415. Q&A: How do I help my child sleep independently without pressure?

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Beyond the Sessions segment of the Securely Attached podcast. I am excited to be joined once again by Dr. Emily Upshur. Hi, Em.

Dr. Emily Upshur (00:53):

Hey.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:55):

So if you are already subscribed to my newsletter, you will know that I send out emails each week with links to podcast episodes so that you never miss one of them. And actually, now that I’m mentioning this, it is a good time to remind you if you are not signed up for yet, this is a very good way to stay up to date with everything and get some really useful tips and tricks and extras there as well. So I’m going to add a link to sign up for that in the episode notes. But the reason why I’m bringing that up is because it’s also a really great place to send in your questions, especially if you have a follow-up to something that you heard on the podcast. And so that’s what we’re going to talk about now because that’s what happened with the question that we’re going to answer this week.

(01:33):

So this mom that wrote in listened to episode 393 where we were talking about whether letting your anxious child sleep in your bed is helping or making their anxiety worse. And so she then replied to my email talking about that episode and let me know she wanted a bit more clarification. So this is what she said. “Hello, I love your podcast and the thoughtful way you discuss parenting and attachment. I have two daughters, four and two years old who still sleep in our bed. I genuinely enjoy having them close to me at night. Our days are often busy so these moments feel very special. We’re not in a rush to move them to their own room and I would prefer to let them decide when they feel ready. My question is, how can we approach this in a healthy way? How do we support their independence over time without making them feel rejected or pressured to leave our bed? Thank you for your work and for considering my question.

Dr. Emily Upshur (02:25):

That’s a great question. I think actually probably something more people aren’t saying out loud. I’m appreciative of this listener sort of naming something that I think a lot of people are like, ” I still sleep in bed with my kids behind the scenes.

Dr. Sarah Bren (02:44):

“No, and to be perfectly very honest, I still sleep in bed with my kids. They’re six and eight, almost seven and eight.

Dr. Emily Upshur (02:52):

This is really good because I am a not sleeper in bed with my kids. So we are so on different ends on the spectrum.

Dr. Sarah Bren (02:59):

Yeah. And I’m not even a dogmatic about it. I don’t have strong feelings that we should. I don’t have strong feelings that we shouldn’t. Frankly, I honestly think more often than not, my angle on whether or not a kid should be sleeping in their own room or being in their parents’ room has almost nothing to do with the kid and almost everything to do with the parents. And really it’s like, how is it working for you? If it ain’t broke, you don’t have to fix it. I mean, obviously there’s certain circumstances where it might not be about you and it might be actually not working for your kid even though it’s something your kid really, really is feeling strongly about. But that usually is tied to a totally different issue that’s not actually related to sleep in and of itself. It’s usually about anxiety and separation.

Dr. Emily Upshur (03:50):

Well, that was where I was going to go. I was going to say, my position is if your child can handle anything, because what I hear you saying, Sarah, is my kids can sleep in my bed, my kids cannot sleep in my bed. It sort of is easy going either way.

Dr. Sarah Bren (04:07):

Well, I don’t want to paint that picture because that’s not totally realistic. Because I have not cared so much about my kids being in my bed, they are pretty used to me falling asleep at them at night. When I don’t, it’s not easy. Can they do it? If they really need to do it, they can do it. Can they do it with a babysitter? Yes. Can they do it? But also it’s not easy, not because they have a lot of stress and anxiety around separation, which is totally possible and can happen. That just doesn’t happen to be the issue. They can’t do it because we haven’t practiced it. It’s not part of the routine. So if I did it all of a sudden and said, “I’m not sleeping or I’m not going to lay with you to fall asleep or you’re not allowed to come in my room.” It would be hard for them, but because we haven’t practiced it.

(04:57):

So if you want to change it, I guess my point is if you want to change it because it stops working for you, the grownup, that’s okay. But understand it’s a gradual process. They have to adapt to this new expectation, this new pattern, this new plan and skill and they might not … My kids don’t have that skill really solid because we don’t practice it very often.

Dr. Emily Upshur (05:18):

Yeah. I think that’s a great point. Any new transition to just requires a little bit of a, let’s dip our toe in it, let’s increase the difficulty over time. It’s not just a black and white, like sleep in our bed one day and rip the bandaid the next day. I think that’s a great point.

Dr. Sarah Bren (05:36):

Which is a good segue into this mom’s question because she says like, “Okay, we’re not in a rush. They are going to move eventually when they feel ready. How do we approach this in a healthy way and support their independence over time? I don’t want to make them feel rejected or pressured.” Well, to that I would say one, if you’re comfortable again, so we’ve established this isn’t really a problem for you or your partner and your kids or your kids. You want to let them decide when they feel ready. Here’s the beautiful thing about the strategy in my opinion is they’ll just, if they are the drivers of the readiness, they’ll just do it. They’ll start to start showing you they’re ready. My son is starting this a little bit. He’s eight and he’ll be like, “Tonight I think I want to try putting … I really want to read my room by myself tonight.” He doesn’t do it every night, but he does do it every once in a while. He’s just kind of instigating it and so I’m like, “Cool.” And then I just kind of leave it alone. And if he ends up in my room, okay, whatever. It’s like I kind of keep it a real non-issue, but if your kids, again, I’m trying to separate out the difference between kids who are really used to this and may actually have some distress around it changing and kids who the reason why they are so attached to this and have so much distress around any changes related to it is really related to a deeper issue around anxiety.

(07:04):

I kind of want to separate that out. I’ll put links to the episodes that we talk about, anxiety related sleep stuff because I do think that’s a separate issue that’s … And my advice and my suggestions around that actually are different than what we’re talking about here.

