How to Get Your Child to Sleep

It has been a very busy day, and it is finally bedtime. For the past half an hour, your baby has been rubbing his eyes and whining. These are signs you recognize, as it is time for him to go to bed. You carry him up to his room, kiss him good night and reassure him that you will be short distance away. You lay him down in the crib, cover him with his warm blanket and give him his favorite brown teddy bear. “Good night, little one,” you say as you turn off the light and close the door.

The room is silent as you creep down the hallway away from your baby’s room. This is your first chance to relax all day. As you are about to turn on the DVD player to watch a movie, a heart-breaking cry resonates from your baby’s room.

As a first time parent, have you ever had to listen to the sound of your baby screaming at the top of his lungs? You know that the only reason he’s crying is because he doesn’t want to go to sleep? Or is it? Could there be something else wrong? It could be as simple as he is afraid of the dark. For any parent, hearing your baby cry can be heart wrenching, especially if you’ve done everything you can think of for the child.

Bedtime was always a big fight when it came to putting our eldest son to bed at night. He would scream and holler. My husband and I were at our wits-end – we didn’t understand why this child refused to go to sleep.

We made our nightly ritual a story before bed, followed by a lullaby and cuddle time. Then, he was put into his crib. TV shows, like Super Nanny and Nanny 911, advise parents to put the child in their room and close the door. The child, apparently, will cry for a short time and then fall asleep.

Well, that wasn’t the case with our son, Erik. He would cry so much that he would make himself sick. We would begin our bedtime routine at 7:30pm and he would finally fall asleep around 10 o’clock.

Some of the other parents we spoke to, said the same thing, “Just let him cry. He will eventually go to sleep.” We were also advised to cut out his afternoon nap. My son didn’t take more than one nap a day; so this suggestion was not acceptable. I need him to take a nap.

But how long do you let this child cry himself to sleep and not feel guilty about it? I didn’t want my child to think I was abandoning him. We didn’t know what to do. The more he would fight sleep, the more frustrated we became. I was determined to find a solution to this problem.

Frustrated, I wanted to know if my child was an oddity. Was he the only child to fight sleep? Were we doing something wrong? We didn’t know. I looked up information on the Internet hoping that I might find tips to try. My query came up with over 300 hits but there wasn’t anything that I felt truly answered my question.

I began speaking with the other mothers at a baby group I belonged to about this sleep problem. Mothers, I found are very willing to offer advice because they have been there. They know what works for their baby. They were very willing to give me tips for what worked with their babies.

One mother offered a great piece of advice. This stuck with me – Listen to what your baby is trying to tell you. Does his cry sound frantic or even scared? There is a difference between a cry of a baby who is mad that you’ve left him in his crib and he wants you to know it and a baby who is scared.

If a child is merely mad that he has been put in his crib when he wants to play some more he will eventually fall asleep. But if the child is frightened – there is nothing you can do to get the child to sleep. Letting a young child scream until he falls asleep is upsetting not only to you as the parent but to your child as well.

One night after I had finished our nightly ritual and had put him in his crib, I turned off his light and closed the door. As I stood outside his door listening to his frantic cries, it came to me out of the blue. What if my son was afraid of the dark? I mean, was it possible? What could it hurt to test my theory? If the answer was yes, then he would soon go to sleep, but if the answer was no, we would be no worse off.

Opening his door, the crying stopped and I attempted not to make eye contact with him. I turned on the dimmer light so that the light in his room wasn’t too bright. I said good night to him again and gently closed the door.

Almost immediately the crying began again. I went back downstairs to wait it out. Two minutes later, he was frantic. We decided to give him ten minutes before going back in – an honest to goodness try. At five minutes, he would cry and then stop. For the first time in weeks we could see a light at the end of the tunnel. Seven minutes later, there was silence in my son’s bedroom. Victory was ours at last.

I am pleased to say since that time, bedtime hasn’t been too much of an issue. He is now three and a half years old. We have kept up our bed time ritual. He is allowed to watch a half an hour of television programming prior to bed as long as he is ready for bed. Once the show is over, he brushes his teeth, goes for one last trip to the bathroom, chooses a stuffed animal to sleep with and has his story and lullaby.

Since then we have added to our family – a second son, Gage. Gage is now 14 months old. From the beginning we did things completely different. We started putting him to bed awake at three months. I am not saying that everything is always perfect with him.

We have times when he refuses to go to sleep, but we aren’t as worried about it. It is funny how a second child can change your perception of things and you learn to relax.

Copyright © 2010 Allison Atwater

Allison Atwater is a freelance writer who lives in Canada with her husband and two young sons. She has a website.

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4. Get Your Sleep!
5. Take a Look At Your Sleep Habits