For the first year and a half of his life, your little boy may have gone down with a bottle at a regular time every night. Oh how blessed those days were. But then one day a switch flipped in that slumbering angel and now the little man won’t sleep at all. It’s midnight and Johnny Wired is bounding through the house and yelling like he’s just realized his rushing for frat. By now, you’ve learned when baby don’t sleep, you don’t sleep. And when you don’t sleep, the earth stands still; zombies rise and walk the earth (and by zombies, we mean you). If you're going to survive you need to come up with a plan. You need to lay some strategery on that kid’s butt. Here are some tactics you can employ.
1) Wear them out during the day. Take them to the park. Run them hard.
2) Shorten or cut out the nap. Wait, you’re kid isn’t sleeping at night and you are still giving them a nap? Are you nuts?!
3) Stick to the rules. If you say “only one story and then bed,” it better only be one story. Or else you’ll spend countless hours every night bargaining.
4) Set up a consistent routine. For instance, do bath, teeth, story, bed. Do it the same way every night and they will learn to wind down with the routine.
5) Create a soothing environment. If you make your kid sleep on top of a running washing machine, now is the time to rethink that strategy.
6) Stay as close as he needs you to. Some children are happy to go to sleep after a quick goodnight kiss, while others prefer to snuggle, hold hands or go to sleep with an adult in a nearby chair. This will change as your child grows and becomes more self-confident, so don't worry ' you won't have to rock your teenager to sleep.
7) Let them know you’ll be there. Sometimes the root of the problem is nightmares or fear of the dark. Assure where you will be, install a nightlight and general remove the fear factor.
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