Need a little help....but no judging please!

This is going to be a very long post so please be patient with me

A bit of background first. It took me 3 years and 2 miscarriages to get dd, from the moment she was born i have never left her side. She was from the get go a clingy (sp?) baby. I remember sitting in the hospital 3 days after having her and the midwife made a comment saying that chloe was going to be clingy, oh how right she was!! as a baby chloe always need to be with me, she would never settle for anyone else, that in its self took its toll on me as it was very hard, i never got a break and i was always tired as she was a very rough sleeper. But from about the age of 1 she started to sleep with me as i was just so tired i gave in and for the first time in a whole year, i got my first night of unbroken sleep and it was all because chloe was with me, where she could touch me and still feel that i was there with her when she was starting to get unsettled. So i allowed her to stay in our bed, which i didnt mind cos we were all getting sleep and we were all happy.

But fast forward to now, she is still in my room. She doesnt sleep with me all the time, only when dh is away she will be in my bed, but when dh is home she will sleep on the floor with her matteress. I have tried EVERYTHING to try and get her in her room. I have tv,dvds,Playstation and all of that sort of stuff set up in there, but she doesnt want to stay in there! I have put my parenting hat on and told she had to stay in there, only to have her up and down all night coming into my room crying and caring on, she got her self worked up that much that she was dry reaching in the toilet cos she so desperatly didnt want to go in there to sleep! I have tried to tell her i would buy her anything she wanted if she could would sleep in there for a night, but that hasnt worked. I have even tried to stay in there with her but that didnt work, she wouldnt go to sleep and kept saying she wanted to go back in my room.

But even though she doesnt sleep with me all the time, when she goes to visit her dad she always sleeps with him!! i have asked him to not allow this to happen anymore as it makes it hard for me when she gets home as she wants to sleep with me, but of course he just told me to go jump off a bridge and not to tell him what he can and cant do with his daughter :shakehead: i have tried to tell him that this is becoming a problem but he doesnt care!

Chloe is still very clingy! she hates being apart from me, she has a massive break down when it comes time to go to her dads every 3 wks, she wont sleep over at any of her friends places, she wont sleep at any family members places. But i believe that this is because she is always being MADE to go to her dads, that when she is home, all she wants to do is be home and not go anywhere else, if that makes sense?? but you have to understand, chloe and i have been through ALOT together. its always been just her and i. I was married to her father but our marriage broke down a year after she was born. so her and i have been through alot. anyone and everyone that know us will tell you that chloe and i have a bond like no other. and thats why she goes into meltdown when its time to go to her dads. she loves her dad but HATES being apart from me.

Sorry if none of this is making sense, i am in a bit of a hurry as i am about to go to work, but i just needed to get this out.

Help me, what am i suppose to do? how can i get my gorgeous little girl sleeping in her own room?

I'm out of my depth here, but do you think maybe there's a deeper issue of insecurity here? Have you talked with a child psychologist or something like that? It's really hard to force chaneg when they're not ready for it, you know? It really sounds like she just feels like she needs to be with you - you give her that sense of security and safety that she doesn't feel elsewhere.
I could be way off here. :hug:

Did I read correctly that she's 8? Wow, you must be exhausted.
How does she handle school? What do her teachers say?
How is her bedroom set up? As in, I'm wondering if you could ask her what would make her happy in there (fairy lights, that kind of thing?). Or could you maybe try moving the mattress gradually further and further from the bed?
I don't have any useful experience, but I do feel for you. It sounds like you have both been through so much, I guess it makes sense that she wants to keep close wherever possible, but from your perspective (and hers) it can't go on forever.
Maybe some co-sleepers will be able to pop in and offer suggestions for transitioning. It sounds like this is an emotional rather than habitual thing, so bribery probably is less likely to work. I wish I had some answers for you.

believe me i feel what you are saying.. my son is 3.5 and i have had to put a spare bed in my room so i can sleep on it cause he wont sleep alone,...
Big Problem.. He used to just go to bed and i would shut the door and he would go to sleep now im falling aslep and his still up talking to himself..
I also have the same issue with him being clingy his literally up my butt with no issue living up there i reckon..

I at the moment am taking him to behavioural specialists and peads as the dr said it could be an issue that could be so simple but yet unknown if that makes sense.. Im also trying to brain wash him into believing i have monsters in my room and his room is full of cars and scooby doo but he isnt buying a thing he says he has to be with me to stop the monsters from taking me.. My DH is fed up but im also stuck..

Maybe take her to see a child specialist. If she is still experiencing extreme separation anxiety at 8 then there may be something else going on - and that something else may be so simple that it just takes a specialist to point it out and give you some help to manage it and move forward - for your sanity and for her independence!! xx

Hugs coming your way.
Sue xxx

Big :hug: to you and her.

