Help needed - sleep problems

SherylStone

Hi

please can someone advise me on what to do- my daughter who is 3years old is waking during the night every 1.5-2hours. This has been on going for over a year. I could probably count on one hand the nights she has slept through. I am so tired out now I can barely cope anymore. Melatonin has been suggested by the paediatrician but does this really help? I can only presume it’s muscle cramps waking her. She wants to sleep, is tired and settles fine in her own. 

Many thanks in advance,

Jane_Alumni

Hi Sherylstone

I'm sorry that you are having such problems with your daughters sleep. It must be absolutely exhausting for both of you.

Scope have a sleep service with trained sleep practitioners who can look at your child's sleep patterns, but unfortunately this is not available in all areas of the country. If you send us an email: helpline@scope.org.uk we can look at where you live and see if there is a Scope sleep service covering your area, if not, we have some other options for referral.

Have you had a look at our Sleep tips and information on our website at all? https://www.scope.org.uk/support/families/sleep/tips  they are very useful for ideas to assist with a better nights sleep.

Melatonin can be really useful, often a last resort though, so it is great if other non-medication sleep interventions can work initially.  It's good that your daughter is settling on her own initially but If the reasons for your daughters constant waking pattern are more behavioural or poor sleeping habits learnt over time, then the sleep service could work really well, however, if your daughter is in discomfort/pain, then this would really need to be addressed by her GP/consultant, for any other sleep practices to work. It would be really useful though to be able to chat with a sleep practitioner to see what they think.

Is your daughter already on medication for her muscle cramps? as these could be stopping her sleeping, or could she have any other discomfort such as reflux for example?

Please do drop us an email and we can look at how we can assist you and your daughter further. 

best wishes

Scope Helpline 

helpline@scope.org.uk

SherylStone

Hi thanks for the response and the info, will write an email.... She isn’t currently on any medication. We are supposed to be receiving some melatonin soon and baclofen has also now been suggested so would be good to talk things through before we start on either of these. Thank you so much