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How To Get Your Kid To Go To Sleep

Maybe you’re a first-time parent of a less-than-one-year-old. Maybe your kiddo is going through a sleep cycle shift. The switch to summer vacation and longer daylight hours in the Northern Hemisphere can leave even veteran parents wondering how to get your kid to go to sleep.

And as seasoned parents know, you will find yourself asking this question more than once over the course of your children’s lifetimes. Different ages and stages bring different challenges.

However, knowing you’re not the first parent to face a given challenge is small comfort when it’s YOUR kid that refuses to sleep (and thereby deprives you of your own shuteye) on a given night.

If you’re stuck wondering how to get your kid to go to sleep, here’s what I’ve learned on my long journey with this problem.

My street cred on sleepless kids

This post is NOT a guaranteed sure-fire solution for your child’s every sleep problem. Rather, it’s more a checklist of bases to cover, drawn from extensive research born out of desperation:

As always, I am far from an expert on this topic – but here’s what the real experts say on how to get your kid to go to sleep, along with tips on how we’ve implemented their advice in our own home.

How To Get Your Kid To Go To Sleep: Bases to Cover

If you’re early on this journey of desperation, everything I’ve learned about how to get your kid to go to sleep can be boiled down into two big checklists:

1. Check the setting

Check the bedroom first. A few simple adjustments could solve the problem:

A. Is the room dark enough?

A lot of children are very sensitive to light, as are lots of grown-ups.

B. What’s the background noise like?

Too much background noise from the street outside? Or from the TV blaring downstairs, or the baby sibling crying next door?

C. Too hot? Too cold?

Too hot, and your kiddo won’t go to sleep. Too cold, and you’ll get a wakeup call in the middle of the night.

2. Check your routine

If your kid’s sleep space checks out, see if your sleepytime routine needs a reboot:

A. Do you have a routine?

B. Are you consistent?

Doing it EXACTLY the same EVERY night is not what matters; doing it MOSTLY the same, MOST nights, is what counts.

It can be hard to sleep when you’re in a strange place, so sticking to your regular routine will help cue your kiddo’s body to the fact that it’s bedtime.

C. Does your routine need tweaking?

Routines change over time, as kiddos grow and change.

On the other hand, maybe something else in your kiddo’s environment has messed up the sleep routine.

Kid still won’t sleep?

If your child still won’t sleep, here are three books to try. The first two will help you get your point across to your little insomniac:

  1. Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney
  2. Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! by Dr. Seuss (OK, so not explicitly about going to sleep, but as a parent, I suspect that a child’s refusal to do so was what planted this story in Theodor Geisel’s mind)
  3. If your kiddo STILL refuses to sleep, then shut the door, put in some earplugs, pour yourself a glass of nice wine, find a comfy chair, and read this book to yourself. It is NOT fit to read to your offspring, but it will make you feel oh-so-much better to know you’re the latest in a very long line of parents who’ve faced this struggle.

Seriously, good luck – and remember that this, too, will pass.

Only to rear its ugly head later when you least expect it.

When it does (say, during the teenage years), revisit book suggestion #3 above as needed, and remind yourself that at least you know where they are!


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