Have youasked he why she does not want to sleep in her room? Can she draw a picture for you if she finds it difficult to explain.
Maybe you could both draw a picture of a magical bedroom for her?

You both have been through a lot. I would also be quite angry with xDH that he is allowing her to sleep in bed with him. She is 8 years old now and he is not helping the situation that you are battling with her at home.

Something else that I know a friend has for her daughter is one of those digital photo frames. She has it on her daughters bedside table and turns it on when the lights go out and tells her that all the family are wishing her sweet dreams and it just continues playing through the memory card. Maybe somehting like that might be a comfort to her and also help her to gain some bond with other family members.

Lots of :hug: to you

big, big :hug: to you. I have no advice, just want you to have my support. :hug:

WOW!!! thank you so much for all your replies and most of for not judging me :( over the last few years all i have had is people telling me that its terrible of me to allow this to happen, and that she is way to old to be in my room blah blah blah......... but none of them know understand or know what and how we got to here! I really do put it down to being forced to go to her dads all the time. Its the fact she has to leave me for a few days when she really doesnt want to, so when she is home she is right by my side. she has no trouble going to school or anything like that, none of her teachers have every said anything about her behaviour at school, they are always telling how sweet and caring she is :)

this afternoon i picked her up from school and we went shopping, while we were walking up and down the isle i asked her, why she doesnt like sleeping in her room and she replied "because your not with me when i am in there" " i like it mum when we are together" plus "i get scared and lonely in there without you"

I keep thinking that this isnt going to last forever, so i want to lap it up while it last cos it wont be long and she will be a hormonal teenager that will want to hang with her friends instead of her mumma. And i really dont think its a great idea to force her to do this, i think that will make things worse and if anything it would break her heart if i forced her to do this. Chloe is such a great child. She isnt like other kids i am always having mums saying to me "oh i wish i had a kid like yours" because chloe is always well mannered and never speaks rudely or hurtful to anyone. she makes friends in a heart beat and she loves everyone. and she wears her heart on her sleeve, her heart breaks very easliy, she cries in movies or she will cry if she see's something very sad on the news, and this is why i cant force this to happen cos it will really really break her heart, plus it would break mine to! She truely is a wonderful gift and i am so very proud of her and love her more then life its self.

i really dont know what to do.........do i leave it and as she gets older hopefully she will want to go to her own room. or do i take it a step further and seek help professionally? i hate letting people into my world. But then we will have the problem of her sleeping in her dads bed still. She wants to sleep in his bed cos she is so scared cos i am not there and because she misses me so much she just needs someone iykwim? and i know she has this fear that when she goes to her dads, she is scared he wont let her come home when she wants too! and of course i have tried to talk to Ex about this and of course he told me to go get f'ed. he has lost her trust and i dont think he will ever get it back and so of course when its time to go over to him she goes into melt down mode a few days before going. i feel so sad and sorry for her :( this isnt how i wanted my little girl's life to be like. I hate myself sometimes for what she has to go through. I feel bad i should of just stayed with him so she didnt have to go through this!! i should of just stayed with him till she was much older and then left, at least she wouldnt of had to go through what she is going through now!!

thanks again for all your advise i have definantly taken it on board and will have something to think about over then next few days and thanks again for not judging me, i really really appreciate it xxx

From what you say, it sounds like going to her dads is stressing her big time. If she doesn't want to go, then why is she?

Just putting that out there.
She sounds like a gorgeous girl, and a credit to you. No-one here would judge you!!

Sue xx

:hug:

I used to feel the same things when Iwent to my dads house. I was about the same age as Chloe when mum and split up so I dont remember the split up but I remember it getting harder once I went to school.

i hated going to my dads but was fortunate that I had my big sister with me. I can remember not wanting to get in the cr and having screaming and kicking tantrums because I just dodnt want to leave my mum. I always watched the clock every second Sunday when we were at dads for the weekend as I wanted to make sure I was home with my mum on time or if I was lucky before 6pm. It is a lot for a child to deal with but just know one day she can make the choice and not go. I started not going to dads as much when I was 14/15 yrs old. I had stuff on on the weekends and just preferred not to go. My dad has never changed (obviously from my recent thread this week) and I am so close to my mum and can trust her with anything. It is fantastic that you have this relationship with Chloe.

