Getting children to sleep, especially when they are resistant, is a struggle I know all too well – from my experiences as both a mother as well as an early childhood educator.
Sleep is one of those things that has caused a lot of stress in my life as a parent. Once I decided to unschool, I stopped making my children go to bed. In fact, we all moved into the same room! It was a time of becoming close again and moving back into the nest after struggling with the school routine. Bedtime once again became a thing of relaxation, intimacy, and fun. I realised that continuing on a path of “training” my children to do certain things would only work short term and cause damage, backfiring as rebellion later in life, as it did for me as a child.
When I say, “once again,” I mean that when my children were little, bedtime was rarely stressful. Every one of my babies slept next to me in our bed, and their bedtime was whenever they fell asleep. They often fell asleep in my arms and were carried to bed where I would sleep next to them, or they would fall asleep next to me while watching TV in the bedroom. Having a TV in our room for so many years has proven to be an enjoyable, relaxing way for my children to settle into bed and fall asleep. There are many experts who say that this can prevent children from falling asleep or train their brains to stay awake longer, but I’ve found no such thing. If they were tired enough, they would fall asleep—whether or not the TV was on.
What I found to be the biggest cause of my children not going to sleep at night was my need for them to. As children, our own parents often felt stressed about needing time off from the duty of parenting, and bedtime offered much relief, but many times this may have meant a stressful bedtime; a bedtime that was for our parents, not for us! It was the belief that I knew when my children were tired and how much sleep they needed that caused the problems, and there have been many times I have had to revisit this in myself as it has been one of my biggest triggers!
When unschooling began and we all moved into the same room, there was a time that I had a terrifying bout of insomnia. To top it off, as an anxiety sufferer for almost 20 years, I was very worried about my health and believed I would never sleep again. Being someone who was afraid to take medications and drugs due to a drug overdose at age 16, I tried everything imaginable to get to sleep naturally. I searched the internet obsessively for home remedies, rearranged my bedroom, tried getting the children to sleep earlier, turned the TV off at night, and even attempted hypnosis, until that frightened me and I stopped the recording. Eventually, I felt I had no choice but to go to the doctor and get a prescription for sleeping pills.
After only managing an hour’s sleep some nights and no sleep other nights, the sleeping pills helped. I managed seven hours on the nights I took the medication and only took them a few times. I decided to take the doctor’s advice and go and see a psychologist. It only took one visit before I found my problem and began sleeping again. The problem wasn’t not getting any sleep, it was what I was thinking about not getting any sleep; my anxiety over the insomnia was causing me not to sleep! Once I saw that and realised that there was nothing actually physically wrong with me, I began sleeping for around four hours every night and no longer feeling concerned about whether or not I slept. I stopped thinking about it and noticed that even with only a few hours’ sleep per night, I felt fine. I could still enjoy my life—with the insomnia!
This helped me to see that the more I tried to get my children to sleep the harder it was for them to fall asleep. I can remember when they were little and I would be having a party, or wanted to do something without them, and bedtime became rushed. This would make them stay awake for even longer, causing me to become stressed out and forceful around sleep time. Thankfully, I became more relaxed around bedtimes and sleep, and although there were still occasionally those times when I too felt the need for a break, I learned that finding ways to have time for myself without forcing my children into bed was a much quicker way for them to fall asleep rather than turning it into a problem.
For a while we didn’t really have a bedtime. There wasn’t a set time that I put my children to bed and another that I went to bed. I didn’t have to get up for work or to take my children to school, so there wasn’t any rush to get them off to bed. I also no longer planned parties or activities separate to my children. My two younger children would go to bed with my partner and me, and we would watch TV for some time or play on our screens. When I felt tired, I would express that I wanted to go to sleep and we would agree on a number of minutes before turning everything off. Because my children slept in our room, they had no trouble falling asleep soon after.
