Your preschooler and sleep: 3 to 5 years
At 3 years old, your toddler has grown into a preschooler. From 3 to 5 years, she will spend about half her day asleep, most of it at night if she doesn’t have daytime naps. If she does have daytime naps, she will still have the same amount of sleep per day, but she’ll probably go to bed later in the evening. During these years, the average amount of sleep she will need each day is about 10 to 12 hours.
Your preschooler’s sleep can be affected by various things, including many of the issues we looked at in the previous chapters. Additionally, she is venturing into the world and socialising more with her peers and other adults. Although this can be fun and exciting, she has a lot to cope with socially and emotionally and this can also impact on her sleep. It’s important to understand your preschooler’s development when you think about reasons for why she might be having sleeping difficulties.
Who your preschooler is
During these preschool years, she continues to develop physically, mentally, socially and emotionally. Note that her social and emotional development is most important in preparation for her formal school years.
Research has shown that your child’s ability to do well at school, enjoy satisfying friendships and have good relationships with her teachers depends more on her ability to manage her emotions than her ability to write her name and know her numbers prior to starting kindergarten.
By socialising more with her peers and new adults, your preschooler will have a lot to cope with socially and emotionally.
‘Why is this?’ you might ask. ‘Doesn’t everyone say it’s really important to teach my child to read and count to be ready for school?’
Well, the answer is ‘no’. Your preschooler can go to school unable to write her name or count and yet still catch up if she can sit quietly and focus on the task at hand. However, if your child can’t sit still and focus on the task the teacher gives her, if she cries or gets angry because the teacher makes her sit still, then she isn’t going to be happy or in an emotional state to be able to focus and learn.
If she hasn’t learned to wait her turn in a game or share toys with other children, becomes angry or frustrated and can’t manage her anger with the other children, she may have difficulties with her friends at preschool, and later at school. And this might make her sad.
If she’s unable to socialise well or manage to control her emotions, it doesn’t matter if she can write her name or count. In such an unhappy and difficult environment, she may begin to feel bad about herself, her learning may suffer and so may her behaviour.
During these early years, her social and emotional development is crucial. You may not have realised it, but right from birth you’ve been helping her manage her emotions and preparing her for school. These are some of the ways you have helped her cope with her emotions so she could begin to gain some control over them. You:
• carried and calmed her as a baby during the peak stage of crying and at other times she cried
• played games with her, smiled, touched her and showed her lots of affection
• had a calm, soothing routine for when she was upset, from babyhood through toddlerhood
• helped her manage the big emotions that she couldn’t handle herself throughout babyhood and toddlerhood
• used sleep and settling strategies that helped her self-soothe
• recognised her non-verbal cues and responded when she needed a break or needed to play
• had a relaxed, flexible and predictable daily routine
• had a calm and soothing bedtime routine
• helped your baby and toddler to focus and enjoy stories or games for short periods of time by following her lead.
Your preschooler’s social-emotional world
Let’s look at what sort of emotional development is happening through the preschool years and how can you continue to help her manage her emotions.
During these preschool years, she continues to develop her ability to focus on activities for longer periods of time. To be able to focus she has to resist her impulse to get distracted by other interesting activities. This is quite difficult for her and she may sometimes need your help.
She is also learning to solve problems with your help and guidance, as well as stopping herself from doing something you tell her not to do. This is learning self-control, which is very important for transitioning to school.
When she was a toddler, you might have started naming her feelings when she was upset. If you did that, she will now start to use words to name and describe her feelings. When she recognises her own feelings, she’s more likely to empathise with other people. This is a wonderful quality to have and will help her at school and throughout life.
Once she’s able to name her emotions and start to manage them, she’ll begin to recognise the same emotions in other people.
Once she’s able to name her emotions and start to manage them, she’ll begin to recognise the same emotions in other people. If you have helped her manage the big emotions of toddlerhood, she’ll start to manage her negative feelings, such as her anger and frustration. She will be able to tell you with her own words how angry, sad or happy she is.
She’ll still need your help sometimes with anger or over-excitement. When she does need your help, you can revert back to the ways you assisted her when she was a toddler. Remember, it’s hard to be grown up all the time, especially when she’s tired or sick.
What you can do
If you are not seeing some of these developmental changes in your preschooler, here are some suggestions on ways to help her get on track with her social and emotional development.
