Create an environment that encourages independent sleep
- Your child should have his own bed in his own space. If you always put your child to sleep in the same place he will start to connect that place with sleep.
- A low bed allows your child to take control of his own sleep pattern because he can crawl into bed when he is tired, knowing that he can crawl off it when he has had enough sleep. This lack of restriction helps to break down any resistance he might otherwise offer to going to bed.
Connect you child to this environment as a place to sleep
- For your child to associate his bed with sleep it is important that this is the only place in the house where he is invited to go to sleep.
- Being allowed to ‘get off’ to sleep in the lounge or in mummy’s bed delays the establishment of the connection that he needs to make between his own bed and sleep.
- The younger your child is when you start to help him make this link, the easier it will be to establish bed as a place of sleep. Bad sleeping habits can become difficult to break.
Allow time
- It may take time for your child to feel that his bed is his place for sleeping and to fall asleep naturally by himself, especially if you have not established this habit from the beginning. Be patient and keep returning him firmly but kindly to his own bed.