My two older children had their own rooms and sometimes slept at different times. Often they would stay up much later than me—until sunrise, and would sleep all day, waking late in the afternoon, or they would go to bed earlier than me and wake up earlier. This did not concern me as we all got plenty of sleep. The older children stayed in their rooms and didn’t disturb me when they knew I had gone to bed. They watched videos and movies or played games until they felt tired enough to go to sleep, and this did not affect their ability to do the things they wanted or to go on outings, as they were happy to be woken to come. Most times, after a night of gaming, my eldest would choose to go back to sleep when woken, rather than come out. I never worried that he was missing out on anything, as when there were things he really wanted to do he would set himself a bedtime and make sure he got enough sleep so that he could get up. At times he would express a desire to sleep more “normal” hours and set his own routine. This showed me that I did not need to set my children’s sleeping patterns for them; they could listen to their bodies and set them for themselves.
My second eldest was much the same, though there were often periods where he didn’t sleep at all some nights. He would stay up throughout the day and fall asleep late that night or halfway through the day. His sleeping patterns could be all over the place, but again, he slept when he was tired and knew his body. Once, he stayed up for almost two days and I began to worry he wouldn’t sleep. Those old thoughts began to creep in about insomnia, causing me to suspect he had a problem, and he started to catch on. He kept telling me he couldn’t sleep, and I began to see a link between my concern and his inability to sleep. He started to say things I was saying, that he thought he had a problem because he couldn’t sleep, and that’s when it hit me—I was leading him down the same path I was on! I was turning sleep into a problem. When I expressed to him that these were my fears and told him that I trusted that he would sleep when he was ready, he slept for two whole days! Then I was worried he would never wake up!
Sleep wasn’t an issue for many years, and I enjoyed the way our bedtimes flowed. That is, until my youngest turned all that around when he was about seven years old. I had no idea of the harrowing year or more I would spend fighting him over something I believed I was cured of—stressful bedtimes! It was a period of my life that for so long caused regret and remorse, yet forced me to dig even deeper into my own anxiety and control over sleep.
While many parents believe their children need to sleep in their own room, I allowed my children to decide this for themselves. For a while, my two eldest enjoyed having their own room, while my two youngest preferred to sleep in my room as I cuddled them to sleep. I enjoyed this too, as not only could I remain close to my children, I had control over when they slept. Because they were in my room, when they slept it meant I could too, but as my youngest grew older he began to resist bedtime and sleep, igniting once again my deep fear of not being able to sleep. My routine of turning off computers and transitioning to TV time began to fail, as well as the timer to turn off the TV or screens, and the time it took my youngest to fall asleep was getting longer and longer, forcing me to stay awake longer and longer each night and spending each day in anxiety over how I was going to get him into bed that night. It became harder and harder to get him off of his computer every night and into bed, turning into a struggle and over time, a lot of aggression in him.
He began to get angry around bedtime, become restless, and have difficulty settling for hours once in bed, which led to fights between he, my husband and I. Most nights this consisted of him hitting, kicking or scratching us, sometimes punching us repeatedly until we would have to either hold his hands or body so he couldn’t hit us, or leave the room, which wasn’t an ideal option at 5am! A few times it became so bad that I would hit or push him back after being punched very hard, then spending the next hour or two crying in unbearable guilt.
You may be wondering why I didn’t just give him his own room. It wasn’t that simple for a parent still trying to control the time my child went to sleep. I had major concerns in my life that anyone still awake in the house had the potential to keep me awake, and while I had adapted to my older two children’s sleeping patterns because they were old enough to be quiet at night, I didn’t trust that my youngest child would be able to do the same, and I was far from willing to give it a try.
Another reason was because he still wanted my husband and me when he was tired and ready to sleep. The problem though, was that he wasn’t tired at the same time as us. For this reason, no matter what I tried during that time was always based around the assumption that he needed to be asleep before us, and that he was far too young to stay up all night; the older boys were much older when they expressed this kind of desire.
I tried everything I could think of to find a way around this problem. This included things like having his computer in our room so he would have no choice but to turn it off when I’d request, moving his computer into another room and allowing him to come to bed when he was tired, forcing him to sleep in his own room, singing and storytelling at bedtime, no TV or screen time, extended TV or screen time, accepting later bedtimes, waking him up early each day so he would be tired that night, seeking advice from friends, questioning my thoughts, reading books, bribes, having gentle talks with him, and placing him in a “time out” space during violent outbursts. The problem though was that none of these things worked. Sure, one or two things worked for a night or two here and there, but the problem remained—he didn’t want to be told when to sleep. Another problem was that none of what I had tried felt good to me and a part of me wished I could just let go. This was even more difficult to do when we all had to move out of our rental and decided to live in a tiny home, where four of us lived 24 hours a day in one, small room for seven months!
