Helping a 4-year-old sleep

Question: Our daughter is 4 years, 2 months old, with a 15-month- old brother. My husband and I both work, and we have a nanny during the day.

Our daughter is mild-mannered, caring, imaginative and intelligent. She is mostly a good kid, but she is stubborn and about once a day we struggle with her over following directions.

About a year ago she had problems staying in her bed at night. She would get out of bed up to 20 times every night.

After months of trying different techniques, we finally started checking on her every two minutes and then would slowly increase the time increments until she was asleep.

For the past six months, she gets out of bed two to four times per night. Each time, either my husband or I (mostly me) will take her back to her bed. Sometimes she will drop to the floor or cry, and then she will eventually yell. When we ask her to lay her head down she continues to sit up, ignoring us.

We have tried rewarding her, taking things away, spanking. I feel like we are losing control and I am not confident in my ability to stay calm and rational in the middle of the night. Our whole family is sleep-deprived.

Do you have suggestions? --Name and address withheld

Answer: There seem to be three reasons why your child's waking is peaking right now, and why you all feel so rightly concerned.

First, being away all day makes it difficult to resist her pleas for company. Second, she is coping with the "touchpoint" of her little brother's mobility.

At this age, he must be so cute and such a threat to her that her angry and hard-to-accept feelings about him are bound to come up at night to awaken her. You might even identify with this struggle and feel bad about what she must go through as she learns to be a big sister to the baby that you chose for her!

Your description of her struggling sounds as if she is angry about something and trying to let you know it.

Third, 4 years old is a time for nightmares and fears likely to be cropping up in response to the new awareness of angry feelings and the new capacity to feel guilty about them. (See "Touchpoints: Your Child's Emotional and Behavioral Development: Birth-6" by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua D. Sparrow, M.D., Da Capo Press.)

You can help her to face these feelings and to understand them as normal. Before the late night outbursts, help her find words to express these feelings and let her see you get angry and how you control yourself. Commend her when she does succeed in handling frustration without losing control.

For the bedtime struggles, talk about them before they start. Let her know that she must stay in her own room, and that you will come to her when she calls out. When she does, go into her room, say as little as possible in a neutral voice.

If she needs a hug, keep it short, and put her back in bed. Sit in a comfortable chair near her bed -- one in which you can rest. But don't react or get upset, as this will only fuel her. If she insists on sitting up, ignore her, and just sit there quietly until she falls asleep. Your presence will help to calm her, but she will be learning to calm herself. As she does, she'll gradually begin to stop waking so often. It may take time, but you won't have deserted her.

Questions or comments should be addressed to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and Dr. Joshua Sparrow, care of The New York Times Syndication Sales Corp., 609 Greenwich St., 6th Floor, New York, NY 10014-3610. Questions may also be sent by e-mail to: nytsyn- families@nytimes.com. Questions of general interest will be answered in this column. Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child's health, consult your health-care provider. ? T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua Sparrow, M.D. Distributed by New York Times Special Features

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