Singapore Expats

A couple of weeks ago we moved our daughter (3yrs 9 months) into her own bedroom as we are expecting the arrival of her new sister in a couple of months.

She is not adjusting well to not having Mum and Dad 2 feet away when she is sleeping. Last night she woke up at 1.30am and didn't go back to sleep until 4am. One of many nights unfortunately!

At the moment we are insisting she stays in her bedroom. My wife and I take it in turns to either sit in the dark hoping she will go to sleep or watching the TV in her room until she falls asleep.

I really don't want to encourage her to think that if she makes a scene she can come to our bed or lay on the sofa in the living room.

Any advice from parents who have encountered this themselves?

Touchy subject...


Sleep and education is like religion or food... almost a guaranteed flame war


Most eastern parents will probably think that your daughter is too young to sleep alone, and would probably recommend keeping her in your room until she's ready ( or let the helper sleep in her room in case you have one as an alternative )



( if the space on the bed is getting sparse you can always buy a small foldable mattress and let her sleep there on the floor)




Most western parents will tell you that you are correct and must insist until she gets used to it



( but most of them end up with their children in their bed in the middle of the night but would not be caught dead admitting it )


Things like night light, solid night routine, sometimes changing the place of the bed in the room, etc. might help or not.


Not sure if talking about my own experience will cheer you up or depress you... bear in mind that my daughter is NOT exactly on the norm...

But in the end, her hours of sleep started to get more worrying than our principles, and she slept in our bedroom for years. All "good things" come to an end and she finally sleeps in her room... she's nine

merichan wrote:Touchy subject...


Sleep and education is like religion or food... almost a guaranteed flame war


Most eastern parents will probably think that your daughter is too young to sleep alone, and would probably recommend keeping her in your room until she's ready ( or let the helper sleep in her room in case you have one as an alternative )



( if the space on the bed is getting sparse you can always buy a small foldable mattress and let her sleep there on the floor)




Most western parents will tell you that you are correct and must insist until she gets used to it



( but most of them end up with their children in their bed in the middle of the night but would not be caught dead admitting it )


Things like night light, solid night routine, sometimes changing the place of the bed in the room, etc. might help or not.


Not sure if talking about my own experience will cheer you up or depress you... bear in mind that my daughter is NOT exactly on the norm...

But in the end, her hours of sleep started to get more worrying than our principles, and she slept in our bedroom for years. All "good things" come to an end and she finally sleeps in her room... she's nine

Thanks for the feedback, I should have said our daughter was in her own bed in our room rather than sleeping with us.

I also agree about the cultural differences. My first daughter who is 24 now was in her own room from 9 weeks old. This one has been raised Philippines style by my wife hence the issues with sleeping in her own room.

We have night lights and a solid routine for bed time. Not sure its fair on the maid to have her bare the brunt of this, nor my wife at 7 months pregnant so maybe I will try sleeping on a mattress on the floor in my daughters room for a while.

I can sense the pain in your story! Wow nine years

Merichan. Your analysis is spot on.

My wife would have kept my daughter in the same room until she reached puberty if she had had her way. I was all for the separate bedroom as soon as she was weaned. So that's the way it ended - with an intercom (no viewcams back then, but there were the VOX transmitter/receiver types of inter-room devices back then (we had about 4 of them if I remember correctly - kitchen, hall, our bedroom and her bedroom) and they worked fine. Yeah, my wife would sometimes sneak out of bed (I sleep like a log normally) and sleep on the floor beside the cot/crib in the other room, but she soon found out that it wasn't necessary. Same with a baby crying when it was time to sleep. I say as long as it not the crying of pain (pretty easy to tell) but frustration, let them wear themselves out and they will a) soon go to sleep and b) soon realize that crying isn't going to solve anything so the habit will soon quit. Worked for our family. And they turned out okay (well, the final results are still out on one - but we are keeping our fingers crossed - still a good kid, though).

Ours is still in our bed she is 8, we just get bigger and bigger beds, have to custom make them now. 2.4m wide, 3 duvets and 9 pillows!

Everything is set up in the bedroom its basically become the AV room, projector behind the head board etc. would seem very strange not having her there, so many lovely conversations and insights into the way she thinks happens during the evening.

Always so nice to hear her laughing and giggling when she is dreaming. All this would be missed if she was in another room, to be fair we only have one child so the family dynamics are different to a two child set up.

Also the house we have, her room is in a completely seperate building so she has to go "outside" to her room which has become a huge play pen.

My theory is to cherish as long as possible the time they want to be with you, before you know it time will fly past and hanging out with parents would be terminally uncool.

Yes I can appreciate the alternate views however I don't think it is fair for our daughter to have continuous interrupted sleep when the new baby arrives which would be inevitable if we are all in the same room.

We have the baby monitor but its not helping as our daughter seems to creep out of bed very quietly and appear in our bed like a ghost!

On the bright side at least the EPL season has started, I wasn't expecting to watch Man City vs Liverpool at 3am so that was a nice surprise.................I think.

At 3 years 9 months, your daughter might respond to some sort of reward chart.

Something like: if you can sleep in your room for the whole night, you get a sticker. And if you get five stickers you get a toy or a treat that you have been asking for.

We used this with our oldest when she started crying out in the night, and it fixed the problem within days.

I'd also suggest that you make sure she is tired when you send her to bed. Maybe wake her up earlier or cut back on her daytime nap.

Steve1960 wrote:Yes I can appreciate the alternate views however I don't think it is fair for our daughter to have continuous interrupted sleep when the new baby arrives which would be inevitable if we are all in the same room.

