A year ago, when school started I began with a new plan for my son to sleep in his own room. This was a long overdue situation, going through a divorce 3 years ago, only compounded it. My ex and I did make a conscious decision to maintain a friendly relationship and keep our son as our number 1 priority, and when married we were not fighting or argueing. My son and I live in Spain and his father is in Florida, up until the beginning of this year, he was seeing his father much more frequently because he was traveling back and forth. He now sees him summers, christmas holidays and usually one other week vacation.
When we first started with the new sleeping arrangement, it was rough for a few months. I would lay in the bed below him until he fell asleep, later he would fall asleep on his own. Most times I would be patient and understanding, sometimes I would loose my patience, but things did get gradually better. I realized that getting angry and yelling only compounded the problem. By the time he went off to Florida for the summer, he was doing much better, sleeping most nights all night in his room. He was still not sleeping over at friends' homes, after an experience he had where he couldn't fall asleep at everyone else did. He only would sleep with his father and my mother, in their bed with them. He went off for the summer and slept in the same bed with his father, now I feel like I am starting all over again. After the summer he went to sleep at my mother's and threw either an anxiety attack or temper tantrum keeping my mother up until 2 and calling me twice to pick him up. I told him no, and not to call again. The next night I was up until 2 again with him because he was scared he had seen something on t.v. that scared him.
My son does not exhibit any other behavior problems, he is a great student, great eater, has lots of friends, and is healthy. I do think that he is emotionally oversensitive at times, has been over consented, has displayed some anxiety in the past but I don't think more than normal. Is this primarily my son manipulating me or is the problem deeper than that?, does he have separation anxiety, sleep onset insomnia ( I have been searching the web)?? Should I bite the bullet and start over hoping that the process will move quicker this time, or should I take more drastic measures??? I have an appointment for next week to see a therapist. I am glad I found your forum and see that this is not an uncommon problem. I would like to think that my son won't have sleeping disturbances for the rest of his life.