Dr. Emily Upshur (07:19):

It warrants a different approach for sure.

Dr. Sarah Bren (07:21):

But I also want to just, it’s sort of really nuanced, and I don’t want to sound like I’m speaking out of both sides of my mouth, but there is still a little bit of anxiety, normative anxiety around changing these plans. That’s not the same thing as like an anxiety driven and sustained issue that sleep is just one piece of where it’s showing up everywhere including at night versus if I were to change my kid’s sleep plan, they would have some stress around it, but that’s not the … I’m just trying to separate that out. I hope that’s clearer because I just am not trying to create this binary where it’s like there’s anxiety and stress and then there’s butterflies and rainbows and sunshine and everyone’s chill and super, super flexible and can do all the things and it’s no issue.

Dr. Emily Upshur (08:07):

I think you’re touching on something really important though for your example and potentially for this listener is that if it’s not anxiety, we’re going to park that somewhere else, but if this is a child led and you’re okay with that and everybody’s okay with that, I do think your child is going to do something like what your son did. I think your child is going to say, “I’m going to start in my room or I’m going to do this. ” And then it will naturally not be every day, right? It might not have that consistency, but it’ll give you that warmup, that practice, maybe even without anxiety at all, right? Like a normative, I’m trying a new thing, kind of excitement anxiety.

Dr. Sarah Bren (08:46):

Yeah, it’s playfulness. It’s like curious mind. He’s like, “Can I do this?”

Dr. Emily Upshur (08:50):

Right, exactly.

Dr. Sarah Bren (08:51):

“I think I could do this.”

Dr. Emily Upshur (08:52):

And also confidence, like kids really, listen, I think it is a skill, right? And I think that that feeling of independence can feel really fulfilling and then maybe the next day they don’t because they had a long day at school or they’re tired and if you can follow that and not have it be, then it sort of builds in that practice at the pace that feels appropriate to your own child.

Dr. Sarah Bren (09:17):

Yeah. And there’s this other scenario where maybe you’ve been doing this for a while, it’s not been an issue and it’s starting to kind of get in the way. Maybe as your kids get bigger, they take up more of your bed and you don’t get as good of a sleep.That’s a real thing.

Dr. Emily Upshur (09:40):

The biggest one I hear where there’s a transition where it’s been working, it’s not, is waking up in the morning actually because everybody’s tiptoeing around because the kids, there still have to be asleep, but you have to get up to be able to be oriented and so you’re like, “Oh, this is making mornings really tough because I don’t want to wake them up. I have to get up way before them to run this morning in a way that feels good.” So I think those are the times where you’re like thinking about is this still working.

Dr. Sarah Bren (10:05):

Yeah. Or you have a partner who is not as chill about it as you are. It’s not working for them or it’s not working for your relationship. Maybe you guys are at a place now in your relationship where you want to be alone more and that’s totally, especially when you come out of like the baby bubble and you’re like back into your bodies and yourselves and you’re like, “Oh my God, I would like to sleep in my bed with my partner and not have kids in it all the time or be wondering if the door is going to pop open at any moment.” I get that. That’s a definite reason I think also people have transitioned kids out of their room and made it more of an expectation, a clear, consistent goal.

(10:47):

And so there’s no right or wrong. It’s really just if you’re ready to change it, you are. But that would be a scenario where maybe it’s not child led, it’s not completely on their decision time and their orientation. So you actually have to introduce a new expectation and a new plan and that goes back to our point of like, you got to practice it, you got to start small and build your way up, but I think it starts with just kind of like letting your kids know, “Hey, we’ve been doing this for a while. It’s not working for us as well because I’m tired now. I’m not getting enough sleep.” So we’re all going to work on getting better sleep. It’s going to look like starting to, everyone sleeping in their own rooms. I know that’s a really different thing than what we’ve been doing.

(11:28):

So obviously we’re going to work on it. We’re going to practice it. It’s going to be something we work our way up to and this is what it’s going to look like, blah, blah, blah. You lay out the plan. So give them a heads up and then I like baby steps, baby steps and small wins, make it, and it depends on the age of your kid. Like this woman, her kids are four and two.

(11:50):

I think with two year olds, I’m wondering if they would be, if they are in their own room, if there’s a crib, because that’s a little easier, but if they’re older and in beds, they can physically get up and come into your room. So you have to be ready to…

Dr. Emily Upshur (12:09):

I have a solution for that. We can do it in another episode. This is a common question. What do you do when you’re doing this transition, which maybe is like part two of this because I think once you’re ready, there’s some troubleshooting there as well.

Dr. Sarah Bren (12:25):

I love that. We’ll do a part two. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Follow up. I hope we answered your question. I hope that you feel empowered to make this call for what works with your family, for the mom that wrote this in, but anyone that’s listening. There’s so many ways to do this. There is no right or wrong and you get to kind of set your own rules. We don’t talk about this a lot. We on this podcast talk about this a lot, but we as a society don’t really talk about this that much. And Emily, your point at the very beginning that like a lot of people sleep with their kids and not feel like they can talk about it. I also feel like it’s important too to maybe put in some resources for safe co-sleeping because especially if you have little kids, I think there’s this idea that it cannot be done and I want to be really clear.

(13:14):

There are safe ways to do it and there are very dangerous ways to do it. So it’s important that you get very educated about safe co-sleeping, but there are ways to save co-sleep. So I will put resources in the show notes to get people to the right place for that. Super important. But you guys got this. We get to set our own rules for our own family and I love that and we’ll talk to you all very soon.

Dr. Emily Upshur (13:37):

Bye.

Dr. Sarah Bren (13:39):

Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.