We have the baby monitor but its not helping as our daughter seems to creep out of bed very quietly and appear in our bed like a ghost!

On the new baby keeping the older child awake... that actually almost never happens...

I mean the older sibling hears the baby the first few nights and then usually sleeps through it all the time.

Actually having the baby together with the older sibling would be the norm everywhere in Europe ( basically children are easily scared alone and putting them to sleep together in the same room resolves the issue of waking up at night most of the times)


And just for the fun of it... we usually describe our daughter as "creepy little girl from horror movie" when she comes in our bedroom at night ( she still does sometimes...

No sound and suddenly she's there, with her hair hanging down her face and waiting for you to wake up... brrrrrr...


Because she can't just climb in bed... she HAS to tell us what's wrong first... well tell me... usually my hubby wakes up in the morning and realises she's there... loool

singapore eagle wrote:At 3 years 9 months, your daughter might respond to some sort of reward chart.

Something like: if you can sleep in your room for the whole night, you get a sticker. And if you get five stickers you get a toy or a treat that you have been asking for.

We used this with our oldest when she started crying out in the night, and it fixed the problem within days.

I'd also suggest that you make sure she is tired when you send her to bed. Maybe wake her up earlier or cut back on her daytime nap.

Yes, like the incentive idea will give that a try. These days she rarely ever naps during the day and she is tired by 8pm. The main issue is that she has always woken around 1am for milk (finicky eater we can't seem to make sure she is full before bed time). Now when she wakes at that time and sees she is alone in her own room it bothers her and she will not go back to sleep easily.

merichan wrote: On the new baby keeping the older child awake... that actually almost never happens...

I mean the older sibling hears the baby the first few nights and then usually sleeps through it all the time.

Actually having the baby together with the older sibling would be the norm everywhere in Europe ( basically children are easily scared alone and putting them to sleep together in the same room resolves the issue of waking up at night most of the times)


And just for the fun of it... we usually describe our daughter as "creepy little girl from horror movie" when she comes in our bedroom at night ( she still does sometimes...

No sound and suddenly she's there, with her hair hanging down her face and waiting for you to wake up... brrrrrr...


Because she can't just climb in bed... she HAS to tell us what's wrong first... well tell me... usually my hubby wakes up in the morning and realises she's there... loool

I have no experience of the interaction between siblings as my eldest in the UK (24 now) was an only child and I have to say she was in her own bedroom from 9 weeks old and sleeping through the night from 12 weeks old. I think the bar was set unnaturally high for me coming into this later in life family!!

Creepy little girl from the horror movie that is exactly it, and the disheveled hair across the face. It has got to the point where I cannot sleep at night even if our daughter is because I am terrified

Steve1960 wrote:A couple of weeks ago we moved our daughter (3yrs 9 months) into her own bedroom as we are expecting the arrival of her new sister in a couple of months.

She is not adjusting well to not having Mum and Dad 2 feet away when she is sleeping. Last night she woke up at 1.30am and didn't go back to sleep until 4am. One of many nights unfortunately!

At the moment we are insisting she stays in her bedroom. My wife and I take it in turns to either sit in the dark hoping she will go to sleep or watching the TV in her room until she falls asleep.

I really don't want to encourage her to think that if she makes a scene she can come to our bed or lay on the sofa in the living room.

Any advice from parents who have encountered this themselves?

She'll be fine.

You'll be in for a few days or weeks of protests but she'll adjust. Ours (well the younger one) still crawl into bed the odd night but for the most part they prefer their own space now. The 7-year old, who was sick and came into bed the other night left after an hour or so because "daddy snores and I can't sleep."

movingtospore wrote:
She'll be fine.

You'll be in for a few days or weeks of protests but she'll adjust. Ours (well the younger one) still crawl into bed the odd night but for the most part they prefer their own space now. The 7-year old, who was sick and came into bed the other night left after an hour or so because "daddy snores and I can't sleep."

Unfortunately our daughter has survived my earthquake like snoring for more than 3 years so I don't think it bothers her! I think you are right though it just takes time.

Last night she stayed and slept in her own bed until 4.45am then slipped in with us. So I started the reward system, she has one star towards a new toy

Good stuff. A couple of extra tips:

1) Talk to her during the day about how good she was to earn that first star and how great it would be if she gets another star tonight. Make sure the star is somewhere she can see.

2) Be firm about not giving a star if she wakes up before 5am tonight. Even if she doesn't take very well to this, she'll understand better that her reward has to be earned and hopefully try harder the next night.

Good luck!

singapore eagle wrote:Good stuff. A couple of extra tips:

1) Talk to her during the day about how good she was to earn that first star and how great it would be if she gets another star tonight. Make sure the star is somewhere she can see.

2) Be firm about not giving a star if she wakes up before 5am tonight. Even if she doesn't take very well to this, she'll understand better that her reward has to be earned and hopefully try harder the next night.

Good luck!

Yes great stuff thank you. Will keep you advised on progress.

Our son who is exactly your daughter age (slightly below 3y10m) was put to his own room to sleep when he was ca 1yo. It works with more or less luck until today and as a principle we do not him to sleep with us.
Still, of course he makes multiple attempts and for this we have a basic foam mattress in his room. It is always put on the floor next to his bed because what we observed was, that it works as a barrier for him - very often, when he leaves his bed he is like not exactly fully conscious and if he steps down on the soft mattress he just lays down and continue to sleep. Later, sometimes he returns to his bed and sometimes he goes to our room. If the former happens, one of us takes him back to his room and depending what time of the night it is and what mood he is in we wait till he is sleeping again or stay with him till morning.
He is not very typical so not sure if this helps.