Musical beds

Ever since my three-year-old daughter learned to climb out of her cot, she has made a beeline for our bed. We wouldn’t care, but she is a restless sleeper and we find ourselves clinging to the edge of the bed while she sprawls luxuriously across the middle. If we muster enough energy to put her back in her own bed, she boomerangs back. Some nights it’s like musical beds in our house, with no one in their normal place!

All little kids like the warmth and security of the parental bed. If only they knew the terrible toll their tactics take on sanity, sex, sleep, even survival!

Sometimes the problem begins after a stint in hospital, sometimes after some domestic insecurity. I have several cases where the kids won’t sleep in their own bed because they really believe that their mum wants their company and would be sad if they didn’t help out. But noses up your nostril, kicks to your private parts or cot rungs vexing your vertebrae are not everyone’s idea of fun.

The good news is that in time it’s not cool (in more ways than one) to be sleeping in parental beds – but if you can’t wait five days let alone five years, here are some faster answers.

• You can keep putting her back till she gets the message (but many parents don’t notice the child has even crept in till an early morning awakening).
• For many four-year-olds, where the parent’s room is large enough, I often suggest a fold away mattress beside the bed so when they come in, that’s where they go – they can still feel close but don’t wreck parental sleep. If they won’t go, then use some of their daylight hours to practice getting into night gear and going to the fold out bed, again and again if necessary, till they get the message.
• As they get older, charts for complete nights in their own bed help – these charts are best delivered in a fun way, with plenty of incentives.
• A very effective technique to be used for older children when they want to stay over at friends’ places or have friends overnight, is to suggest that they will miss you too much so they can’t go until they’re bigger (and mean it) – sometimes that can make kids grow up overnight!
• If they won’t stay in their bed at all when they’re put down (so to speak), then the idea is to build in to the bed routine the things that soothe, like a massage. If they won’t let you out of the room, then read for a bit, then let them know that you have to duck out for a sip of tea/coffee/vodka before it goes cold/cold/hot and that you will come back as soon as the microwave timer goes. Set the timer for 10 seconds in the first instance and go back in as promised. After a little more reading, off you go again for your fix, and this time set it for 20 seconds. Repeat this process, gradually lengthening the times out so, over time, they might fall asleep waiting.
• Another good idea, if you’re a pet fish lover, is to set up a fish tank in their room. When they’re trying to get to sleep or wake up, they have light and little interesting things to watch that make them feel they’re not alone.

Some character claimed that all young children's bedtime problems are simply caused by an allergy to sheets; the minute they have to slide between them they break out in tantrums!

Other good pre-sleep routines include the following:

• Establishing a quiet time half an hour before bed so they are ready for bed and know the routine.
• A firm ‘see you in the morning’ - reassures them that you're not going anywhere.
• Have a good night parade for teddies, then toddlers.
• Use the oven buzzer to tell them it's bedtime, saves nagging.
• Tape record stories or nursery rhymes or songs if you're game - that way they at least have your voice for company.
• Let your child pick from a dream-jar (perhaps an empty tin you've decorated) a slip of paper on which you've written an idea for a pleasant dream. They can go to sleep with the paper under the pillow.

by Dr John Irvine

Dr John Irvine is an educational psychologist, a consultant psychologist, a counsellor and a widely recognised specialist on children’s behaviour. He is the author of significant books for parents such as A Handbook for Happy Families and Who’d Be a Parent? His relaxed and warm advice deals with the practicalities of managing real families in everyday life.

This article was first published in Australian Family Magazine, June 2004. Updated July 2009.