When your child is growing up, you come across the need to let him sleep in his bed. However, this is one of the biggest challenges that most of the parents come across. That’s because your child would not like the change that you are planning to introduce. You cannot force your child to sleep in his bed in this kind of a situation.
Here are some useful tips, which you will be able to follow to assist your child with sleeping in his own bed.
Make a sleep-friendly bedroom
As the first thing, you need to go ahead and make a sleep-friendly bedroom. When you create a sleep-friendly bedroom, your child will get the need to go ahead and sleep in it. Therefore, you will not have to spend a lot of efforts to get your child to bed. You need to make sure that the bedroom has a soothing environment. It should also provide excellent assistance for your child to relax. However, you will not be able to come up with the perfect sleep friendly bedroom in your very first attempt. That’s where you can experiment with different things. For example, you can introduce complete darkness, stuffed animals or a night light to the bedroom. Then you will be able to go ahead with the changes that can help your child to stay most relaxed. Then you will be able to ease most of the nighttime fears that your child has as well. As a result, you don’t have to struggle too much to put your child to sleep.
Follow a step by step approach
You cannot ask your child to go ahead and sleep in his own bedroom all of a sudden. Then your child will refuse it. That’s where you need to think about following a step by step approach. For example, you can ask your child to sleep in your room, but on his mattress laid on the floor. All you need to know about which mattress is the best for you child, can be found on MattressDX. Then you can go ahead and sleep in the bedroom of your child for a couple of weeks as well. Once your child is comfortable, you can ask him to sleep alone in his bedroom. With the help of a comfortable pillow.
Make sure that you set up clear expectations
It is important for you to ensure clear communications when you are asking your child to sleep in his bedroom. When you are talking with your child, you need to validate all the feelings of your child as well. You can say that there’s nothing to be scared of sleeping in his bedroom. When you communicate with your child and set clear expectations, you will be able to build confidence within him to sleep in his own bedroom. Therefore, your child will not complain about anything.
Give positive reinforcement
You can also think about rewarding your child for sleeping on his bed. If he is still a toddler, sticker charts can be useful. Likewise, you need to look for the most appropriate reward that you should give to your child and go ahead with it. These rewards will provide excellent assistance to you with keeping your child motivated. While you provide rewards, you should also praise your child. Then you will be able to appreciate the progress that your child is making along with time as well. After some time, you will notice how your child goes to his bed without making any fuss to sleep at night.
Always be consistent
It is important for you to be consistent when you are teaching something to your child. Lack of consistency can create a lot of issues and you will not be able to let your child get used to something in an effective manner. This is applicable even when you are asking your child to sleep in his own bed as well. You need to send out a clear and a consistent message to your child in every single night. Then you will be able to make sure that you are creating an appropriate routine, which your child will get used to after some time.
In the meantime, you need to focus on developing a supportive bedtime routine as well. Then you will be able to provide great assistance to your child with unwinding and getting ready for the sleep. For example, a warm bath before going to bed and reading some good books can provide appropriate conditions for your child to go to bed. You can also cuddle with your child a bit before you ask him to go to bed. When it is the time to go to bed, you need to turn off the lights in the bedroom and allow your child to sleep. Your child will soon get used to this routine.
Solve all the issues practically
When you are asking your child to sleep in his own bed, a series of problems will come up as well. Don’t forget to buy an eco-friendly pillow for your family(Here’s a top 15 list from Liquid Image) pillows. You need to go ahead and take appropriate measures to solve all those problems practically. For example, you might notice that your child is sneaking to your bedroom at night quietly, just because he wants to sleep with you. You need to ask for the reason and help your child with practical solutions to overcome it.
When you are having another baby in your room, you will have to ask the older child to sleep in his bedroom. This can create a bit of jealousy about the new sibling. To overcome such issues, you can think about spending more time along with the older child when he is about to go to bed. Then you will be able to provide all the positive attention that he needs.