Dont say that you should have just stayed with him darl and dont hate yourself. :comfort: I am glad I dont remember my mum and dad together, I wouldnt have wanted to see and hear the fighting or feel the tension in the house. You did the right hting for you and Chloe and you have a wonderful husband and father to Chloe now who I know loves her very much like she is his own daughter. If you had of stayed with XH then you may not have met DH. :hug:

I will try and come back and post more later but I just wanted to say that you are a wonderful loving mum. You can just hear in your words the amount of love you have for your daughter and the amount of love she has for you back. :hug:

thanks hun, ex was going to take me to court if i didnt let him see her, so i got a lawyer and he got a lawyer and we drew up a parenting agreement that is binding till she is 16, and if any one of us breaks it in anyway we can get into deep trouble!! In the agreement he is to see her every 2/3 weeks for the whole weekend. so there is nothing i can do about it :(

the whole system SUXS!!!!! i had an AVO out on him at the time the contract was drawn up, because he hunted me down one night at speedway, dragged me out the back where all the cars where parked and started to beat me up...........while i had chloe in my arms :( the security gard had to come over and pull him off us. chloe was screaming the poor little thing, i bought this up in the meeting between our lawyers and because he wasnt hitting chloe then it means nothing. He was hitting me not her so the avo meant nothing!!! the courts and the system is all for the fathers now even if its hard on the kids, they dont give a s*it.

i wish there was something i could do, but there isnt!! everytime i have asked about it, they all say the same things. a father has a right to have a relationship with there child, and a child has the right to have a relationship with there fathers.

Oh your poor little girl :hug: Well, I guess it's no wonder really. Not fair on her at all.
We'd never judge you for making your daughter feel safe and secure! She sounds like a really lovely little girl in a crappy situation.

bellabambina you have me in tears, thank you hun for your kind words

I can honestly say, everything you have said about how it was for you, is just what its like for chloe right now. She truely hates it and to make it worse she is on her own as she is an only child. plus it doesnt help when she is there that they run me to the ground infront of her, or they question her about whats mummy doing and stuff like that. it makes me wild!! chloe isnt stupid she really has an old head on her young shoulders. she comes home and crys and crys and tells me everything that happens :( i hate that they do this. ok fair enough if you hate me, no worries!! but dont hate in front of my child.....how dare they do this to her!! whenever we talk about her dad or her grandparents, we are always happy and excited and we pretend to like them so she feels comfortable, but i hate that they cant do that for her. when we lived closer we were always inviting her dad to come see her get awards at school, or to sports carnivals and things like that, but of course he would say NO, not a chance in hell. which is such a shame cos i know it would mean alot to chloe if her dad would come to things like that, it would even help there relationship. but you cant tell him that cos he knows everything when it comes to chloe ( so he like's to think) her old school rang me one time to tell me that chloe had been crying cos she didnt want to go to her dads, so i ring him to try and have a civil conversation with him about it and to let him know that this really is starting to become a problem, but of course he said it was b*ll s*it and there is nothing wrong with her we are all reading into it.

grrrrr i get so angry. all i want is this beautiful little girl to have a normal child hood. playing, laughing and having lots of fun. but instead she has fear, worry and lots of tears :(

Hun, not sure how to say this, but having your little girl sleeping with her Dad is ringing some bells in my head...are you worried at all? Is there anything to can do to get this stopped? I know you've said that you've asked him, but could you take it to mediation as you feel its not really appropriate? Can you bring out the big guns on this issue with her Dad as a first step & then worry about getting her out of your room later on?

:hug:

It rings MASSIVE alarm bells with me!! she is an 8 year old girl who shouldnt be in her dads bed at all!! but with this being said i know her father very well, we were high school sweethearts who were together for 10yrs, he would never ever do anything to her. but the problem also is that she wants to be in there aswell!! which i hate, but she only wants to be in there because of the whole thing of being apart from me

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the whole system SUXS!!!!! i had an AVO out on him at the time the contract was drawn up, because he hunted me down one night at speedway, dragged me out the back where all the cars where parked and started to beat me up...........while i had chloe in my arms :( the security gard had to come over and pull him off us. chloe was screaming the poor little thing, i bought this up in the meeting between our lawyers and because he wasnt hitting chloe then it means nothing. He was hitting me not her so the avo meant nothing!!! the courts and the system is all for the fathers now even if its hard on the kids, they dont give a s*it.

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You should get professional help. We can all blat on about the fairness of the court system and if or not she should see her dad. It has nothing to do with the fact Chloe is very stressed and anxious most of the time and needs help to get through it.

A good psychologist will be able to work through it with her. She probably can't explain why she is this anxious. She just is and must be freed from this as soon as she can. Poor kid.

If the GP/Dr feels this is an ongoing issue you many be eligible for Medicare help to pay for the sessions. xoxoxo

:hug: yeah I was pretty much going to ask the same thing re; her dad. Just reading your first post there were massive alarm bells going off just from personal experience from when I was young and not wanting to go somewhere i would melt down hard core, but I knew the reason why....

I find it really shocking that there doesn't seem to be anything you can do. Surely an assessment from a psychiatrist or psychologist would deem that the relationship your daughter has with her father is affecting her mental health - and SURELY a court/ judge/ lawyers wouldn't be able to disagree with that?

