How To Help Your Child Fall Asleep!
One in four children experiences sleep problems of one type or another during
the course of childhood. Helping your child to fall asleep -- to conquer her
insomnia -- is important to both of you. Neither of you needs the stress and
frustration associated with childhood insomnia. In truth, you typically aren't
dealing with a classic sleep disorder in getting your child to sleep. Instead,
you're dealing with the problem of teaching her how to fall asleep on her own
and at the appropriate time. One of more of the following techniques may be just
what you need to enable both of you (or all of your family, for that matter) to
have a calm, restful night.
Calm Is The Word to Remember
Part of the process of transitioning from fully awake to fully asleep is the
deliberate (on your part) calming and quieting that must proceed sleep. Before
bedtime, you should intentionally slow her down from the fast pace of the day.
It will help if you can bring the entire household to a slower, more relaxed
pace. Calming music, the TV turned off, and a generally slower pace will help
her relax so that her body is preparing itself for sleep. You will also benefit
if you can establish and consistently follow a routine that invariably ends in
bedtime. That routine might be 15 minutes of reading to her from a favorite (not
a new) book; or sitting with her and talking about the successes of the day,
reinforcing the good things she's done and how quickly she's learning to
accomplish new tasks; or a session of light massage to help her relax. The key
thought here is to strive for consistency -- this activity should take place
every evening, always at the same time, always for about the same amount of
time, and always ending in bedtime with no delays and no excuses.
Speaking of Consistency . . .
If you want your child to fall asleep on time and stay asleep all night, they
you must be consistent in how you close out the day and in how you deal with any
inconsistencies she tries to introduce. To some extent it almost doesn't matter
what the pattern is that leads to bedtime, so long as it is consistent. If you
remind her "Bedtime is in 10 minutes," be sure that bedtime follows in 10
minutes. And continue this routine every night so that it's both expected and
understood. Here are some routine bedtime difficulties and some possible
responses you can use to overcome them:
Your child doesn't want to fall asleep alone -- she wants you to stay in the
room or stay in bed with her until she falls asleep. This might be the result of
insecurity, which may be overcome by ensuring that she has a favorite blanket or
toy with her. If she's afraid of the dark, a night light can provide her with
some assurance. Leaving the door open a little bit may reassure her that she is
not alone in the house, abandoned to all the monsters and fears of childhood.
And you can reassure her that you'll be looking in on her to make sure she's OK
and sound asleep. If she's awake when you check, encourage her by praising her
for staying in bed and relaxing, waiting for sleep to overtake her. Consistency
being the keyword here, you must insist that she remain in bed, not get up and
wander around, go to the bathroom, interrupt you for a drink of water or other
Alternatively, if your child doesn't want to sleep alone, it may be because she
got accustomed to falling asleep in your arms while being nursed -- you need to
transition her to going to sleep alone. This may be accomplished more quickly if
you begin doing it during the day. Wait until you notice she's drowsy and close
to nap time. Then put her into her bed alone, reassure her that you'll be in the
next room, and let her fall asleep alone. Let her mind associate bed with sleep,
even when she's in bed alone -- and even if she's in bed alone because she's
woken in the middle of the night.
Your child wants to stay awake longer, so she doesn't miss any of the activity
going on in the home. See the earlier note about calming the entire house down
prior to bedtime. If there's "nothing happening," then there isn't much
temptation to stay up and watch it not happen.
Your child wakes up in the night and calls for attention. First, delay your
response for a minute or two -- and for increasingly longer periods if the
problem persists. The idea is to create a deliberate delay so that she won't
expect immediate response; and to increase that delay so that she will learn
that if she wakes at night the only thing to do is to lay back down and go back
to sleep. If she is consistently waking during the night, she may be taking too
many naps during the day; or she may be sleeping too late in the morning, so
that she isn't sufficiently tired at night. When you go to her after she wakes
up, give her loving attention, but not too much of it. Tuck her back into her
covers, remind her that it's well past bedtime and that she needs to be asleep,
give her a kiss on the forehead, and leave the room. Waking in the night should
not become an excuse to stay awake. Rather, it should be an occasion for brief
reassurances and then a swift return to sleep.
Not all children need the same amount of sleep. If you're putting her to bed at
7:30 and she consistently falls asleep at 8:30, this might be because you're
trying to give her more hours of sleep than her body actually needs. Maybe she
only needs nine hours of sleep instead of the ten hours you've been told is
"correct for a child her age." Rather than associating bedtime with frustration
and sleeplessness, try putting her to bed at the time her body is ready for
sleep. She'll get just as much sleep, but won't be frustrated and fussy at
bedtime. If this proves to be an insufficient amount of sleep, you can work at
returning to the previous bedtime in small increments. That is, if putting her
to bed at 8:30 leaves her groggy in the morning, begin putting her to bed at
8:25 for several days, then at 8:20 for several days, then slowly move her to a
bedtime that will allow her sufficient sleep while preventing the situation
where she lies awake too long once she's gone to bed.
Summing It Up
Work at having a calm, soothing, and consistent -- especially consistent --
routine for bedtime and for dealing with the occasional nighttime wakefulness.
In the absence of illness, calmness and consistency are the best means of
dealing with childhood insomnia.
Copyright (c) William Johnson 2008
Bill Johnson, webmaster of http://www.insomnia-answers.com,
researches and writes numerous articles on the topic of insomnia.
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