Bedtime: A Gentle Parenting Approach for a Child Who Doesn’t Sleep.

I was chatting to a client this week who was feeling very distressed that her child – who is 3.5 years old – is still struggling to go to sleep on their own and wakes in the night crying for them. She wanted strategies to stop this.

Ok.  Problem.  I have – and have always had – the worst sleeper in the world.  And I haven’t curbed it.  I still struggle to get him to go the whole night in his own bed and lie with him until he goes to sleep AND sometimes he wakes as I leave the room distressed saying he doesn’t want to be on his own. Bother! Bugger!

But I approach this from a different perspective.  This time – a time of him being small and wanting and needing me so much – will fly by fleetingly and, exhausting as it is sometimes, I decided early on to embrace these moments as precious, rather than draining.  That 10 minutes, as I lie next to him are some of the most precious moments of my day: his warm, snug body next to mine, his warm breath on my face as his muffled, soft, half asleep voice murmurs ‘I love you Mummy.’  Soppy as it sounds, but it melts me every night.  This is my chance to whisper all the things I love about him, that he is safe, that he is loved and nothing will ever change that.  It is my moment to anchor him in safety as he drifts off to sleep.

I decided early on not to do the Cry It Out method.  And here is why:  I don’t get it!  Simple as that.  As an adult, if I am upset – distressed, crying, hurt, lonely – society will tell you to reach out to the people who care for you.  Your people nurture you in those moments until you feel better, calmer, reassured….  But for children, we seem to expect the opposite: children shouldn’t need us.  They should sleep alone and settle themselves to sleep alone. And if they wake in the night, they should have the skills to regulate their emotions and settle themselves back down to sleep again. Content.  Why?  Why do we expect so much from children, that we wouldn’t expect of adults.

However old your child is, if they need to be fed to sleep, rocked to sleep, holding their hand to sleep…. Whatever they need …what you are really providing them in those moments is deep security, deep belonging, deep safety.  And this will be hard wired in to them.  Innately.

And sometimes, yes, there are other things I ‘have to’ do.  That with the busyness of life it would be easier to quickly pat his back and leave him to settle himself.  It would be easier to remain watching Netflix and let him settle himself when he wakes crying for me.  But, in those moments when those thoughts cross my mind, I move my brain to 5 years from now when he will no longer need me; when I wake in the morning and his snug warm body hasn’t crept in to my nook in the night; when he doesn’t call for me.  And I know then that these moments are actually golden; they are the memories I will cling to when I am older and reminiscing about the once small bundle my strapping 6ft young man used to be.  Because I guarantee you, he won’t need my hand on his back or clasped in his then.

We often think of these moment when we are needed by our young children as moment that serve them, but I urge you to flip it and consider how these moments will serve you when they move in to history, in the your golden memory bank.

So, I leave you with the instruction to stop listening to society telling you that you are doing it ‘wrong’ by not leaving your child; to stop feeling anxious that you need to change the behaviour and instead lean in to it. For it will be gone before you know it.

If you are having trouble with sleep in your house – you or your child’s – pop over to the Facebook group Calm Connected Parent Club and pose a question – perhaps I or the group can help you.  You can join it here.  It’s Free!

And don’t forget to download your free ebook Calm to Connection in 4 Easy steps here.