In a new book, popular US parenting expert Dr Becky Kennedy shares her approach to raising children in a way that feels good. This extract, from Good Inside: A Practical Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, covers kids’ sleep issues.
There’s nothing quite like parenting all day and then having your child protest sleep, procrastinate during bedtime, or wake up in the middle of the night when you’re desperate for much-needed rest. If you find bedtime protests difficult to manage, you’re not alone, especially since they come at the precise moment when parents are eagerly awaiting the precious child-free moments of their day, when they can finally relax or read or do something for themselves. It’s a cruel irony that at the end of a long day, parents want time away from their kids at the same time that kids often want continued connection with their parents.
When considering your child’s sleep problems, it’s important to remember this truth: sleep struggles are ultimately separation struggles, because during the night children are tasked with being alone for ten(ish) hours and also with feeling safe enough that their body is able to drift off to sleep. And because separation struggles are at the root of sleep problems, sleep “solutions” need to be formulated around an understanding of attachment theory.
The attachment system is based in proximity seeking, because children feel safest when their parents are next to them. Nighttime can feel truly dangerous to kids - it means darkness, aloneness, the slowing down of the body and the speeding up of the mind, the emergence of scary thoughts, and even existential worries about permanence (“Are my parents really there when I can’t see them?”).
So ... what can we do? I see sleep change as a two-step process: First, we have to help our kids feel safe. We have to help them develop coping skills during the day, when the stakes are lower, before a child will feel safe enough to separate at night. Then, and only then, can we implement strategies to create a smoother bedtime experience. Too often, we become myopic about sleep, missing the larger story of what’s happening for a child because we’re so overwhelmed with our own frustration. While this response is certainly understandable, unfortunately, it can exacerbate the very issues that contributed to sleep problems in the first place. When parents become cold, punitive and reactive, kids who are searching for understanding and help with self-soothing feel more alone and threatened. Thus our kids’ need for our presence heightens, we become more frustrated ... and the cycle continues.
Let’s review what we know about attachment and separation.
Kids who struggle to separate have trouble internalising the soothing aspects of a parent-child relationship - they feel safe in a parent’s presence but, often, terrified in a parent’s absence. Separation starts to feel more manageable when we close this gap, when we help a child take in the parts of the parent-child relationship that provide security so that he can access feelings of safety, security, and trust, all of which are necessary for sleep. If we can help infuse a parent’s presence into a child’s environment, then he can access the soothing function of the parent-child relationship even when the parent isn’t right there. This is the goal. When you reflect on interventions to help your child’s sleep struggles, consider whether they help your child learn skills to tolerate your absence, or whether they actually add to your child’s terror in your absence. Beyond the strategies I describe here, considering this binary will help you assess what might help and feel good.
Strategies
“Where Is Everyone?”
Kids don’t take parents’ permanence for granted; when they go to sleep, they don’t know that you’re still there. To help your kids understand, talk to them, during the daytime, about where you spend your evening. Walk them around your home to show them. You might say: “When you go to sleep, Daddy goes to the kitchen and eats dinner, and then I read on the couch, and then I go to sleep in my room. When you are sleeping, I’m here the whole time! And then I wake up and come get you from your room when it’s morning!” In a time of transition or change, you might also add: “There are so many changes in our life. Here’s something that’ll never change: when you go to bed, I’ll still be here. Even when your eyes are closed and even when you can’t see me, I’m here and I will be here when you wake up.”
Examine Your Daytime Separation Routine
If sleep is hard for your child, start looking at daytime separation patterns. Is it hard for your child to let you go to the bathroom on your own? Is school separation difficult? Does your child struggle to say goodbye when you run errands or take a walk by yourself? Before tackling nighttime separation struggles (i.e., sleep struggles!), work on these dynamics during the day; nighttime can be filled with extra anxiety, so we need to build separation skills when our bodies are less activated and more receptive to learning. Come up with a separation routine, practise saying goodbye (even just to go to the bathroom!), and assure your child that even when you’re not right together, she is safe and you will come back.
