Toddler Sleep: 3 Ways Your Language Can Help With Bedtime

The endless chatter about:

-How tired we are

-How the previous night’s sleep was a roller-coaster

-How multiple wake-ups are leaving us drained

Although venting to our parenting circle is healthy and necessary, we often forget, or are unaware, of how receptive our kids are to those messages.

What we say vs. what they may hear:

“He was up 3 times last night!”

Liam interprets:  I am a kid who wakes up multiple times throughout the night.

“She was up at 4 AM AGAIN! I was so tired I just pulled her into my bed!”

Olivia interprets:  I am a kid who needs to go into Mommy’s bed during the early morning because I can’t put myself back to sleep.

“He is a nightmare when it is time to go to bed. It takes over an hour to get through our bedtime routine!”

Carter interprets: Going to bed is a stressful time, so I need to show I am stressed when it is time to go to bed.

Although we are not trying to make a difficult situation even harder, our language is a contributing factor in how our children are understanding independent sleep.

Take a minute and reflect on what your child might hear when you talk about his or her sleep.

Is it positive?

Encouraging?

Negative?

Be honest, it’s okay!

If you are frustrated and stuck after pondering this, you are in the right spot. I am going to give you 3 ways to use language to create a positive sleep association for you and your child that you can start today.

1. Find a way to immediately compliment your little one on absolutely anything sleep-related.

Your child may have:

-Gotten out of bed 12 times the previous night

-Cried a majority of the time

-Crawled into your bed

-Left you absolutely delirious from sleep deprivation

Regardless of the night you just had, find one thing that wasn’t completely horrible, and make it seem like your child did the best thing in the world.

Examples:

-“You walked back to your own bed when I held your hand and I didn’t have to carry you, you’re so strong!”

-“You did not ask for water at all last night. You are growing so much and are even that much closer to sleeping in your own bed all by yourself!”

-”I noticed you used your stuffy to calm yourself down early this morning. Your bed is such a safe and cozy place to be!”

This may be hard, but find anything to compliment.

With this one small tweak, you are setting the tone by celebrating your child’s sleep instead of constantly speaking to your child with a distraught and defeated tone. Focusing on the positive instead of the overwhelming negative will start to create more positive results. This is critical.

2. Infuse positive sleep talk whenever you can throughout the day.

I often tell my clients they might feel like a crazy person for a bit with how much they need to find their inner preschool teacher and, in that sing-songy voice, talk about sleep like it is the best thing in the world (which isn’t false).

Examples:

-“Wow! Those dinos are snoring in their own beds just like you are going to start doing!”

-“Look at baby Lucy doll! I bet she is waiting for her mommy to greet her in the morning so she can get out of her bed and start the day, because, what do we say together? Grown-ups always come back!”

-“After we finish our snack, let’s pick out our bedtime story for tonight. I am already so excited to get cozy and read a book before bedtime!”

If this doesn’t feel overkill, you’re not doing it enough. This is helping your child associate sleep with something that is comfortable to talk about.

Be prepared! They might start opening up to you about what’s bothering them about bedtime. Be ready to finally have some questions answered. This is also allowing you to boost your confidence in communicating with your child that independent sleep is on the horizon.

3. Narrate the bedtime routine as you go, verbally checking off all the things that your toddler will ask for later to avoid bedtime.

Narrating as you go confirms with your child that every step is being completed.

Examples:

- ”Last minute in the bath!"

-”We are done brushing our teeth!”

-”One last drink of water!”

-”One more book!”

This matters.

You can even keep a visible checklist if you find you can maintain this. Then, when he or she asks for more, you can say with confidence:

“We already completed that part of the bedtime routine, and sleep is next.”

Verbally repeating this over and over every night creates predictability for your toddler and eliminates the guessing game for you.

How we talk about sleep matters.

I find using positive language is one of the biggest oversights when working with clients. Use these 3 steps TODAY and watch the mood lift around the topic of sleep for your entire household.