Child sleep anxiety: What to do when your child is scared to go to sleep

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Child sleep anxiety is becoming an increasingly common issue. It is estimated that sleep problems affect 25 to 50 percent of children and 40 percent of adolescents. With that said, there’s nothing more frustrating than trying to get your child to sleep – and then having them wake up multiple times during the night. It can be tough to know what to do when faced with child sleep anxiety – what to do to help them calm down, and fall asleep.

Here Sam Sadighi, award-winning sleep coach at Easy Sleep Solutions breaks down common sources of child sleep anxiety and how to address them when your child is scared to go to sleep.

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Let’s face it, children frequently don’t appreciate just how marvelous sleep is! And will often come up with all sorts of stalling tactics to stop us from leaving their rooms when it comes to bedtime.

Often this procrastination may be due to child sleep anxiety. Or it might be because they are scared to go to sleep which can include needing one more thing from us. This might be another kiss or cuddle, or maybe a drink or a final visit to the bathroom. Usually, it’s anything to delay the inevitable!

By the time they are school age, they are often master manipulators, whether we like to admit it or not.
What may have started as them genuinely needing us at bedtime. Perhaps they had had a nightmare the night before, or they saw something scary on TV. It can then become a habit.

I live by the rule that I would never expect anyone to do something I wouldn’t be happy doing myself. Leaving my child when they are genuinely scared is one of those things.

To our children, we are their safe space. And in the cold light of day, it’s something to celebrate. We have formulated the bond with them that they need us when the rest of the world seems a bit scary and crazy (does this ever really change?!).

However, at bedtime, it can be quite a different matter. With rational thought leaving us momentarily, especially when we’ve all had a long day and we just want to shout ‘JUST GO TO SLEEP!!’.

Child sleep anxiety: Are they genuinely scared?

The first thing to do is to try and work out whether they really are genuinely scared. Perhaos they have just got used to you being there and it’s become a nice habit for them?

Try to think back to when it started – were they ill and you stayed with them to comfort them? Had they had a nightmare and needed the reassurance of you being nearby to comfortably fall back to sleep? Or, frankly, any other number of reasons in a similar vein. This should help you work out whether there is something they are genuinely worried about. Otherwise it could just a habit they’re not keen on breaking.

Depending on the age of your child, try talking to them during the day (preferably not too close to bedtime). Try to find out what it is exactly that bothers them so much about falling asleep on their own.

Of course, it’s also worth thinking about how much input you’re comfortable with too. If you like lying with your child as they fall asleep, and it’s only that you’ve been told by well meaning friends or family that you should stop – do you really have to? You can stop reading now and go on with your day.  However, if you feel that these disturbances definitely need to stop, then read on!

So what are some of the common reasons that children resist bedtime?

Monsters under the bed or in the cupboards

It can be really tempting to help your little one look for monsters. You may be inclined to even make a special ‘monster spray’ to get rid of them. However this is inadvertently admitting that they exist.

Instead, I would ask them more about what they think the monsters are like (again, not around bedtime as it could be something they lie in bed worrying about). Perhaps over breakfast or after school. Maybe ask them to draw a picture of what they think the monster looks like and rip it up and throw it away? 

Or if it’s funny noises or shadows that seem to be sending their imaginations into overdrive, lie with them on their bed and explain the rational reason for the sights and sounds. 

Making sure you have an idea of what they’re watching on TV can help too – things that seem amusing to us can at times seem pretty frightening to children. 

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Nightmares

Nightmares can happen at any age, but can be particularly scary for youngsters. They may struggle to differentiate between what was a bad dream and what was real.  Dreams are essentially our brains processing what’s going on in our lives. And it’s thought that nightmares are often our brain’s opportunity to warn us of impending anxiety or uncertainty. This makes perfect sense. Although it doesn’t help when we have a scared little person waking us in the middle of the night after they’ve had one.