The solution to this ongoing problem was finally realised when we moved into a new home with enough rooms for everyone. My husband and I had already decided that our youngest needed his own space and room, even just for playing and privacy. This was what he truly wanted, but we couldn’t provide him with this in the previous house. He finally got his own room and expressed he wanted to sleep in it, even though we knew he wasn’t entirely sure. We set up a bed in there, as well as one in our room, and while at first he still wanted to sleep with us, I was starting to sense that he was feeling torn between having us at bedtime and sleeping in his own room. I could also sense that he had developed anxiety around sleeping with us in our room due to the stress that had gone on for so long prior. I did not want this to be his experience and was willing to do anything it took to help him feel safe and free. That was when I finally decided to let go.
I decided to stop giving my youngest a bedtime. I told him that he could stay up as late as he wanted as long he didn‘t disturb me if I went to sleep. I told him I could lay with him in his room if he was ready for sleep, and many times I did. He became familiar with sleeping in his own room, and got to choose the time he went to sleep. This took some adjustment, as he was still too scared to be alone at night and still needed us in some way. Since then, it has been a gradual transition over time, supporting his need for autonomy and helping him feel safe and secure. This has included my husband sleeping most nights in the living room next to his bedroom so he feels there is someone close by, and leaving enough lights on for him to go to the toilet and get himself snacks.
What was astonishing to me was how almost immediately all the aggression in him disappeared! He became lighter, happier, stopped violently attacking us, and was more relaxed. I knew that the problem was never him—it was my anxiety over sleep controlling him and he wasn’t going to have it! He fought back for his freedom and I am so glad he did! It took me a long time, but I finally let him go and it was the best feeling ever! There have been times when he has woken me up, but he understands that if he is to have his own room and bedtime he is to not disturb be unless it’s important. This arrangement has been working for everyone and is a much more gentle approach. My youngest sleeps only when he is tired and wakes when rested, just like everyone else in the family.
A big part of what was causing my suffering over this was that I believed I had solved the sleep issue with my children. I had it all under control and was ready to continue allowing my other children to transition in the same way at the same age, and there was the problem right there—thinking that all of my children were the same way! Here I had written a whole book about accepting their development that was unique to each of them, and doing it all backwards with my youngest! He was expressing his readiness for more autonomy and trust, I was the one who wasn’t ready! This challenged my beliefs all over again in a huge way. I did not trust that he would go to sleep at a time I thought was normal, and he forced me to face my deep need to control him and question all over again my idea of what is normal. What’s more normal to me these days is that all children—not just older ones—will sleep when they are tired. It’s our ideas about what sleep should look like that’s the problem, not our children.
I am now able to go to bed whenever I feel tired while all of my children stay up in their rooms playing. It might mean that my youngest falls asleep in his gaming chair, or becomes cranky and demanding when he is tired, but he is never told to go to bed. I read the signs and offer a cuddle in his bed to support his tiredness. Sometimes he accepts and falls asleep next to me. Sometimes he declines and forces himself awake for hours. Sometimes he falls asleep in our bed.
No matter the way or times my children have (or haven’t) slept, one thing remains apparent—there is only a problem if I make it one. All of my ideas around sleeping and not sleeping were never mine; they were learned by those around me. Unlearning these ideas and completely changing my perspective around sleep has been one of the hardest things I’ve done, and the process continues. I have come a long way, and working with a therapist to heal my childhood trauma has actually improved my sleep quality. Seeing that I am able to get to sleep when I desire to has lessened a lot of the anxiety that has come with not sleeping well. I no longer spend my days worried about whether or not I will sleep; if I do, that’s great, if not, I know I will be OK and still be able to live my life. I continue to let go of the need to control sleep, as letting go always seems to be the way through.
I have seen the proof that not forcing my children into bed every night their whole childhood hasn’t made them unable to sleep “normal” hours. My 21 year old now has a job that he is committed to, and sets his sleeping patterns around that. When he has important things to do and appointments, he will set an alarm and go to bed early. It’s a wonderful thing as a parent to witness our children in charge of their own bodies!
With Love,
Leisa ❤
Leisa Coleman 