Helping your preschooler manage her emotions
• If you haven’t already, begin naming her feelings and describing what she’s feeling. Help and support her to calm down when she’s angry, frustrated, scared, overexcited or disruptive. Sometimes, she may be disruptive because she’s angry or frustrated and she just doesn’t know what she’s feeling. That’s why she needs you to remain calm and support her to calm down. This may be hard at first and it may take a little time to get back on track.
• If you are already noticing and naming her emotions, continue to do so. You can also name your own feelings, but be careful not to give her too much detail about why you’re feeling angry or sad. At this age, she’s unable to understand adult problems and you could make her anxious.
• If she has tantrums and you use time out as a method, this may not be working for her. If she is alone during the time out, no one is with her to help and support her to calm down. She may not understand what she is feeling or why she has been separated from you when she’s upset.
This method of time out may not help her when she goes to school, as she won’t know how to calm down on her own or be able to use her words to explain her feelings. She may have to leave the classroom to calm down if she’s disruptive.
If you would like to know more about managing tantrums and concerns about the use of time out for young children, visit the website of the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health Inc (aaimhi.org).
Trying to reason with your preschooler when she’s angry, frustrated and upset is pointless. Trying to reason with adults when they’re upset usually doesn’t work either, so it definitely won’t work with your preschooler. Chances are you may feel quite upset, too.
At this age, your child is developing her capacity to think and problem-solve. So, once you’ve both calmed down, sit together and think about what happened that caused her to get angry. This is an opportunity to talk about how your preschooler can manage the same difficult situation next time, such as a toy set not working properly, or her baby brother wrecking a game. Continuing to do this through her preschool years will get her ready to cope with difficult social and emotional situations later at school.
• If you haven’t already established calm, predictable, yet flexible daily and bedtime routines, now is the time to start. Your preschooler will enjoy knowing what to expect during the day and as bedtime approaches (see sample routines on pages 209–10).
• Play with your preschooler. Ask her what she enjoys doing, encourage her to choose the game and then let her be in charge of it. Get down on the floor with her and follow her lead. Watch her carefully and, if you think she needs your help, ask her before stepping in and taking over.
If she does accept your help, work with her and make suggestions, rather than doing it for her. Help her problem-solve by saying things like, ‘Do you think it could go another way?’ or ‘What about that piece?’, rather than saying, ‘Put it there’ or ‘Do it like this’. Tell her how well she’s doing. Encouraging her and making suggestions helps her to feel she’s done something successfully on her own. That’s a nice feeling.
She loves to be praised. The best type of praise to give her is to tell her the behaviour that pleases you, right at the moment she does it. That way she knows exactly what to do. Give her gentle praise each time she:
• uses her words when she’s angry
• waits her turn in a game with you or her friends
• shares her toys
• listens and follows your directions.
The best type of praise to give her is to tell her the behaviour that pleases you, right at the moment she does it.
You don’t have to get out the confetti cannon every time you praise her, though. It’s not like she’s displaying some sort of superhero power – you’re just helping her to develop and manage her social and emotional skills. Simple, positive feedback, such as ‘Good listening’ or ‘Good sharing’, is all she needs to help her understand she’s doing well developing her social and emotional skills.
If she’s having difficulties with controlling her impulses, try playing games like:
• stop dancing when the music stops
• Simon Says
• Red Light – Green Light.
Work on her not interrupting you. For example, ask her to wait until you finish talking to someone – just for a brief moment. You can also practice waiting together. This can be for anything, like baking a cake or waiting in a queue.
• If she has trouble with taking turns, play turn-taking games that she can practice with you. Help her learn to manage her frustration while she waits.
Preschooler routines and sleep needs
For the most part, your preschooler will fit in with the family’s routines. She’s able to eat meals with the rest of the family and enjoy the same food. She will still need to go to bed fairly early at night and most of her sleep will be throughout the night-time hours. She will need about 10 to 12 hours of sleep a day, and this includes both her day and night sleep.
Your preschooler may not have a daytime nap every day, although if she goes to long day-care, she will probably be encouraged to have a rest or sleep once a day. Having a day sleep can sometimes push her bedtime back till later because she still only needs the same number of hours of sleep every 24 hours. So, be prepared for a later bedtime if you like your child to take naps or if she needs them.
If she does have a nap, it will probably be anywhere from 50 minutes to 1½ hours, depending on how tired she is. Once again, your child is an individual and her own individual sleep rhythms determine her sleep requirements.
Sample routine for your preschooler
• Your preschooler may continue to wake very early, but by now she may begin to align her sleep with the family’s.
