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You’ve read the books.
You’ve sung the songs.
It’s time for bedtime to be over.
But your kid just won’t let you leave the room! You’re stuck, wasting your whole evening – again. Let's break down exactly WHY this is happening and what you can do to break free!
>>Watch this blog on my Awesome Little Sleepers YouTube channel! 👇
Solving toddler bedtime struggles: Why do they need me in order to sleep?
At one point or another, lots of us have sat with our kids at night while they fall asleep. It’s usually no big deal. Maybe you rub their back, or say ‘shush’ as they drift off to sleep in a few minutes, then you sneak out and go on with your evening.
But now it’s more like, “Yeah, right. Maybe it was that easy months ago, but not anymore. Now I’m stuck in there for hours and it takes them forever to fall asleep. ”
So, let's look at this slippery slope of needing a parent in order to fall asleep.
Why does it keep happening, and how the heck do we get it to stop?
Kids are creatures of habit.
When a kid gets something they like, they want it again and again. And they can be relentless!
You used bubble bath ONE time, and now they refuse to bathe without it. One time you put whipped cream on their strawberries and now they hate fruit without whipped cream.
Similarly, sitting in their room at bedtime started innocently enough. Maybe they just begged you to stay one night and you thought ‘oh why not.’ Maybe they went through a phase where they kept running out of the room after you, and you know it’s important they get to bed, so you stayed with them for a few minutes. Maybe you used to be able to leave quickly, but over the course of a week or so, leaving got tougher.
There are usually 3 things that happen at this point:
1) Your kid starts to keep themselves awake longer because they know you will leave
2) Your kid’s emotions get bigger and bigger if you try to leave, so you stop trying
3) Your kid starts waking up overnight if they stir around and find you missing at 2am.
It doesn’t take long for your child to become totally dependent on you for sleep. Just like they are with a lovey or pacifier.
And so here you are. Stuck in their room. Wasting your whole evening in a dark room trying to keep yourself awake just so your child can fall asleep.
Good news! You can break the cycle of struggle with your toddler at bedtime.
You can change this! As parents, we are the leaders of our household and we get to create the environment, experiences, and habits that our kids get used to.
Some kids live on farms and wake up before school to collect eggs and feed the cows.
Some kids grow up vegan.
Some kids don’t have TVs or screens in their house.
Some kids co-sleep with their parents from birth.
Some kids don’t have chores.
This is way different from my kids’ childhood experience. But that’s the beauty - we all have different families and parents get to set up the experiences they want their kids to have.
Kids are adaptable. They get used to how their family and household runs. How we eat. How we talk to each other. What we value.
We set up childhood for our kids. And this includes how they sleep. Our kids are always learning from us. And if we start laying in their room at bedtime, then they come to expect it. And why wouldn’t they!
I worked with Michelle and her 4-year-old son after Michelle came to me complaining about bedtime taking forever. She was laying with her son for up to 2 hours, and some nights he wasn’t falling asleep until 10pm!
She talked to him about how mommy couldn’t stay with him anymore because she had other things to do in the house. Each night they would have the same talk - she would say “mommy can’t stay because I have to clean the kitchen” and her son would agree and even add things like “mommy has to feed the dog or do the laundry”.. But after lights out, her son would end up throwing a tantrum and Michelle would end up back in his bed. She was confused because her son seemed to understand, but just couldn’t let her go.
This is because her actions were speaking much louder than her words.
Look at it from her son’s perspective. She was saying that she couldn’t stay, but in the end she always did! So, that was the pattern they were stuck in. It was just a habit that Michelle was ready to break.
So, how did she get out of this?
Make a bedtime plan for your toddler and stick to it.
Michelle made a new plan.
Parents have to be the ones to initiate the change, and it can’t just be words.
Kids have to get experience falling asleep alone in order to get used to it.
This takes parents making a real, solid, step-by-step plan to set that experience up from them. It can be done gradually or quickly, but it needs to be well-defined by the parents.
The most important part of the plan is that parents are confident and consistent.
Kids pick up on our confidence and if we are waffling or unsure, they’ll know. Consistency allows kids to get used to a new experience even if they don’t like it at first. The more consistent parents are, the faster kids will get used to it.
Like the first time they have to put on their winter coat and gloves to go outside when it gets cold. They complain and moan about it, but if they have to do it every single morning, the complaining subsides.
When we’re working on sleep independence with older kids, make sure to loop them in on the new plan. Prepping them well so they understand the changes will go a long way. I’m not saying there will be no push-back! But prepping them will help to make it easier.
Michelle used my sleep course to create a new plan that gradually got her out of her son’s room over the course of about 10 days. It was tough at first, but she prepped him well and used rewards to encourage the baby steps of his progress along the way.
In the end, her son was so proud of himself and bragging to his preschool teachers about how well he was sleeping.
If you want to learn the REST Method that Michelle used, join me in my next Toddler Sleep Masterclass.