Parents fail to recognize their role in the cycle of poor sleep behaviors.
- Parents hope or assume the child is going to be the one to lead to better sleep. The child isn’t going to be the one to jump out of the cycle. That’s the grown-up’s job, and why children need parents. Sleep is a health and safety issue.
- Parents think a child’s sleep can or should revolve around the family’s lifestyle and schedule.
- Parents are inconsistent with pre-sleep routines. They don’t realize how much their kiddos rely on brief, soothing, predictable routines.
- Parents over-respond to child’s resistance. These cases create and exasperate more extreme sleep resistance behaviors, such as intense fits, head banging; puking and pooping on-demand in response and protest to naps and bedtime.
- Parents don’t guard their own sleep; so they lack critical thinking skills and can’t make well thought out parenting choices and truly direct their child. Instead, and due to sheer exhaustion, they become a “band-aid” parent.
- Information overload. Parents read too many books. The result is confusion and anxiety. It is hard to be consistent for a child if you are trying to apply “a little bit of everything”.
- Parents don’t have a plan. Detailed plans ensure success in every aspect of life. When life, business, projects or …babies throw you a curve ball, the surest way to get back on track and stay the course is to have a written plan to refer to. Otherwise, you’re wandering all over the place.
- This parent culture has conditioned parents to fear their child’s tears. Parents lack the ability to discern tears of temporary struggle while adjusting to a new routine or learn a new skill, vs. tears of suffering. They lump the two together, and then avoid teaching their little ones anything at all, God forbid they should shed a tear.
Written by Jenni June Certified Child and Family Sleep Consultant, CLC and Mom of four amazing young adults!