Parenting is…

Parenting experts agree: for a good night’s sleep, you need to teach your child to fall asleep on his or her own. While this may be a useful advice for some, most moms I have talked to found it to be a tall order. Night time is the most difficult period for many of us. It is when our worries and anxieties plague us; when we, even as adults, need cuddles more than any other time of the day.Cry-it-out approach works for some, out of the question for others and just plain fails for many. I have come to believe that the reason that you are adding to the night time anxieties of your child by coldly walking out on him when he needs you most. Over time, though he will probably learn to fall asleep, he will associate bed time with extreme stress and you are in for years of an uphill battle.In this article, I will not talk about night weaning. If your child falls asleep at the breast, it can be an enormous challenge to change this. The goal today is to find a solution to teach a night-time cuddler to fall asleep without your presence, but without creating additional stress by your absence. This will improve his night time sleep. In addition, you’ll be surprised and how much faster he will be falling asleep when his entertainment (you) is gone!Step I is about creating a pleasant bed time experience. Forget everything they tell you and spend quality time cuddling, reading stories, listening to music, having hugs and kisses. If your child doesn’t sleep in a crib (mine has slept in a floor bed since day 1), it’s great to climb under the covers with him. Let him drop off to sleep while playing with your face, warm against your chest, as you whisper in his ear. You’ll have to play with what works for him and what makes him truly happy. When you find the right routine, you’ll know. Alex, when we first started doing this at 18 months, said one night, “Sleep… fun…” as we were laying in his bed, playing with toy animals and listening to classical music. Once you are certain, he is falling asleep truly happy, you are ready for step II.Step II: mommy will be back. You want to practice this during the day, when he is happy, fed, well-rested and delighted to be alive. Say, “I’ll be right back!” and leave the room for two minutes. Come back with smiles, hugs, and even a treat. Praise him for how patiently he waited. (You can teach this to a pre-verbal child, too. He’ll learn the sequence of words & events.) Extend your absence to 5-10 minutes over time. If he comes out looking for you, smile and say, “You lost me? Don’t worry! Mommy promised to be back and here I am!” But next time try to shorten the absence. You want him to successfully wait for you while you are gone. Once you find that a ten minute absence doesn’t usually create a problem, you are ready for the last step.Step III: waiting for mommy in bed. Now your child knows that when mommy says, “I’ll be right back”, she will be! So, continue your normal bed time routine till he is very sleepy. Then say, “Baby, please wait for mommy. I’ll be right back.” For an older child, add an excuse: “I need to go potty” or “I’d like to change into my jammies.” Changing into jammies works great for me. He notices I came back wearing my sleep clothes and sometimes comments on it: “Mommy jammies too!” I imagine, it helps him understand while I left and what I was doing. Leave for just two minutes. The first time, you may just stand outside the door listening for the smallest sound. You want to be back before he looks for you. Praise him for being patient as before and cuddle him to sleep when you are back.Over time, as you extend your absence to ten minutes, you’ll begin to find him asleep when you get back. Sometimes you won’t and that’s ok. He may be having an extra hard time falling asleep - and this routine allows you to give him help on those hard nights without feeling like you are giving in.If he objects to your leaving, stay an extra minute, cuddle him and then say, “OK, baby, mommy will be extra extra fast today! I’ll be back real real soon!” then follow through. Don’t be gone much time at all. The idea is to make sure that he becomes used to your leaving, but not stressed by it.If he is almost never asleep after ten minutes, there are several options and you need to decide, which will work best. First, consider putting him to bed a little later - perhaps he is not tired enough. Second, extend the pre-leaving bed time ritual, allowing him to wind down more. Third, extend your absence and see if an extra few minutes do the trick.Before you know it, an hour-long bedtime struggle is condensed into a ten minute peaceful ritual! I was amazed at how fast Alex would fall asleep with me gone. When he is having a hard time, I come back after ten minutes and hang with him till he is peacefully asleep. On easy nights, which now happen most of the time, I still come in and give him kisses and tell him I love him. I don’t know if he can hear me, but I know I love it when my husband does this if he is in bed after I am aleep.FYI: I found an amazing collection of sleep solutions, book reviews, tips and advice on sleep at <a href=”http://anndouglas.typepad.com/sleepsolutions/sleep_tools/index.html”> this site</a>. Enjoy!