Bedtime Bedlam
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Dear StoryBird,
Is this the kind of thing you mean? My 8 yo will not go to sleep. Bedtime is at 8:30 and he doesn’t fall asleep til close to 11 or later. Sometimes he comes out of the room which is super disruptive because it is my time to not be a parent. Sometimes he’s just in there hanging out, building legos, messing around. He’s not on his phone. We took that away. I just need him to get to sleep so I can go to sleep and we don’t end every day in a mess.
Thanks,
P in Michigan
Dear P,
Um, yes, this is just what I mean! I could talk about sleep all the ding dong day! Sleep is in the big trifecta of family challenges, along with eating/feeding and using the toilet. Can I ask some follow up questions?
Love,
Story Bird
I got a little more detail:
This delayed sleep onset has been going on since early fall or late summer (duration in 2020 is hard to pin down - what is time???)
Morning wake time is later these days because of virtual school, but the child (let’s call him Blake) still needs to get up at a regular time and it is a STRUGGLE. He is tired in the morning and often seems sleepy after lunch too.
Blake used to have access to phone/tablet in room. He was definitely using them after lights out (hey, Blake, me too, buddy), so parents made a ‘no screens in the bedrooms’ rule a few weeks ago. (This rule is only applying to kids in the household. Ahem.) Blake has a nightlight that is on all night, no sound machines.
Some nights there is a lot of conflict around sleeping, with parents trying to get Blake to settle down, but increasingly they are just letting him do his thing.
They do have a bedtime routine consisting of shower, teeth brushing, PJs, and a family read aloud (LOVE THIS!) which P is starting to resent because bedtime overall is becoming unpleasant.
Again, Blake is in bed at about 8:30 but awake til at least 11 on all nights. He is not particularly restless at bedtime, nor does he have pain or discomfort in his legs at bedtime. Once he is asleep, he stays asleep, unless he has to go to the bathroom or something.
Dear P,
OK, I have two related thoughts. First, Blake may just need a later bedtime. Not 11 o’clock late, but later than he used to have. Especially in this era of reduced daytime activity AND later starts to the day, lots of kids are shifting their bedtimes later.
But what it really sounds like is that Blake has developed a common type of 'behavioral insomnia' which basically means that his brain no longer associates bedtime with 'falling asleep' time. This can happen at any age (adults too). The ‘why’ is varied - getting off track from a schedule, keeping oneself awake with stimuli (read: screen time), etc etc. Sometimes it just happens. I think Blake maybe started using screens for too long at bedtime and that initially threw him off, in combination with the erratic schedule of Life In the Time of Pandemic. You’ve fixed the screen access - GREAT JOB!! - but bedtime and sleepy time are still de-coupled in the brain.
The goal is to reconnect bedtime and sleep onset. And most often, parents and practitioners put all the effort into moving sleepy time to bedtime.
But, if a brain isn't sleepy, it is almost impossible to convince it that it is. As you have experienced. Do not despair! It is possible to retrain the brain that bedtime is sleepy time.* There are two aspects of this re-learning.
Increase sleepiness at sleep onset time as much as possible.
a) make sure Blake isn’t nodding off at all during the day
b) consider melatonin. This is a substance our bodies make to tell our brain its time to fall asleep; it’s available over the counter. It’s NOT a hypnotic or anything. Giving 3-5 mg 20-30 min before goal sleep time can be super helpful.
Move bedtime to current sleep onset time. Blake is most often falling asleep by 11P. So…please move bedtime to 10:45.** (if using melatonin, give at 10:15P). Don't do anything bedtime specific til 10:45. Then do your usual bedtime routine and then into bed. The first (and maaaaybe the second) night you do this, Blake may push sleep onset out a little bit. But if you keep him awake during the day and you keep bedtime at 10:45P, by the second (or maaaaybe third) night, he should fall asleep quickly (within 20 minutes).
3. THEN after Blake has been falling asleep quickly for 4-5 nights, move bedtime up by 10-15 minutes (move melatonin up accordingly). The brain can't tell the difference, and he should continue to fall asleep quickly. You can continue to inch bedtime earlier by 10-15 min every 3 days or so until either
he is at your preferred bedtime or
he is at his natural bedtime. You'll realize you’ve reached his natural bedtime if he's been going to sleep easily but then you move bedtime a little earlier and suddenly he's pushing out sleep onset again.
* This is called ‘bedtime fading'. This behavioral technique can be used with anyone, from preschool up to adults, who has decoupled bedtime/sleep associations from sleep onset and is taking a very long time to fall asleep.
** I know, I know, this sounds super late. But he’s ALREADY falling asleep this late. Yes, it will be a huge pain to have your Beloved Child up and about during primetime for these next few weeks. But it will be okay and it will get better. And then you will have (at least part of) your kid-free evenings back.
Love,
StoryBird
Follow up: P and Blake tried bedtime fading - and it worked!! He is now falling asleep quickly with bedtime starting at about 9P. HOORAY!!!
