. As he woke constantly. Anyway maybe the music will help. If not try books on tape. My kid loves them. He gets attached to the soothing voice.

What does Coda say he is afraid of, what are his reasons? Does he have bad dreams?

For awhile my son would wake before day break and get into my bed. One too early morning I told him I was making stinky farts and he decided to go back to his bed. I've used that twice and it scared him off. You could also say that you are nauseated and could vomit on him by mistake! Hee Hee, that one is mean sounding. Anyway Good luck Cherity!

i've been thru the not sleeping thing twice with my daughter, once when she was 18 months old........ we resolved that by taking the lock off the bathroom door and locking her into her room. YES she screamed for the first nite, but after that she slept in her bed and all night.
the second time was when her depression was REALLY bad 2 yrs ago (she was 8 1/2 then). she was in counselling at the time and the counsellor took her thru a guided relaxation where she created her 'happy place'. it was her place where she had everything and anything she wanted (she made it a tree house with all the bells and whistles). now when she goes to sleep she plays 'sleepy music' (a cool japanese mediation cd) and goes up to her 'happy place'. seems to be working very well. if she wakes during the night, she turns on the cd again and falls asleep with ease.

Well I like all the ideas that people have. I am surprised there are so many people that have had this same kind of problem. I know everyone has kids that are older than mine and in a way I have thought about locking the door to my son's room but my husband does not think it would be a great idea to do that. I mean my son starts off in his bed and in the middle of the night is when he wakes up so I am not sure how to handle that but I do like the idea of the music in the back ground. My son does have a lamp on his dresser by his bed that is only 10 watts that is used as a night light and not sure if he really likes it or not. I mean he will sleep in my room when there are no lights but not in his room. Anyone have any more ideas I would love to hear and I will keep you updated. I might try that with the sleeping bag idea. Does not sound to hard to do. Thank you all.

The audio BOOKS, Kids love them!
The other thing that never fails to keep them in bed is duct tape.

lmbo duct tape. too funny.

My aunt has a son who went through a similiar thing when he was young but he was haveing night terrors. He would get up just screaming and need to be with his mom. But looking and talking to him you would think he was wide awake. Scared the hell out of me once while I was babysitting. After he woke up he didn't even know why he was out of his bed. When things calmed down in his life the sleepwalking calmed down too. I think it may have something to do with stress from school or kids too. Good luck

I found Dakota last night pouring over his math book's. He's in an advanced class and is starting to slip. When I asked him why he is not sleeping he told me something is missing, he missed a lesson or something and he need's THAT lesson. I asked how often he does this. Turn's out this has been an everyday occurance for the past 3 month's. He put's a blanket in front of the door so that we cannot tell his light is on. After 10pm light's out in our house no debating. He's so hard on himself and I think a lot of this has to do with us as parent's and the school. We as parent's want him to reach his true potential unfairly pushing him a long. The school treat's him like a science project to be shown off. And he's terrified he'll let us all down. I've decided that he NEED'S to be normal. I've asked the school to either pull him out of the advanced program or stop furthering his teaching until he is COMPLETLY comfortable with his lesson's. We have all decided to do a review starting with what he's learned in kindergarten till now. Hopefully, together we will find the missing step.

Oh Futs, I am busting with hope and happiness for you guys. I really feel like you are onto something with this sleep thing. Poor guy, though, carrying all that pressure on himself and not letting you know. You were a good detective though and his (eventual) straight honesty with you is something that continues to serve your relationship like nothing else ever will (but you already knew that, didn'tcha?).

Each time I read something you post about that school I get ever closer to booking a flight to NE. I swear I am about to come up there and start and kicking some beaurocratic school personell tail with you, tag team style!:mad:

If you want my two cents, you should have him do "regular" (as opposed to "advanced") math for a grade and anything above and beyond that he wants to do for fun or maybe extra credit only. Speaking as someone who was formerly "advanced" in many academic areas, then let off the hook for unknown reasons, there is much to be said for being given the opportunity to just coast when you feel like it. I may not be in a "think-tank" like my cousin is (and my aunt is so fond of bragging about), but I am a happy satisfied person (and my mom brags back)!

