Transform Bedtime (Starting Tonight)
Happy Thursday! You made it!
Sleep affects everything — behavior, learning, emotional regulation, and the overall tone of family life. And because bedtime is such a vulnerable transition, it’s also a place where stress, habits, and separation worries tend to show up.
Kids aren’t born knowing how to fall asleep independently — they learn it the same way they learn to eat with a spoon or get dressed. It takes practice, consistency, and support.
A helpful way to think about bedtime:
The environment: lights low, room cool, predictable routine, no tech 1-2 hours before sleep.
What grown-ups can do for/with kids: a short comforting ritual — kisses, rocking, tucking in, brief presence.
What kids can learn to do for themselves: practice lots of calming strategies to eventually use independently.
Bedtime battles often happen when a child wants to keep something that used to work, like falling asleep next to you, being rocked, or coming into your bed at night. Those habits met a need for safety, and it’s normal for kids to resist change.
The goal for kids to retain their feelings of safety, even as you help them shift where the safety comes from.
And remember:
If you don’t want a child in your bed, alternatives like a floor mattress, a “nest” beside the bed, or even swapping beds for a night can meet that need without resentment. The only thing that isn’t sustainable is staying frustrated and not addressing it.
Real World Strategy:
These strategies help kids fall asleep by mimicking the “pre-dreaming” state and interrupt the spiral of conscious thinking:
Cognitive shuffling (thinking of random words by letter or category)
Counting backward by 2s or 3s
Breathing patterns like 3–4–5 breathing
Progressive muscle relaxation (“goodnight toes, goodnight legs…”)
Short sleep meditations (many kids love A Boy and a Bear)
These tools also build emotional regulation skills they’ll use beyond bedtime.
🌊Want to dive deeper? To learn more about creating bedtime routines, check out Parenting in the Real World: Routines (Level 3, Course 9, Section 1).
📚Resource of the Week:
If strong language isn’t your thing, skip this one — but if you can handle a few F-bombs, Samuel L. Jackson’s reading of Go the F%#k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach is –hands down– the best thing on the internet.
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You’ve got this. And I’ve got you.
Cari
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