I honestly don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to handle bedtime for your children. For instance, If you love to have your little one(s) in bed with you through the night for the cuddles…then I can only say…Power to you Mama!

If your sanity squarely rests on whether your child can sleep at a particular time everyday, sooth themselves to sleep, not be afraid of being in a dark room and things like that, then you are like me… I love cuddles too… but having our kids in routine and able to be independent to an extent at bedtime really helps buy me some time to breathe or do things that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to deal with if there was no structure in how bedtime is handled in my household. I really believe, if our bedtime  wasn’t predictable, I would fall apart? finished…kaput… Yes, I am that kind of Mama!

Structure around  bedtime also makes life a lot more manageable for those who remain  with our girls when we travel.

Everytime I am asked what sleep training method(s) we have used with our 3.5  and 1.5 year old girls…I honestly don’t have a particular answer or a specific name to it. We have and continue to apply combined methods that when put together have helped our girls do the following:

1. Go to  bed  at a particular time everyday without resisting

2. Sleep in their own bed and room

3. Enjoy their bedtime routines

4. Not panic/cry when left awake in a dark room

5. Sooth themselves to sleep

6. Sleep through the night

A friend once told me that their child would only go to bed when everyone else was going. If they decided to watch a movie until midnight, their child would be awake until then. Of course this wasn’t the way she wanted it, but she felt helpless.

There’s something one can do about it. Actually there are a lot of things one can do.?  I will share my sleep training journey in a series of articles and hopefully these tips will be helpful and make bedtime a happy time.

Coming up next:

THE SLEEP TRAINING SERIES: BREAKING HABITS