Sue x

Hang on, have a look back at the OP. Miss C has been this clingy since she was a tiny baby. It's not just her dad's place she doesn't want to go to, it's friends and family as well. She shows all the anxieties at home. I don't think inferring there is something awful going on at her dads will help.

thanks lulu it feels like the thread is going into a different direction :( her dad would never do anything to her, YES i know its not right that she is sleeping in her dads bed, but she wants to be in there cos she is so scared, not because he is making her!
As i said in the OP chloe and i are very close and i know for a fact, if anything happend to her she would of told me straight away!
She doesnt have the anxiety because of her father or the fear of her father, its because like i said in the OP she hate's being apart from me
i believe if she was given the choice to choose when she wanted to go see her dad, instead of being made, i think it would make a big difference. But ex wont allow that cos i have already brought this up and he dismissed it straight away. cos i think once we get the anxiety worked out, i think the sleeping situation would work itself out too!

thanks again everyone for your replies xxx

if you took her to see a child psychiatrist or something like that and she was diagnosed with something do you think that would help you ex see that she doesn't handle being made to go? Could even take what the child psychiatrist says to the court and get the parenting orders amended?

was thinking along the same lines Kirsty, i have a gp appointment next wk so i might bring chloe along and see if doc can recommend someone for us xxx

:hug:

What about having sleep overs at your house with her friends from school? Hanging out in my room with my friends from school was ALWAYS cool! I was an anxious child, petrified of being kidnapped because when I was 10 all the Mr Cruel kidnappings were big news, so I hated sleeping alone. But when mum let my friends sleep over, it was never an issue, was always fun. I agree with the other girls too, counselling will help, especially if there is something bothering her that she can't quite figure out.

Good luck xo

Surely there must be something that can be done to make her feel more comfortable, don't know much about parenting orders other than they suck lol I hate the whole DVO process, like its ok that he hit you, but he didn't hit the child so she's not on it? To me that doesn't make sense. A friend of mine recently was in a similar situation and for the life of me I just don't get it. Hopefully the doctor can help, must be so hard being a parent and having your child that scared. Poor little darlin. I know what you mean though about on one hand lappin it up now cause when she's a teenager she wont need you as much and stuff. It's hard isn't it.

A friend of mine went to fairly drastic (but I think it was a great idea) measure. Her room and her DD's room were next to each other. So she cut a hole in the wall. Big enough for her DD to go through. In fact it made a HUGE difference for her DD. She became much better at staying in her own room as she knew that her mum was very close by.

Good luck

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As i said in the OP chloe and i are very close and i know for a fact, if anything happend to her she would of told me straight away!
She doesnt have the anxiety because of her father or the fear of her father, its because like i said in the OP she hate's being apart from me
i believe if she was given the choice to choose when she wanted to go see her dad, instead of being made, i think it would make a big difference. But ex wont allow that cos i have already brought this up and he dismissed it straight away. cos i think once we get the anxiety worked out, i think the sleeping situation would work itself out too!

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Explain the anxiety to the GP and ask for a referral to a child psychologist who specialises in this. He/she will help DD recognise the feelings (all feelings - good and bad) and work towards changing things. DD will gain her power back, and will feel so much better to be able to control her very own self.

I don't think it will be a case of "I'm a teenager - rack off" as soon as she gets hormonal (not all of them do apparently :rolleyes:), there might be a bigger chance that everything gets alot worse as a result of all the changes. Hormones don't chase away anxiety and teenagerland is rife with anxieties all of it's own.
HOWEVER, if you can get her some help soon I reckon not only will she feel SO much better, it will give her a bit of a headstart on dealing with the angst when she gets older.

Best of luck with it all!

thanks again everyone for your imput, will let you know how it all goes with the GP xx

I can relate to the anxiety issue, i suffered from since i was 13, its not a nice thing to go through, especially when no one listens or understands. So i think getting a referral to a child psychologist is a good idea and best her. other wise it will get worse and i know that from personal experience.

I do wish you both the best and hope it goes well

thanks hun

we havent been to the gp yet, as things have been so busy with work. Hopefully next wk as i want to get things moving along as i hate seeing her get so worked up about things. It breaks my heart to see her like this

I know this is a bit late....but how about the two of you having 'sleepovers' in her room? I don't expect that it will completely solve the problem but it might help her to feel a little more comfortable in there.... I'm not sure if she falls asleep in your bed without you (i.e. before you go to bed) but perhaps, if she does, you could explain to her that she needs to go to sleep in her room (once she is comfortable in there) and that in x number of hours you will come in with her? Maybe you could start stretching this out so that you take longer and longer until you come in OR, if she doesn't get to sleep without you perhaps you could negotiate with her that at a certain point in the night you will go to your bed???

Just some ideas...I'm no expert.... I hope everything sorts itself out for you.