How to Get a Child to Overcome Bedtime Fear
My son has for the most part been resistant to sleeping alone, but overall he’d eventually nod off. What would happen more often than not is we would wake up in the wee hours of the morning and find him in our bed. Over the last week or two, it has become a battle to get him to sleep alone. After much reading and talking to other parents I decided to try lying down with him until he goes off.
While this technique works most of the time, it doesn’t always. The main problem however, is that I’m generally so tired I tend to fall asleep as well. When you are a wife as well as a mother this can be a problem. It’s definitely not good when your spouse has to be sleeping alone night after night. Of course, this can be problem for you too, when you want to just lie in bed and chat or snuggle for a while.
Most of the suggestions I’ve tried have certainly not worked. Below are a few and their results:
- Giving him a nightlight. He has one with his favorite cartoon character, Spiderman. He doesn’t use it. As soon as it’s plugged in he turns it off – not sure if it’s because the light isn’t very bright. The bathroom light is left on so that his room is not in total darkness, which used to work but doesn’t anymore.
- Leaving the bedroom door open. I leave both his and our bedroom doors open. His room is right across from ours.
- We try to shield him from scary movies and stories, but he’s now at school. What we’ve found that he will come home and talk about ghosts, which suggest that the other kids are talking about scary stuff. There is very little parents can do about this.
- Put him back when he crawls into our bed. This is easier said than done. Most times when he climbs into our bed, we don’t even know until it’s time to get up anyway. I normally get up between 3:30-4AM. Plus, if we are aware that he’s climbing into bed with us, it’s hard to get up and go through the hassle of getting him settled in his bed again. I know that we really should take him back, but… it really isn’t as easy as the experts make it sound.
The main danger with trying to get him to sleep in his own bed without a hassle is being too hard on him. I want to be firm yet make sleeping alone no longer a fearful activity for him. Obviously, he’s not afraid to go into his room and sleep in the daytime. In fact a few months ago he told me that parents were unfair because they slept together keeping each other’s company and they want a little child to sleep alone. What do you do in the face of such logic?
So, what measures did you use to help your child to get comfortable with sleeping alone? I need help!
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Dawn Allcot says...
Sorry I don’t have advice, but I want to say I feel your pain. My daughter is only five months old, but all the things it takes to get her to sleep through the night, and also get her back into her own space after her 3 or 4 AM feeding, require work, hassle, stress for her, and me forcing myself to stay awake.
I wish you the best and please do let me know what works!