Q:We are not sure what to do about our oldest boy. You would think that at seven years old, he would not be having trouble going to sleep at night, but he does. He is harder to put to bed than his younger sisters are. Apart from bedtimes, he is a great kid. My mom thinks that my son and I are locked into some kind of a power struggle at bedtime. That does not make sense to me, but neither does his sleep problem. What do you think?
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A:I doubt that anything is more frustrating to a parent than trying to deal with a child who struggles going to sleep at night. Parents get anxious when their children are not getting their proper sleep, and those anxieties lead to more tensions in their children and more troubles getting them to go to sleep.
You need a strategy for dealing with your boy, one that likely begins with your family physician. Sleep apnea, or breathing problems during sleep, is a frequent problem for young children. Your doctor can check your child’s tonsils and adenoids and refer him to a specialist if necessary.
Your next step is to review bedtime rituals. Your son needs about 11 hours of sleep every night, including weekends. That means that he should have had his nightly bath, bedtime snack and special time with his parents sometime between 8 and 9 p.m.
Then it is lights out. If your child’s bedtime rituals are in order and he is still struggling to go to sleep, you can safely assume that your child is afraid of the night or the dark.
Your child is not able to get to sleep because he is scared and you get frustrated because you know how vital sleep is to his well-being. Tensions can break out, making sleep even less possible.
To deal with nighttime fears, talk to your son during the day. Let him know that you are aware of his nighttime scares and encourage him to tell you what is frightening him. He needs to know that you want to help him deal with those terrors at night.
Some parents put night lights in the bedrooms. Other parents let their children read before sleep until they get drowsy. Some promise to check the bedrooms every 15 minutes until the children fall asleep.
Remember that the goal is not to help your child get to sleep, but to deal more effectively with what is scaring him. He will then get himself to sleep.
The more he understands that you are working with him on his sleep problems and the more he begins to feel secure at nighttime, the sooner he will beat this problem.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan. Contact: jandrews@producer. com.
