Strategies you need when kids can’t sleep
“M y six-year-old won’t go to sleep unless I’m in the house. If I need to go out she can end up going to bed past midnight.”
It’s not only babies who keep their parents busy at night: school-age children have their share of nighttime woes as well.
“My ‘baby’ is nine years old so you’d think that I’d have the night to myself at this point. But this little guy can’t settle into sleep. He’s in and out of bed a hundred times between nine p.m. and one a.m.”
Trouble Sleeping
Separation anxiety can cause children to have trouble going to bed — especially their own bed. This and other types of anxiety can also stop them from falling asleep once they’re in bed; an overactive mind for instance may jog a child into a state of perpetual alertness that delays the onset of and prevents restful sleep. Or a vivid imagination conjures up monsters in closets and kidnappers at windows leading to the production of the vigilant “wake-up-and-run” chemistry produced by the fight-or-flight response.