• Breakfast with the family
• Going to day care
• If you’re at home this will be playtime, including social time with you, toys and games
• Going for a walk in the park, riding little bikes or scooters, visiting friends
• Morning tea (usually fruit) and a drink of water
• Another playtime – play activities are always associated with her developmental age and choice. Play doesn’t always have to be structured; lots of free, imaginative play is important for this age group.
• Lunch
• Another playtime
• She may have an afternoon nap of 50 minutes to 1½ hours if she’s really tired.
• Afternoon tea (usually fruit) and a drink of water
• Another playtime
• Pick up from day care
• Special time with you after day care
• Dinner with the family
• Quiet, wind-down cuddle time
• A bath or shower and her bedtime routine, including reading a story together and settling for the night.
Calming bedtime routine for your preschooler
A predictable, familiar and calm bedtime routine will usually result in your preschooler falling asleep more quickly. If you’ve been having problems at bedtime, a calm, soothing and familiar routine may also reduce disruptive bedtime behaviours. However, your preschooler may like to extend the bedtime routine much longer than it needs to be; a bedtime routine lasting 30 to 45 minutes is enough.
Night-time routines for your preschooler usually include a bath or shower and putting on pyjamas. She may enjoy a warm milk drink, so make sure she cleans her teeth afterwards to avoid the milk remaining in her mouth and settling on her teeth. This can cause tooth decay, which means she could lose her baby teeth early and have to endure uncomfortable trips to the dentist.
Once you’ve attended to teeth cleaning, you can both enjoy cuddles and a storybook or two of her choice. This is probably best done in a quiet place, such as her bed.
Avoid bright lights, lots of noise, TVs and using a smartphone or tablet. These will stimulate her and keep her awake longer.
The aim of the routine is for her to go to bed calm and relaxed enough to move into a drowsy state, ready for sleep. Once she’s calm and drowsy in her bed, you give her an affectionate kiss goodnight. Just like when she was a toddler, she thrives on your affection. Her brain grows stronger and healthy neural connections are made every time you touch her gently, kiss her and tell her you love her.
If your preschooler still has a dummy or a special blanket, toy or comforter, she may want it, but by this age many children have already discarded them. During the preschool years, you have the ability to bargain with her over the dummy so she can learn to do without it – for example, she can give it to the magpies. Preschoolers like to negotiate, and why not? You like to negotiate and get something out of a bargain, don’t you? If she doesn’t decide to discard her dummy, you can negotiate a deal now that she’s a big girl.
Remember, she may be associating the dummy as being important to her comfort. Therefore, if she’s giving up something important, the deal has to worthwhile to her. You will also need to provide lots of praise and encouragement with this package deal.
The toy, blanket or comforter is more difficult. When she was a toddler, the object was chosen to provide her with comfort and security in your absence. If she still has problems going to bed or seems anxious about other things, her comfort object will remain important. She needs it to help her calm down when she gets upset.
Bit by bit, you may be able to encourage her to use her comforter only at bedtime so it becomes a bedtime association. She will decide when her comforter is no longer necessary.
Signs your preschooler may have a sleep problem
When your preschooler has a sleep problem, it impacts on both of you. You will both feel tired and exhausted, but she might not show her lack of sleep by yawning or telling you she’s tired. Your preschooler will show you how tired she is through her social and emotional behaviour. Some behaviours that indicate she might not be getting enough sleep are:
• hyperactivity
• unable to control her impulses
• can’t listen to you or follow your directions
• can’t focus on a task
• can’t take turns with friends.
Troubles with sleep
Your preschooler may have continued to have difficulties with sleep from babyhood or she may have been sleeping quite well and has suddenly begun to have troubles with sleeping.
Common sleep difficulties:
• stalling or refusing to go to bed
• trouble falling asleep
• trouble staying asleep
• TV, smartphone or tablet use prior to going to bed or using a screen in bed before sleep.
Stalling or refusing to go to bed
Your preschooler may not want to go to bed at night and will try to delay bedtime with all sorts of tactics and demands. For example, if you have a bedtime routine, she may try to extend it with requests for more stories or songs. Or she may try other ways to keep you coming to her room, such as asking for drinks, trips to the toilet, requests to watch TV with you, and she may make frequent trips from her bedroom to see you in other areas of the house.
If she continues this for 20 minutes or longer, then this is a problem. Not only is the stalling tiring for you, but she’s losing sleep and will become overtired. You need to set some kind and firm limits.
When you set a limit for your child, you’re also setting limits on yourself. You have to be able to follow through.