When they happen, try to offer reassurance and help them get back to sleep as quickly as possible. Try not to act in an ‘unsustainable way’. By this, I mean letting them hop into your bed or you sleeping on their floor because they’re scared, This can then become a habit that is tricky to break (which you may have already discovered!).

If in the morning they still seem shaken by the nightmare, it could be worth talking to them about it. You could perhaps say that the dream just hadn’t finished yet, and come up with a happier ending instead. Or perhaps there’s something obvious (to you) within the dream that needs to be talked about in more depth. For example, are they going through a tough time at school, having disagreements with friends, or has there been a big life event, like a family member passing away, parents separating or illness of a beloved pet?

Sometimes what can seem small and inconsequential to us as adults can really rock our little people’s worlds. It’s worth trying to put yourself in their shoes – listening with empathy rather than dismissing what they deem to be a problem as trivial.   After all, if they don’t feel that they can come to us as parents with the little things when they’re little, they probably won’t feel that they can come to us with the big things when they’re big. 

Scared of the dark

Although our brains like it to be dark when we sleep (it helps with balancing our sleep hormones), often, little ones (and sometimes even big ones!) aren’t too keen on it being totally dark as they drift off to sleep. Obviously, it can take a little while for our eyes to adjust to the dark. And even more obviously, it’s going to be dark when they have their eyes closed anyway! But still, this can be a very genuine fear for some children.

It could be worth trying to ask your child why it is specifically that they’re not keen on the dark. Talk through the problem and reassure them that there’s nothing to be scared of. 

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Using a night light

However if it becomes a real problem, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using a dim night light throughout the night. If that’s comforting enough for them to drift off to sleepthen great. I certainly wouldn’t recommend leaving the main light on. Something that gives off more of a glow should be enough to reassure them that they are safe.

Naturally, we all wake multiple times a night. Iit’s just for most of us, we don’t remember it in the morning as we fall asleep again immediately. But if your child is afraid of the dark and they wake and their eyes haven’t adjusted, it can be slightly unsettling for them. This is why I suggest having a night light on throughout the night, rather than just when they fall asleep.

It could even be a hallway light that is left on with their door left open a crack. This can also help them find their way for nighttime bathroom visits too. Ideally, it wants to be fairly low wattage. Otherwise, if it’s too bright that can go a long way to fooling our brains that it’s morning. This then they’ll find it trickier to fall back to sleep. So even a lamp with a low watt bulb that’s left on overnight might help. 

Bedtime anxiety

When it comes to bedtime anxiety for our little people, first try to ascertain whether it’s bedtime they’re anxious about or is it something else. If you know the cause, you can start working on how to make it better.

Or are they craving attention from you?  After all, often all attention is good attention in their eyes if they feel that they’re not spending the time with you they feel that they need. This is in no way meant to sound like a guilt trip! We’re all busy with out lives. Sometimes we’re not as present for our children as we would maybe like to be. Just carving out a little bit of time each day to spend with them (that doesn’t involve you biting your tongue trying to convince them that they REALLY need to be asleep by now), might help.

Mealtimes with no distractions or electronics can be a safe space for them to chat about their day. It also gives the opportunity to raise anything that’s worrying them. A snuggle on the sofa for 10 minutes when you all get in in the evening can be as beneficial for you as it can be for them.

The take home message?

It’s worth noting that an inconsistent sleep schedule and not getting enough sleep can increase the likelihood of all of the topics mentioned above. Wherever possible, try to make sure that they are given adequate sleep opportunities based on the sleep requirements for their age. Bedtime should generally be non-negotiable. Sticking to the same bedtime and wake-up time (even for adults!) helps our circadian rhythm (or natural body clock) tick along nicely. This means we’re likely to feel sleepy around the same time each night. We then wake refreshed and ready for the day around the same time each morning.

We know as adults, that when we’re tired, everything seems a trillion times worse than it actually is. Wuth children it’s no different! So simply making sure they are getting enough sleep in the first place could well be the answer.

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