4 y/o son has been getting up at night destroying the house for past year

[denisef520]

My 4 year old son was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD a little over a year ago. For the past 15 months he has been getting up in the middle of the night destroying the house. It happens at least 5 nights out of 7. He gets up, turns on every light in the house, eats whatever he can, such as bread, tortillas, candy (if he finds it). He pokes holes in cans of sodas with a knife and drinks them, hides all the evidence either behind his toy box or behind the tv stand in the living room. He will get into things, break things, he will get a hold of my cell phone and make calls to people on my call history at 3am. He is usually very quiet when he does this, and goes back to bed eventually, but on the nights that i wake up and catch him its usually after the damage has been done and I will find him sittin in a bean bag in front of the tv watching cartoons.  I make him clean up his mess, explain to him that he can not get out of bed at night, put him back to bed and if I dont stay awake untill he falls asleep, he will wait untill I'm alseep and get right back up again and do it all over. So I have to stay awake for about an hour untill he goes back to sleep. I dont know what to do! I cant let him do this anymore.... he has even gotten ahold of my candle lighter (which i keep up high) he climbed, found it, lit a candle, took toilet paper, burned it and threw it on the carpet. Of course i no longer keep candles or lighters in my house anymore. I am afraid he will get out in the middle of the night and walk around the neighborhood.. The possiblilities are endless, I dont know what to do to make him sleep all night. Im exhausted, so is he and we need sleep.  When this first started, I turned his doorknob around on his bedroom door to where it locked from the outside and he figured out how to pic the lock.... its not a key lock, just one that you can put a penny in and turn and unlock it. Please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Samantha061493]

Try this tablet called zarbees it's a small purple chewable tablet. Tastes like grapes thanks about 30 mins to kick in but it knocks them right out for up to 8 hours my 3ur old daughter takes them. They are non habbit forming so I wouldn't do this every night. Try this so that you can rest. Also with the door knobs try a plastic door knob cover you have to pinch certain spots to open the door with this over the knob. Just pretend like it's magic to open.

[Sandman2]

Samantha, thank you for trying to help, but this post is over 10 years old.  Always check the dates.  I am curious how you even found it?

[denisef520]

My son was going to his fathers up untill a few months ago. His father is in the army and is currently deployed to Iraq, wont be home untill January.  No, he did not do those things when he was with his father, but he only had him every other weekend and slept in the same room with him. I have thought about nanny 911, but i am not comfortable being on tv... hahaa... i wish there was some way i could get her to come help without broadcasting my life on television. Anyways, thank you so much for your replies and suggestions, i will try all of them.. I will try anything at this point. :)

[laura1977]

You know, you said that your landlord said no to drilling little holes into the door frame?  Think about this though, when you move, do you think that is something that they will notice?  You can fill the holes up with putty that is the shade of the stain, and I am sure it wouldn't be even noticed.  
You state that you are a single mom, does your son ever go to his fathers house?  Does he do this stuff there?  The reason I ask is can you have your father come over one evening and try and sit down with him.  Seems like boys listen to guys more then us mothers.  
Or hears an idea, try getting ahold of Nanny 911. I'm not kidding, she helps out alot of families with their kids.  Heck sometimes I wish she would come hear.  hehe
Seriously though, make sure you aren't talking to him at all when he is doing this because then he is getting your attention and it just makes him want to do it more.
If he is sleep walking though, have fun.  One other time my little brother screamed loudly in the middle of the night.  My dad shot up outta bed and messed his back up.  This was 14 years ago, and his back is still messed up.

[denisef520]

I have since over child proofed my house, now he just gets into the food and makes huge messes everynight. I also did try the doubling up the gates and the first night i did it he took big toys and hit the gates to knock them down. I rent my house and asked the landlord about drilling holes in the walls by the doors that lead outside to install locks up high, they said no... which i am currently still fighting with them about. I never thought he could be sleepwalking, he seems so very alert and normal, I will try what dusty suggested and ask him questions that require thought next time i catch him up. A couple months ago I did take the door knob off of his door, he grabbed his little wooden bookshelf and banged it into the door so hard to try to get it open that he damaged the door. I have 2 other children whos bedroom is right across the hall from his and need to figure out a way to keep him asleep all night without doing anything thats going to make him scream and bang things and wake them up. Cuz when he wakes up and realizes i have locked him in his room he wakes up the whole house. He behaves like this even durning the day when he is awake, he is very violent towards his sisters, has even taken items with cords such as video games, alarm clocks etc. and wrapped them around his sisters neck. I can not trust him in a bedroom playing with one of his sisters alone because of his violence, i do allow him in his room to play when he is alone, but to play with his sisters i have him do it where i can see every thing that goes on. He will grab the wooden bars that you hang clothes up on out of the closets and hit his sisters with them and/or bang them against things in the house such as the tvs, windows, doors, walls..... the list of what he does during the waking and sleeping hours is endless.... his behavior is so destructive and he will do these things right in front of me, i have tried time out, corners, spanking, taking toys away, puting him in his room with no toys, etc. for punishment, NOTHING has worked. I am a single mother of 3 and work full time and I am exhausted. I even tried to get him into behavior therapy counseling in the town that i live in and there are no mental health facilities here that take his insurance..... i need some advise on how to bring all of this to an end...... i am so exhausted!  

[DustyL]

One way to find out if he's sleep walking is to talk to him. Ask him questions that require thought, such as was it sunny outside today? what did you have for breakfast this AM? something that requires him to really think about the answer. Sleep Walkers can hold a conversation but can't recall things from the past in detail. Ask him some detailed questions to maybe elimate sleepwalking as a cause. If that doesn't work, or it proves otherwise, maybe you can try an alerting system. an alarm on his door so when it's disturbed in the night the alarm goes off, you can do this on all doors cupboard doors, fridge, exterior doors. They sell these at local hardware stores. At the very least if it doesn't deter your son from opening them it will notify you that he's doing it which will allow you to intervene before your house looks like a hurricane hit it.....

[laura1977]

Okay, you need to put child locks on the cabinets.  You need to make sure all knives, meds, scissors are locked up in a cabinet with a good lock so he can't get into it.  This is actually something people should have anyways.  My mother always had a special cabinet up high that had a lock on it,and she kept the key hidden.  One thing you might try is buying two of those child gates and putting them on top of eachother in the door way.  The doors that go to the outside, we have slide locks on the top of ours so that if our kids ever wake up before us, they can't open outside doors.  Have you tried just taking the door knob off his bedroom door?  We had to do this with our daughters closet door to keep her from trying on all her clothes every day.  hehe
Have you ever considered your son is sleep walking?  My younger brother did this, and did some strange things.  He even opened an outside door, and set the alarm off.  He went back to bed, and my parents woke up to find the side door open, and kids in bed.  Police came to look around, and then in the middle of that, my brother got back up and we figured it out.  One other time he hid my mothers lap top computer while he was sleep walking, and she couldn't find it for a couple of months.  Sleep walking is dangerous, and many kids are mean when they do it.