Limit-setting for sleep
Limit-setting can be hard, especially when you’re tired, but it’s an important parenting skill. If you haven’t done much limit-setting, start small so you and your preschooler can get used to it.
As your child grows older and develops stronger mental, social and emotional skills, limit-setting will become more important. If you can’t manage to set limits for your 3-year-old, you’re not going to be able set limits for your 12- or 16-year-old.
When you start with small limits and work your way up, you and your child are used to the process of making little rules and setting limits. That will make it easier for you both.
The important thing to remember about limit-setting is that, when you set a limit for your child, you’re also setting limits on yourself. You have to be able to follow through and help your child with the limit you’ve set for both of you.
However, setting limits isn’t about being stern and strict. It’s a process that looks like this.
Setting limits effectively
• Provide your child with affection.
• Tell your child clearly what she has to do.
• Accept that this new limit will be hard for both of you.
• Resist your child’s protests with patience and understanding.
• Resist your need to give in to her protests.
• Tell yourself you’re not a bad parent.
• Tell yourself your child is not naughty.
• Praise your child for success.
• Praise yourself for success.
• Don’t worry if it sometimes doesn’t work, just keep trying.
Here are some examples of things to try with bedtime stalling or when your preschooler refuses to go to bed.
Stragegies for handling bedtime stalling
• Explain to your child that she has to stay in bed and go to sleep. Also explain that you are going to help her (see the suggested settling strategies on page 220).
• Have a consistent bedtime.
• Remain firm and keep her bedtime routine to only 30 to 45 minutes.
• As part of her bedtime routine, use three to four soothing bedtime activities to help her calm down and relax.
• Resist her requests for more stories and drinks.
• Use positive reinforcement strategies, such as sticker charts and rewards, after a period of successful nights going to bed without refusing or stalling.
Trouble falling asleep and staying asleep
As your child gets older and more sociable, she will become much more interested in family goings-on. She will be especially interested in the activities of her older brothers and sisters and will want to join in with whatever they’re doing. If she goes to day care, evenings can often be chaotic; she will be desperate to spend time with you and everyone is tired at the end of the day.
Under these circumstances, it’s easy for some habits to develop prior to sleep that can interfere with her ability to fall asleep and/or stay asleep.
These problem habits may include:
• stimulating activities near bedtime, such as lots of rough-and-tumble games, tickling and chasing
• using her bed for activities not related to sleeping, such as playing games, watching TV or playing with electronic tablets
• consuming caffeinated drinks or foods near bedtime
• too much napping during the day
• an inconsistent bedtime.
Of course, when you look at this list of problem habits, it’s not hard to see why your preschooler would have trouble falling asleep or why she keeps waking up during the night. Sometimes, it’s just that you’re so busy and often tired that you don’t realise a normal, everyday thing could cause so much difficulty.
The main thing to do is to identify if your preschooler has any of these habits and to think about whether they could be interfering with her sleep.
Stimulating activities. These are great fun and your preschooler is probably full of beans at the end of the day. If she’s been to day care, then she’ll need to have some catch-up time with you to tell you about her day, just as you like to do after you get home from work.
After your reunion (she’s been separated from you all day) and the catch-up time she really needs, make sure she has a good wind-down period. This can include a relaxing bath or shower and then her bedtime routine. Remember, bedtime routines need to be only 30 to 45 minutes.
Playing in bed. Make sure she understands that her bed is for sleeping only. If you think about it, playing is her daily business and her toys are the tools she uses. You don’t need work-related equipment in your bed, your place for resting, and neither does she. That would be too stimulating and she needs to understand that her bed is for sleeping.
Caffeine. Pretty much everyone knows that caffeine keeps you awake, but you may not know that you’re giving your child a food or drink that contains caffeine. It’s best to check the ingredients label of all the types of drinks and snacks you buy to see if they contain caffeine. Unfortunately, products don’t always specify caffeine, so you may wish to search the internet for sites that provide food label ingredient names for caffeine.
Foods that contain caffeine include:
• coffee, including coffee extracts and green coffee
• green, black, white and oolong teas
• kombucha (a fermented tea)
• milk chocolate, dark chocolate and cocoa in any food, including ice creams, puddings, cakes and cereals
• cola-flavoured drinks
• energy drinks
• guarana.
Too much napping during the day. Your preschooler needs only 10 to 12 hours of sleep in each 24-hour period, and she will usually have that sleep during the night. By 4 years of age, she probably won’t need a daytime nap at all. But if she does have a nap, she may reduce her hours of night-time sleep.