Here's wishing you (two) a peaceful night's sleep tonight!;)

I am completly in agreement with the "regular" schooling for everything. I think that it's time to let the child breathe before he becomes a helpless nuerotic. At the school board meeting we all agreed that Koda cannot handle one or the other. So, during school hour's he will be given the same assignment's as his classmates when he completes those satisfactorly he will be given challenging project's to do on the computer which he adores. I think it's time to REWARD excellance instead of pushing harder and making it feel as if he's being punished for hard work.

He's really upset about it right now and is angry. He think's that school is the only thing he excell's at and we took that from him. We pointed out that we never brag about his grades. We compliment how he treat's others and his charity organization's he is involved in.

I feel very bad we have pushed and pushed for him and got the school to accomodate his need's but until we find the happy medium I have to end it NOW before it get's any uglier.


FG do me a favor I wanted to reply to your post about anxiety Koda has been dealing with it for a long time and we have a lot of trick's that have cut it down to almost nothing during class hour's. Will you send me the link. Thanks

Hugs Cherity

He's mad now, but when he sees how much free time he has he will be happy again. The art of productive slacking is way underrated in our society and is becoming a lost art. Being an ADDer, hopefully Dakota will come to fully appreciate process for process sake and let go of all that unnecessary goal-oriented stuff. You're on the right track now!

BTW-thanks for post in Nervous Nellie thread, much appreciated!

He's already started to feel better. We've noticed a decrease in headaches and stomach aches and we got him a pig to raise and butcher lol I know it sound's absurd but it's what he wanted and our local butcher is going to show him the whole process which he is excited about. Hopefully he'll still eat pork afterward's. lol

has he named your new pet yet? ;)

Now wheezie it's not a pet it's food it does not get a name or I doubt we will be able to butcher him. Last time we let the kid's name our cow we ended up having to invent a huge story about how the cow missed his mommy and went home so that we could butcher her.

what? does this mean that the cow *i* named as a kid didn't really go live at a nicer farm where it had more room to run???

next you'll tell me that my husband's dog, scamp, didn't really get to go live with a hillocopter pilot who fed him icecream cones and took him for rides in the 'copter ... :cry:

FN, Maybe your son has FOOD allergies!

Get hold of a book called Allergies and the Hyperactive child.
I think there is a section that talks about a similar situation brought on by foods ingested at dinner time. You would be amazed at what pre-adolescent kids become reactive too!

Originally posted by Nucking_Futs
Now wheezie it's not a pet it's food it does not get a name or I doubt we will be able to butcher him. Last time we let the kid's name our cow we ended up having to invent a huge story about how the cow missed his mommy and went home so that we could butcher her.
Yeah, don't name the pig! My father raised two hogs for slaughter and named them both. He would thenn refer to each piece of meat by pet name when we were about to eat it.
(yeah, he is an abusive wack job... but that's for another post another time)

This may sound crazy but it's something I thought of when my daughter was going through a spot when she didn't want to sleep alone. I never actually wound up doing it but I was thinking about taping my voice with some pleasant music in the background so that if she woke and was scared she could hear my voice or her fathers as much as she needed to make her feel comfortable enough to go back to sleep. It may sound silly but if nothing else works maybe give it a try. Good luck. Dee

Great idea Dee!

It is a great Idea Dee and definatly one worth a try. One of the thing's Koda disclose to his dad was that I was never home at night and he hates me for that. We tried to explain that the reason I work night's and his dad work's day's is so that they will alway's have one of us available to them. But, his best friend's mommy is an at home mommy and I don't have the heart to point out that most her night's are spent at the town cavern also. I just feel like right now I'm in a no win situation. But, that is an other thread all together. I think I'll call it the crazy lady who lives at our house. (giggles)

My son used to have night terrors, you couldn't wake him up from them and he would scream for hours. There wasn't anything I could do. I did start to play christian music lulabies at night and the terrors finally went away. My son never knew that he had spent the night screaming. Hfave you tried sleeping with him in his bed? If I will lay down with my son in his bed (expecially if he has had a bad day) he will go go sleep and stay there all night. I do have to say in bed until he is asleep though.

I can try it on my night's off but unfortunatly I work the graveyard shift. His dad say's that when he check's on Dakota in the night he is sleeping on the couch. lol Well, beat's my bed I guess.