Dana: Hi. I’m Dana. Welcome to this week’s video. Today I want to talk a little bit about getting your kids out of your bed. It’s a very common problem and I’m seeing more and more children in the older age range, we’re talking 4, 5, 6, 7, still sharing beds with their parents. I want to give you a few tips today for preventing that and also changing the situation.

The first thing to understand is that we are very habitual about our nighttime environments. I mean think about it, we don’t sleep that great in hotels or at company’s house because it’s different. It’s not what we’re used to. We tend to hang on to our habits around sleep really tightly. When you’re looking at your child there most likely will not come a day where they are just willingly and happily going to say, “No, you know what? From now I’m going to sleep in my own bed.” It does happen but it’s really rare, again, because it’s their habit to sleep with you. Therefore, sleeping alone feels very strange. We don’t like a whole lot of strangeness when it comes to bed.

The first thing to keep in mind is that there is going to be some protest around this. It makes total sense. If I told you tonight you had to go sleep on your own in a different room you would have some anxiety around that. That’s absolutely a given. Do not expect this to be an easy, breezy process where it’s not going to be upsetting to anyone. You might be waiting until your child leaves home if that’s what you’re waiting for.

I would sit down with the child, if we’ve got an older child here, and just talk about what are good healthy sleep habits and how can we all start getting a better night’s sleep. How can you learn some independent sleep skills that are going to make things like sleepovers easier and sleep away camp easier? If you feel like you can do this on your own and you become confident in that then it’s going to make things easier down the road. Get them involved. Set some reward around this. If you’ve got an older child you can start setting up a nice bedtime routine chart that they can follow, some rewards about staying in your own bed and being successful with that. Again, that keeps it really positive and minimizes some of the anxiety that they’re going to have around this.

Most of the people that end up buying the Sleep Sense Program, if they’re in a bed-sharing relationship, are looking for a way out of it. If we’re talking about a baby, maybe we’ve got an 8-month-old where you’re thinking, “Okay, enough’s enough. I’d like my own bed back now.” How do we start that process? What I would suggest with any child who’s been in a bed-sharing relationship with their parent is to do what I call the stay-in-the-room method outlined in the program. That’s going to be the gentlest way to encourage your child to sleep in their own space but not go from being with you to being all alone without any assistance. This is really going to be a gentle, gradual process of teaching them to sleep well and independently with you still being involved but not in their bed.

Again, remember there’s going to be protest. You’re going to have to stay strong. Once you’ve decided to do this you really cannot back down. You have to push through even if, for the first few days, it’s upsetting to the child. Again, you can talk about this is a decision you’ve made. It’s the best decision. You’re going to have to stand behind that.

I hope that helps. Thanks for watching. Sleep well.