One important question is whether or not preschoolers should have a nap at day care. There is no right or wrong answer. If your preschooler takes a nap at day care, she will probably stay up later in the evening. The answer about whether to have a nap during the day really depends on what works best for you and your preschooler.
Inconsistent bedtime. It’s important to keep your preschooler to a consistent bedtime and bedtime routine because when she knows she goes to bed at a certain time, she can prepare herself. Bedtime is predictable for her and more relaxing. This set pattern also promotes the beginning of good sleep and helps her stay asleep throughout the night.
When she doesn’t know what time she’s going to bed and bedtime is unpredictable, then she’ll play and keep busy. This may make her more stimulated later into the evening and she will find it harder to wind down.
Then, when you decide she should go to bed, she will be more likely to argue and bargain with you. She may stall and refuse to go to bed, and have trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep. This is what makes her sleep deprived and she will show that through the disruptive behaviours we looked at on page 212.
TVs, video games, computers, tablets and smartphones
Electronic devices are being used much more frequently as part of bedtime routines. You might be thinking, ‘What’s wrong with that? I can read stories, play games or watch movies with my child on them. We’re together.’ And you’re right, you are together. Unfortunately, though, these devices end up replacing more soothing bedtime routines.
There are problems with viewing these screens at your preschooler’s bedtime. Firstly, they have blue lights, which are very stimulating and delay melatonin production; remember, melatonin induces sleep (see Chapter 1: How sleep works). Plus, they are exciting and so much more stimulating than a real book with paper pages to turn.
Research has shown that evening screen-time use is particularly associated with sleep problems, especially if your preschooler has a TV in her room. She will go to sleep later and her sleep quality will reduce with the more hours of TV use she has. She will wake up tired and may also start to display overtired behaviours.
The other difficulty with having a TV in the bedroom is that its use is usually unsupervised once your child goes to bed. Your preschooler may be exposed to violent content, which is also known to cause sleep problems. This may cause nightmares, sleep terrors and sleep talking.
TV and screen time can also cause your preschooler to stall or refuse to go to bed and have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. It’s important to consider that any screen time she has before bed will disrupt her sleep, even if you watch TV or use the other devices with her.
If using screen time is part of your child’s bedtime routine, it might be worthwhile experimenting to see if her sleep improves if you introduce a new soothing bedtime routine to replace the screen time, and keep screen time to daytime use only.
As we saw in Chapter 1: How sleep works, there’s lots of research being done on the effects of blue light and screen time on babies and children, so it’s important to think about how you can help your preschooler to go to sleep and sleep well through the night. At the moment, experts believe that when your child is between 2 and 5 years old, she shouldn’t have any longer than 1 hour of screen time a day. When she does have her screen time, she needs to enjoy it with you as a social occasion. And, like all social occasions at this age, screen time needs to be in the morning or afternoon, well away from her bedtime so she isn’t affected by the glare of the blue lights prior to settling to sleep for the night.
Reducing screen time to the recommended levels can be hard for everyone, not just for your child. It’s so easy to turn on the TV for your little one or let her play a game on a tablet or game console while you do some work, so it’s unfortunate that blue light and screen time have been proven to disrupt sleep.
But if you can do the amazing and reduce her screen time, once everyone’s over their blue screen withdrawals, you may find some fun, creative things to do that you like more – just maybe.
When your preschooler won’t settle
You’ve tucked your toddler into her bed but she continues to call for you or gets up to find you try these strategies to settle her for the night.
Stragegies for settling your preschooler
• Gently and firmly lead her back to her own bed. Tuck her in again, kiss her goodnight and tell her it’s time for sleep. You will probably have to walk her back to bed several times. Try to stay calm.
• If she gets distressed, cuddle her until she’s calm and then leave the room again.
• Speak gently and quietly to reassure her, telling her, ‘It’s time for sleep’. Encourage a state of calm and reassurance.
• If she still doesn’t respond, you could try giving her a small drink of water but nothing else.
• If she’s very upset then try staying in the room until she falls asleep on her own. You could sit on a chair quietly or lie on a mattress. Don’t speak to her except to gently say, ‘It’s time for sleep now’, if she wants to keep talking.
• If she will only sleep if you stay in the room, tell her you’re going to start moving your chair or mattress a little distance away each night while reassuring her you’re still close by.
