Pre-Bedtime Routine

The process of preparing for sleep and going to bed with a child who suffers from sleep anxiety can be a gruelling, exhausting process, so it's important to establish a pre-bedtime routine. Knowing what is expected and when will help in keeping your child as calm as possible before trying to sleep. I'm sure we've all experienced the frustration of dealing with the many excuses; 'I'm thirsty', 'Can you read it again?', 'I'm not tired', etc, from a child who is doing everything they can to avoid going to sleep! Setting out what your troublesome sleeper does to get ready for bed, and at what time creates another element of their life that they can control with confidence.

Having your child bring their device out of their room and into a common area such as a lounge room or dining room, is really important for them to get a good knight's sleep (just remember to tell them to turn the sound off so you're not woken up in the middle of the night by an annoyingly constant stream of notifications - yes, we're speaking from experience!). Being connected through social media 24/7, can have a devastating affect on a child's sleeping mindset because they are too focused on what is going on there, rather than their sleeping.

The time your reluctant sleeper goes to bed is something that should be decided by you and your child together (unless they are too young), and negotiations for later times on weekends and holidays can become a part of the motivation for your reluctant sleeper. An important note here is with our Little Miss, we found that the later she went to bed, the worse her sleep anxiety would be.

The pre-bedtime routine should begin 2 hours prior to bedtime, and is for winding down and getting ready for sleeping. So if 9pm is bedtime, begin this process at 7pm. Activities during these 2 hours should be enjoyable for your child, but also relaxing and calming. Then, 1 hour before bedtime, all electronic devices are turned off and taken out of the room, and teeth brushing, changing into pyjamas, etc, should be done last.

Sit on the edge of the bed while your troublesome sleeper is lying down. Get them to have a good look around the room, then have them close their eyes. Count to two then tell them to open their eyes and look around the room again. Ask them if anything is different, proving to them that nothing happened or changed while they had their eyes closed. Keep doing this, but count to a higher number each time, increasing the amount of time their eyes are closed. You can do this during the day, and then again at night so they can see that it doesn't matter if it is dark outside, their room is still the same. When it comes time to go to bed, they can do this by themselves. Simply closing their eyes for longer periods of time and concentrating on the counting can be a good distraction from any anxiety they may be feeling. This strategy also works well in getting back to sleep after waking during the night. 

Having a definitive bedtime routine can remove a lot of extra anxiety because everyone knows what needs to be done, and when, without tears or tantrums. Being firm with this process lets your reluctant sleeper know that they cannot delay or become distracted from getting ready for bed, and then going to sleep. Trying to avoid going to bed for as long as possible, or not at all, is one of the biggest symptoms of sleep anxiety. 

If our Little Miss asks for a later bedtime on the weekend, for example, we tell her that she can have until 9pm to bring her tablet to us, but is then in bed with her teeth brushed and eyes closed at 10pm. She knows not to go over by even 1 minute! It did take a lot to get her to this point, though, so being consistent and rigid with this particular stage is crucial.

It's important to set some rules about bedtime, and explain that certain things are not even an option. At one stage our Little Miss would simply sit up and read all night long, so we had to explain to her that she was not allowed to do this, because she had to get some sleep. Staying up all night was not a good solution at all to her sleep anxiety, and we had to make her realise that this was not helping. She had no other choice but to lie down and try to sleep.