SD spends every Tuesday and Thursday with us, as well as every other weekend. My fiance and I have been together for over 3 years and my SD (now 7yrs) has had an attitude issue since the very beginning. There are so many situations/issues that I would love to touch base on and hear any advice possible but the issue that is on my mind now, is her sleeping...or lack of sleep... patterns. We have been living together as a family for 2.5 years and started sleeping in a separate room from SD a year and a half ago. Just recently, within the last 2 months, SD began having trouble falling asleep at night. She was claiming that it was too dark in her room. This went on for a couple of weeks until she had 2 night lights in her room, her TV on with the volume on MUTE, the bathroom light on so it's shining on her bed and a nightlight in the kitchen that shines into her room. Now, I thought all this was excessive, considering she's been sleeping with just one small night light since she has had her own room, but of course, her father doesn't see what the problem is. Then, all of a sudden, all the lights weren't enough and now SD "is afraid of sleeping alone". So, when she is put to bed (with all of the lights on), she waits about 10 minutes then starts crying. BF goes to her, consoles her and tucks her back in. 10 more minutes go by and SD starts crying again, BF consoles and puts her back to bed.. again.. and this would last for about an hour until she is finally asleep for the night. This went on for a few weeks until it got to the point where she was up crying every half hour, from her bedtime at 8PM until 12AM!! BF would even lay in bed with her a few times until she fell back to sleep. But it got to the point where even THAT wasn't enough and one night she ended up in OUR BED (we only have a small full size bed so it does NOT comfortably fit 3 people and guess who was up the rest of the night hanging off the side of the bed?.. YUP, ME!)The next morning, I made it VERY clear that that would never be happening again! A few weeks went by where SD had a couple of sleep overs at my parent's house and BF's parents house.... with no sleeping problems what-so-ever!..... Then this past weekend happened!....

(keep in mind that BF was working on his 13th day in a row of getting up at 3am for 13 hour work days)

FRIDAY NIGHT: SD went to bed at 9pm and was up every 40 minutes. She would cry in bed and when she wasn't tended to, she would get up and come to our room and cry at our door until BF would get up and put her back to bed. This went on until about 1AM! The next morning she claimed she didn't remember any of it, which is strange because she always remembers.

SATURDAY NIGHT: SD is in bed at 9. At 9:30 it begins... she starts, not crying but screaming! BF goes to check on her. She's fine, just said she misses her mom then goes back to sleep. A couple hours later and her 3rd time of waking up, I could hear her crying but BF was sleeping. She cried for about 10 minutes and then I could hear her start walking to our room. I didn't want her to wake her father again since he had to be up in a few hours for work so I jumped out of bed. She must have seen that it was me coming and not her dad because when I turned to the bedroom door, I could see her running back to her room. When I got to SD's room, she was in her bed, pretending to sleep!!! At that point, my suspicions grew stronger. I'm not a doctor so I can't tell if there are any underlying reasons to this bedtime behavior BUT I have a strong feeling that SD is just being a manipulative brat and trying to control her father! I nudged her and she rolled over and looked at me. I firmly said that staying up all night was not a way to be able to see her mom any sooner and she is to not get out of bed again unless there was an emergency! I also told her that if she woke up and started crying again just to get daddy's attention that both bedroom doors will be closed and she will have to cry herself back to sleep. I tucked her back in a returned to bed. I just started falling back to sleep when I heard the whimpering. Both BF and I went to her room and SD laid there with a nervous look on her face as I explained the door situation to BF. He then turned to her and said "I guess your door is being closed now, Goodnight honey" and we all went back to bed. A little while later I heard her crying again. The crying got louder and louder until eventually we heard a little knock on our door. This happened 2 more times until BF got up to get ready for work!!!

The next morning when I woke up, I was in a terrible mood and SD was in a fabulous mood! I asked her what she was so happy about and she just shrugged her shoulders. I reminded her of the night before and when BF got home from work we talked to her about it again.

I'm not sure what else to do. This whole lack of sleep thing is making me and BF miserable for the rest of the time that we get to spend with SD. SD's attitude and behavior isn't the best to start with and this whole situation is making it THAT much worse! PLEASE HELP!