Role-Play
Get out the stuffed animals, trucks, dolls, or whatever your child likes to play with. Use them to act out a bedtime routine, reviewing feelings that come up and strategies that help with the soothing process. Say to your child, “Let’s help Duckie get ready for bed!” Then say to Duckie, “Duckie, I know sleeping isn’t your favourite part of the day. It’s okay to feel sad at bedtime. Remember, Mommy Duck is right outside your room. You are safe. And Mommy Duck will see you in the morning. Okay, let’s get ready for bed.” Then go over the nighttime routine - use the same one as your child (“Let’s read Duckie her two books and then brush her teeth and then sing one song and say good night!”), and feel free to include the moments that tend to be hard for your child.
Infuse Your Presence
My approach to sleep struggles centres around helping your child feel the soothing function of your relationship without your having to be there the whole time. Think of various ways to infuse your presence into your child’s room and bed area. Maybe you put a family photo next to your child’s sleep area and a photo of your child next to your bed as well. You can introduce this, during the daytime, by saying: “You know what I’ve been thinking about? Sometimes I have a hard time falling asleep and I think of you and miss you! I’d love to have a picture of you right next to my bed. Then I can see you and remind myself that you’re here and I’m safe, and that I’ll see you in the morning! I think it would be good for both of us to have pictures of each other. Maybe we can make picture frames and then put them by our beds.”
I’d suggest making the frames together - nothing fancy, you can just decorate a piece of construction paper and glue the photo on top. This way your presence is infused into the room in your picture but also in your child’s memory of creating art with you, a memory that likely feels safe and connected, which are the feelings we want a child to access at nighttime.
Mantras for You and Your Child
I have used this mantra for years with my own kids: “Mommy is near, [child’s name] is safe, my bed is cosy.” You can introduce your child to a mantra in this way: “Did you know that when I was your age my mom told me this special thing to say when I went to bed? I’d say it to myself over and over and over after she left. She told me to say: ‘Mommy is near, Farnaz is safe, my bed is cosy.’ Sleep was still a bit tricky for me but it helped make it better! Yours would be, ‘Mommy is near, Nahid is safe, my bed is cosy.’” Share the mantra in a singsongy voice so that the rhythm is as soothing as the words. You can incorporate this mantra into the routine so that after you sing your child a song, you say the mantra three times; pretty soon, your child will have internalised the mantra and be able to produce it herself. A mantra, especially one that has an intergenerational story, is another great way to infuse your presence into your child’s room.
The Safe Distance Method
This method operates on the principles of attachment theory, respecting that children need to feel proximal to parents in order to feel safe. Start out in a child’s room, staying close by, then - over the course of many nights - increase the distance until you are farther and farther away (and eventually out of the room). Explain to your child: “I know sleep has felt tricky. I will stay in your room while you fall asleep. I won’t always do this, but I will for a little while. While I’m here, I won’t be talking, because this isn’t daytime. I am here so you know you are safe.”
Here’s a safe distance step-by-step:
1. Stay in your child’s room until he’s near asleep or fully asleep. While in the room, gaze away from your child. Once you’re farther away from him, feel free to use the time to do some work or take care of personal matters. You’re there for your presence, not engagement. Remember, your child won’t need you in his room forever. Once we reduce fear, we can increase a child’s tolerance of distance. Independence (separation) is born out of the safety of dependence (togetherness).
2. For the first night, stay as close to your child as he needs to feel safe; you’ll know he feels safe when he is calm. Your starting point may be sitting on his bed and rubbing his back. Stay at this distance for three consecutive nights.
3. Start to create more distance. Your second “location” might be sitting on his bed without touch or sitting by his bed. A few nights later, you might be on the floor closer to the door. The morning of a new change, announce it to your child: “Tonight you are ready for something new. I won’t be sitting on your bed tonight. I will be staying in your room, sitting on your chair. I know you can do it!”
4. If your child becomes scared or dysregulated, sing the bedtime mantra slowly and softly while gazing at the floor. If your child is still scared, move closer for a bit. It is normal to go “in and out” as you figure out safe distance.
5. If you notice your frustration or anger, remember your bedtime mantra: “This will end. There will be a moment when my child is asleep. I can cope with this.”
6. Continue this distancing process until you’re near the door, then in the door frame, then, nights later, outside a cracked-open door.
- Edited extract from Good Inside: A Practical Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be by Dr Becky Kennedy (HarperCollins, RRP$37.99).
