A Parent's Life Part 2

Getting kids to sleep on their own is one of the ways we learn patience. :-) When our children are babies, they require almost constant attention. They need us to feed them, change their diapers, dress them and, in some cases, sleep with them. Being a dad, I loved to hold my kids when they were babies and let them fall asleep on my chest on the couch. I got a nap and my wife got a break from the baby. But when it came time for bedtime at night, our kids were probably just like yours, in that they wanted a drink of water or they "forgot" to brush their teeth. You and I both know that all these tactics are stalling tactics for them wanting to stay up, when we know they need the sleep as much or more than we do.

When our kids were small they would scream bloody murder when we put them to bed. On our first child, we would get up in the nighttime and comfort/feed him until he fell asleep and then put him back in his bed. After a number of very long nights, my wife and I decided that it was time the baby learned to sleep on his own. This was where we learned to have patience. :-) We would take care of all the baby's needs and put them to bed. When he screamed/cryed we would open his door and let him know that we were still there, but we didn't pick him up. We would then close the door and go lay down. Inevitably, he would start crying before we got back to bed. We would wait 5 long minutes, then go to his door and reassure him that we were still there and then close the door. When he started crying again, we would wait 10 very long minutes before checking on him. Eventually, he knew that when it was time for bed, he had to find some way to comfort himself and go to sleep.

With the rest of our kids, we started the routine within one or two weeks after we brought them home from the hospital. I can honestly say that teaching them to go to sleep on their own was one of the hardest things I have had to do. Nothing pulls at a parent's heartstrings more than hearing their child cry. I've done it with 5 kids and it was just as hard with the last as it was with the first. It was also one of the best things I could have done for my kids. They learned that they could sleep on their own.

My youngest is now 12 and my older kids are in high school and college. I'll talk about the teen years in my next post...