• As she becomes more reassured, watch to see when she becomes comfortable and less anxious about bedtime and being left to go to sleep on her own. When you see she seems ready, it’s time to move out of the room.
• The length of time it takes to move completely out of the room will depend on how anxious she is about sleeping on her own.
Other aspects of sleep
There are some other aspects of your preschooler’s sleep environment for you to think about if she’s having sleep problems.
The temperature in her bedroom
Make sure her bedroom is a comfortable temperature for the time of year, neither too hot nor too cold. You know yourself how badly you sleep in really hot weather, and being too cold at night also affects sleep. There are no specific recommended room temperatures for children for winter or summer, but ensure that your preschooler is dressed for the weather and her bedding is warm or cool enough.
The amount of light in her bedroom
Make sure the lights in her room aren’t too bright. If your child needs a night-light, ensure it casts a red or yellow light rather than a blue light (see Chapter 1: How sleep works). Exposing your child to bright lights, especially fluorescent lights, TVs, computer screens, tablets and phones, will stimulate her and keep her awake.
No loud noises to disturb her
No one can sleep if there’s too much loud noise going on in the house. Loud noises are far too stimulating as well. Normal household conversations, TV volume at a low level and standard household goings-on are all perfectly okay. Your preschooler will adjust to those noises and they won’t bother her at all once she’s asleep.
Sleep problems can affect your preschooler in many ways. A lack of sleep will affect her ability to socialise and play with her friends, and it can also affect her mood and behaviour, causing her to be impulsive and hyperactive. Sleep problems can affect her ability to learn, listen, remember and follow rules. A lack of sleep can also affect her health and, sometimes, can lead to diagnosis of behavioural problems.
Consistency in establishing predictable sleep and daily routines throughout the day and night, and helping your preschooler learn to fall asleep on her own and sleep through the night, will reduce her sleep deprivation and daytime tiredness.
With your help, she’ll sleep better, feel better and can catch up with her social and emotional development. And you’ll both feel great.
Samantha’s story (mother of Naomi, 4)
Naomi was never a natural sleeper, you could say. She woke many times at night from the word go and her sleep didn’t improve for years. In the beginning, I had a list of techniques that I would follow, including wrapping, patting, holding, bouncing, walking with her, driving with her. We would keep trying them all, then, as they failed, we would go to the next one. I would often be one of those mums walking around the streets at 3 am with a crying baby strapped to me. It was utterly exhausting.
After a while, we realised that noise and touch were the tools that helped the most. We would put white noise on and sing lullabies while holding her or patting her to sleep. I comforted myself with the mantra ‘this too shall pass’. Babies can’t possibly cry forever, so we knew we just had to hang in there and eventually she would fall asleep.
When Naomi was 3, we found out we were having a new baby, which made us think about our situation and how to change it. As the baby will be sleeping in our room, we decided that it was time for Naomi to have her own room and her own bed. I was so nervous about how it would go, but it’s actually been a much easier transition than I first thought.
We brought up the idea of her own room with her and showed her the bedrooms of some of her friends. She loved the fact that they had their own spaces and wanted that for herself. So, we made a big effort to decorate her room and get her a big girl bed. We bought her a pretty doona cover and decorated the walls with images of fish and dolphins, her favourite animals.
We also introduced a reward chart – we give her a sticker for every full night she stays in her bed and when she gets five stickers, she can have a treat. Sometimes it might be a small toy, sometimes we take her out for ice cream.
It took a few months for her to get used to it but these days, she’s sleeping through almost every night. Sometimes she comes into our bed early in the morning but it’s getting rarer and rarer. Our baby is due soon, so it was just in time!
I think she was the type of child who needed that extra attention and reassurance overnight for a bit longer than some other children. I’m really proud of her success and proud of my husband and me for getting through the sleep deprivation and coming out the other side with a happy and confident little girl.
Key message
• Your preschooler is learning to solve problems with your help and guidance, as well as stopping herself from doing something you tell her not to do. This is learning self-control, which is important for transitioning to school.
• Setting appropriate limits is a key parenting skill, but it can be hard if you haven’t done much limit-setting before. If you’ve been having troubles with your preschooler’s bedtime and sleep, you’re going to need to set some limits for both of you. It’s best to start small so you and your preschooler can get used to it; that way you’ll be more able to stick to your new routine.
• There are two common problems that stimulate your preschooler, both of which can contribute to keeping her awake at night: consuming foods or drinks containing caffeine; and watching TV or using other electronic devices prior to bedtime, as these contain blue light, which adversely affects sleep.