My daughter’s sleeping habits—or lack thereof—are legendary in our family. Those who have been reading this blog long enough, will remember Pie’s days as a Ferber dropout. Now, mind you, I don’t mean that she was Ferberized by the book and we failed. I mean we went to see Dr. Ferber at Children’s Hospital (three times!) and still failed! The girl didn’t sleep as a baby. She didn’t sleep as a toddler. And she still doesn’t sleep well as an elementary school student.
To go to bed, she needs someone to sit with her while she falls asleep. At night, sometimes, while Adam and I are watching TV, we hear pitter patters of little feet as they run into our room and somehow end up in our bed. There have been mornings where Adam and I have both woken up to find the girl between us and neither one of us will have a memory of her actually getting into our bed.
She’s crafty. She’s got a gripe. She’s crafty. And she’s just my type. </end Beastie Boys interlude>
Recently, though, I got panicky. She’s in kindergarten. Which means the 5th grade science camp trip is just around the corner! (You don’t believe me? The past five years happened in a blink. This is just 4 1/2 years away!). How is she going to sleepover on the science camp trip?
Time for her to learn to sleep. No, really. I mean it this time. Science camp is at stake.
How much do I mean it? I American Girl doll mean it! I made a lovely little chart with two sections: one for falling asleep with no one staying with her, and one for staying in her own bed all night. She chooses if she does them one at a time or both together. She’s opted to do the falling asleep first, which makes sense because she needs to be able to do that to put herself back to sleep at night.
How to make her want to do this? Easy. I handed her an American Girl doll catalog. “Pick anything out of this catalog for your prizes.” It took her two seconds to flip to the exact page she wanted. “Kanani!” Flip, flip. “And her ice cream stand!”
Thatta girl! Bankrupt Mommy and Daddy! In the name of sleep, they’ll let you!
She sleeps with the picture of Kanani by her bed, so when she gets scared before she falls asleep, she can look at the picture and remember why she needs to sleep on her own. She has to fall asleep on her own three weeks, and the last week must be consecutive nights. So far, she’s gone three nights, unhappily but committed, to bed on her own.
Will this work? Check back in three weeks!
Cool, three days is great progress. I love that at that age you can, more often than not, reason them into doing things! Good luck!
Hi Jenny,
Oh the memories! We went through this with our son! To make matters worse, he was a REALLY light sleeper, so as soon as we tried to tip-toe out of his room, his head would pop up and he’d say “Where are you going?” lol.
He’s 9 years-old now and still a bad sleeper- for about an hour after we put him to bed, we hear interludes of “I can’t go to sleep!” Then, on ‘special’ occasions, we have the joy of dealing with night terrors and sleep walking! UGH! Will it ever end?
We’re up to night number 5!
Nina, it’s not reason with her. It’s hard cold bribery. That girl is going to be a CEO someday!
Angela, I’m still kind of convinced that she’s going to be calling me from her dorm room because she can’t fall asleep. 🙂