Separation Anxiety at Bedtime

First of all, I just wanted to offer some reassurance that his behavior is normal. At 4 years old, the imagination has transitioned from pretend play (real life imitations, cooking like mom, playing doctor, etc) to fantasy play (fairies, dragons, etc) which also means monsters and things may seem very real and so can make bed time hard even though your child may not know how to tell you.

I will aslo say that I slept in a cot bed by my mothers bed until I was 5 years old because of this same issue. Having the light didn't help, if she stayed til I fell asleep I just woke up soon after and tried to get in bed with her.

Some advice I have read came out of a parenting book/philosophy called Love and Logic by Charles Fay. There's a video presentation of the book too. I checked it out through my son's school so you might ask your local school if they have it. Or, you can always just go to Barnes and Noble or something and read the section on what to do. I can't remember what their advice was, but I have used a lot of other techniques I learned and they work great!

Last thing, I let my husband do my kids bedtime routine because if I put them to bed it takes longer and they don't listen to me. (My 5 year old son and 1 year old daughter share a room right now and that seems to help them with being comforted. but my daughter likes to get up and sleep in the living room or some other strange place out of her bed). But, letting him do the bedtime routine cuts down on my stress and feeling frustrated.

Good luck!

R.

Dear L.,
My only advice is from very personal experience. I myself had the same problem as your son! I could NOT sleep without my mom. She too was frustrated like you. I believe her persistence of sleeping with me and once I fell asleep leaving helped me get over it. She'd tell me, I'll stay here until you fall asleep, but then I have to go to my room. It was about a 2 year period! So, that doesn't sound great for you! But, in the end, your child will appreciate it I believe! He WILL get over it. It may sound like "yeah but you're not the one getting no sleep!" but I am! I have a 15 mo who hasn't slept all night yet. But, I believe like you son he may just need me still and one day he'll "get over it", but until then, I'll be there.

Hope this was some encouragement to keep going!
R.

I have been struggling with this same issue with my 2 1/2-yr. old. He won't go to bed unless his dad is there, but my husband is not always home in the evening when the kids need to get to bed. My son usually pitches a fit and I give in and let him stay up until I go to bed, b/c I can do more things around the house, instead of spending all the time keeping him in bed and getting nothing done around the house in the evenings. It's very frustrating.

I work with a lot of ppl from other cultures and backgrounds and have asked them what they suggest and they think it's crazy how we (Americans) force our children to sleep in their own bed...when many other cultures think it's fine to all sleep together. For obvious reasons, my husband is not fond of the long-term idea of having the 2 yr. old in our bed - no intimacy.

First, the "Love & Logic" advice is exellent. You probably can't find it in bookstores (I tried). I finally ordered it on Amazon. It's called "Parenting with Love and Logic." It has entirely changed the way I parent.

Second, having dad to the bedtime routine has worked very well for us. However, this is almost a "treat" for me since I'm a SAHM -- it's a valuable hour for me to relax and have some alone time, plus Daddy gets some extra time with them. If you're working outside the home, you might not want to give up the bedtime stuff. But, you might give it up for a night or two and tell your son that it really drains your energy when he makes a fuss at bed time, so you need a break and Daddy's going to take over for a day or two. Tell him you love him and you'll be back on "bed time duty" when you've had some rest. You could either disappear at bed time, or let him know that you'll give him a kiss and hug after he brushes his teeth, but everything else is up to Daddy. Just make sure you aren't focusing your attention on the baby instead.
Another idea might be to explain the "bedtime rules" to him before you step foot in his room. Our daughter (age 3) has been using all kinds of stall tactics lately, so we told her that when we put her to bed, she should not come out of her room, and if she does we'll put a baby gate in her doorway. Then we just stick to our guns. As soon as her little body graces the hallway, she's back in her room with a gate at the door. She throws a wall-eyed fit and we tell her that the gate stays up until she's calm and in her bed. She goes through this "phase" every couple months too. So, we revisit this gate thing often. I usually don't have to do it more than once.

I've gone through the same thing with my oldest who will be 5 in December. Our situation was exactly like yours. He'd listen to my husband. He'd wake up his younger brother. It was really frustrating but I still felt guilty. It sounds to me like you are trying just about everything ... One thing that worked for me was letting my son use my robe as a blanket. He's through it now and everybody is much happier. I hope your situation is shortlived as well. Good luck.

L., I do feel for you and understand it is a hard situation for you. I have two thoughts - First, I did see a tv program once that showed a similar scenario and one of the things they did was get child more comfortable in their room so the parents increased the time the child was in his/her own room during day/evening playing either with or without parents present. It seemed to make that particular child more comfortable at bedtime. Second, when we had some foster children (girls age 3, 4)they experienced some separation anxiety at bedtime so what we did was made sure they had gone to the bathroom, had once last sip of water, ready for bed, read one book each and then we played music while one of us (parents) sat in hallway and read our own book quietly. We did have a rule that there was no talking after they got in bed. And that was hard because as you know children do want to engage in conversation but we would just put a finger to our lips as the shhh signal and not answer questions. They were delay questions but we did not answer them. And actually this did work after a few days. As long as we assured them we were there in the hallway where they could see us and that we would not talk to them, they feel asleep. Obviously the goal is to go to sleep on their own eventually but this might be a good segue to that eventually. Good luck to you whatever you do.