fifteen tips to help toddlers sleep
The five steps to happy sleeping that we described in the previous chapter apply to toddlers as well as babies. Yet, as babies turn into toddlers, their nighttime needs change and parents need to learn more sleep strategies. Toddlers still need your presence at bedtime, and their bedtime rituals will reflect their need for closeness.
Sometime between two and three years of age, children begin to form conscious memories that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. What bedtime memories do you want your child to file away?
Sears’ Parenting Tip: As children learn to sleep, they learn to live.
what toddlers learn at bedtime
It’s good to have goals as a parent. When you know what you want for your children in the long term, it’s easier to do the things you have to do right now to reach that goal. So what are your sleep goals for your child? Two important sleep goals are:
Children should learn that sleep is a pleasant state to enter and a peaceful state to stay in, and therefore develop healthy sleep habits.
Children should have pleasant memories of how they were parented to sleep.
Children need to develop a pleasant attitude toward falling asleep and staying asleep. We believe that your child’s ability to sleep well in the future depends on his having happy, stress-free, positive experiences at bedtime when he is young. Eventually, these positive experiences will translate into sleep independence – the ability to fall asleep and back to sleep on his own. And all these good sleep experiences will help your child grow up to be a happier, less stressed, and healthier person.
Many well-meaning parents push their kids into sleep independence too soon. After a long day at work and caring for the kids, parents need a break and want the evening for themselves. Between the ages of one and four their whole goal at bedtime is for a child to fall asleep on his own, and do so quickly and quietly. When this is achieved, parents feel they have finally succeeded in creating a “good sleeper”.
But what if a child isn’t quite ready for this? What happens when a child grows up feeling that bedtime is a time when she is forced to stay in a darkened room alone and told to be quiet and go to sleep? This is a child who will procrastinate because she fears or resents the isolation at bedtime. She will make up all kinds of reasons why she wants Mum or Dad’s attention at bedtime. She will get up to come and find you because she’s thirsty or there’s a monster under the bed. She will ask you to leave the light on or the door open. She will use every stalling tactic she can think of when what she really means is she just wants you. This is a child who is more likely to grow up with a fear of bedtime, of the dark, and of being alone. She may feel anxious and insecure, because her parents have pushed her into nighttime independence before she was truly ready. Imagine how you, as an adult, would feel if you went to bed every night feeling stressed, scared, and unfulfilled. There is one more ingredient that parents often add to this bedtime picture without realizing it – anger or hostility. We use phrases like “Get back to bed”, “If you get out of bed one more time …” “Stop your whining and go to sleep.” Even if there is no anger in your voice, these negative phrases night after night over the years add up to a child who resents and fears bedtime.
Ask yourself: are you willing to put in some time now to help your kids achieve the long-term goal of a healthy attitude about sleep and a trusting, secure attitude toward life?
Remember what we said about keeping the long-term goal in mind when you are making short-term decisions about parenting? While most of what is in this chapter assumes that you are going to be close by while your toddler drifts off to sleep, one of your long-term goals is a child who goes to sleep happily on his own. So, keep in mind that while you are parenting, not just putting your toddler to sleep, you are also teaching him skills and attitudes that he will someday use to help himself fall asleep without you there. As he is ready, you are encouraging him to use these skills. No, you are not a victim of childish manipulation. When you rub a child’s back at bedtime to help her relax or soothe a tearful toddler with quiet talking in the middle of the night, you are modelling self-help skills. When your child is ready to cope with these challenges on his own, he will call up images of the good feelings he had while falling asleep in your presence. And bingo, he’ll fall asleep.
easing your toddler off to dreamland – fifteen tips
We’ll begin with fifteen tips that apply to nearly all toddlers. These are practical strategies aimed at 1) getting little ones off to dreamland and 2) teaching them a healthy attitude toward sleep. The second half of this chapter turns the spotlight (or a very dim nightlight – don’t want to wake the kids) on common toddler sleep concerns – and solutions – that tired parents have shared with us.
One night my daughter called out “Mummy, I need you!” I went straight away to her room, fed her, and she sleepily said, “Thank you, Mummy” and drifted off to sleep. I thank God that she knows we are here for her and that she uses us when she needs us. I hope that this will be a lifelong pattern, not just in sleep, but with her everyday life.
1. Tire out your toddler
Encourage your child to be active during the day. The more physical activity that children – and adults – get during the day, the better they sleep at night. Babies who are not yet walking can be encouraged to play on the floor, cruise and crawl. Take your toddler to the park and run, jump, and bounce on the playground equipment. Toddlers get their exercise in bursts of activity. They don’t take long walks or set out to jog three miles as adults do. They take frequent rest stops during active play, but they don’t mind being active much of the day. Toddlers should not be plugged in for more than a half-hour a day playing video games or watching television.
Sears’ Sleep Tip: Kids who are couch potatoes by day tend to sleep less at night.
2. Set consistent bedtimes
Infants and toddlers generally go to bed “too late”. Or they go to bed at different times every night. Modern families’ busy daytime lifestyles encourage this “whenever” approach to bedtime. Unless your family’s lifestyle allows for your toddler to sleep later in the morning, try to set an early and consistent bedtime for your little one. Even if a later bedtime is what works best in your family, try to be consistent about when your child goes to bed. By putting kids to bed at the same time night after night you are programming their internal sleep clock to fall asleep easily at this set time.
3. Set the stage
Toddlers and preschoolers are not going to go to bed willingly if there is a lot of activity going on in your household. They don’t like to miss out. When it’s time for your toddler to go to bed, turn down the lights all over the house, turn off the television (you can record what you’re missing), and channel older children’s energy into quiet activities. As you turn down the household activity level, let your child know that bedtime is coming. Set the kitchen timer for 10 or 15 minutes and tell your child that when the timer goes off, it’s bedtime. Or use an egg timer and say, “When all the sand hits the bottom, it’s time to start getting ready for bed”. Kids are less likely to argue with a timer than with a parent.
nighttime props for tots
While a mother’s breast, a father’s arms, and a familiar