Sticking to Our Guns

I was having a conversation the other day with a friend. She was telling me that on her camping trip that past weekend her 22-month old learned how to climb out of her pack n play for the first time. After trying once and succeeding, she did it repeatedly throughout the night and became unable to settle herself to sleep. A few days after they returned home, her daughter climbed out of her crib once too when aggravated. (They immediately set up
a crib tent to nip this behavior in the bud, which the little girl accepted basically without complaint.)

At different ages and stages our children discover new talents/abilities/skills/self-decided privileges and like to practice these to the chagrin of the parents. It seems to be often unpleasant to guide them back into "correct" behavior or adequate sleep as my experiences relate. We parent may have to endure "crying it out" or protests or tiredly staying consistent to help our children move past these disruptions in their sleep. It is hard to avoid wavering from our decided path and falling into the path of just doing whatever to avoid conflict or crying.

But, I do implore you to be deliberate in the decisions you make about sleep at 1pm when you put your two-year old down for their nap, as well as at 3am when your child wakes up with a variety of requests. If your child begins to try something new, you also may need to try something new and establish new boundaries that fit the situation. If your child starts climbing out of his crib before you feel he is ready for a bed, put on a crib tent on it- even though it may cause your child to protest. If your child gets sick and subsequently gets in the habit of looking to you to soothe them in the middle of the night- allow them the chance to rediscover how to soothe themselves and not look to you. If your child takes hours to fall asleep at night because they have requested you leave a light on in their room, turn it off.

As parents, we need to figure out what is best for our children and be deliberate and intentional about our follow-through. If we decide that sleep is very important to our child's health, brain development, attitude and emotions, and the sanity of our home we need to deliberately strive to get our little ones the sleep they need, even if it means they cry, or whine, or yell no. Stick to your guns.

Article Review Day 3: Sleep-Onset Association Disorder

Sleep-Onset Association Disorder is a dyssomnia (remember last Thursdays post?).

Night wakings are normal in infants and preschool children. They may wake up as many as 5 to 8 times a night. You may be thinking, my child sleeps all night (or at least most of the time). Or, you may be thinking, yep, they wake up about 5 to 8 times a night. Well, according to this article (I have been reviewing over the past few Thursdays) "the difference between children who are 'good sleepers' and sleep through the night and those who are 'poor sleepers' and wake frequently is their ability to self-soothe after awakening." So, even if you have a good sleeper that doesn't wake up they are probably just waking up and soothing themselves back to sleep. Self-soothing is wonderful and necessary. It sometimes means letting a child cry for a short period of time to discover how they will self-soothe. Many children are never given the opportunity to learn how to self-soothe. What does your child do to soothe themselves back to sleep? Do you soothe them back to sleep?

You may wonder why it is necessary for children to learn this skill. Well, if you soothe your child to sleep at bedtime with rocking or nursing or bottle feeding (this doesn't mean you skip a nighttime routine or if they fall asleep nursing they are going to be poor sleepers) they may learn to expect these as the way to go back to sleep when they wake during the night, and then you do these things to soothe them back to sleep during the night. "These children are unintentionally trained by their parents to expect these conditions and can experience many disruptions in their nighttime sleep leading to sleep loss. Parents also experience stress and a profound sleep deficit themselves because of night waking, resulting in potential for a negative impact on overall family functioning."

So, what do you do if your child has Sleep-Onset Association Disorder:
-Keep reading Lullaby Luna- informing yourself as a parent is a great way to help your kids get a new sleep routine.
-As a parent, you need to learn how "to help your children fall asleep in their cribs or beds and return to sleep during the night with minimal parental intervention."
-You may try "crying it out" or "graduated extinction" where you check on the child during episodes of nighttime crying- you make scheduled checks on the child and slowly increase the time between the checks. "During the checks, the parent should not hold or rock the child, as this will reinforce the crying and the need for parental intervention to return to sleep. By simply checking on the child, the child is reassured that his parents are still present but learns self-soothing techniques and often will accept that he is safe, his parents are near, and that he can fall asleep without the help from his parents."
Note: In my experience, crying will be part of this training, this training is necessary to create good sleepers, the younger the better (I like to do this by 5-6 months old), if your child is older it will take longer and probably be more difficult- not impossible, just more difficult.
-If you struggle to do this on your own or feel overwhelmed hire a sleep consultant.