7 Tips for Overcoming Sleep Issues with Adopted Kids
Sleep — ahh wonderful, restorative, and sometimes elusive sleep! Sleep is such a part of our life that it is easy to forget that the ability to fall asleep and stay asleep without assistance is a learned skill. Adoption can add an extra twist to the age-old quest of all parents for sleep.
When you are sleep deprived, figuring out healthy sleep schedules feels overwhelming. We offer these tips for dealing with sleep issues so that everyone gets a restful night of sleep and focuses on the business of building healthy attachment within your family.
1. Attachment is Your Primary Goal
With a newly adopted child, your first goal is helping to create attachment. After you believe your child is secure in her attachment with you, you can shift your goal to establishing better sleep habits. Trust your gut on the security of your child — if she seems secure in her attachment during the day, and your instinct is that she is securely attached, the chances are excellent that she is.
2. Decide on Short- and Long-Term Goals
Think about what you want to accomplish when tackling the sleep issues in your home, both short term and long term. Often the most pressing sleep issue is merely figuring out how everyone can get a good night of sleep. In the short term, think about what you are willing to do to accomplish that first. It’s much easier to implement your long-term goals when you have made a plan from a clear mind that is not clouded by sleep deprivation.
Long-term goals might include deciding on whether you are comfortable with co- sleeping in a family bed or some variation on that model. Talk about how long you want to spend on the bedtime routines? Do you want to have a consistent waking and sleeping time for everyone? How will you handle irregularities of routine when they occur? One word of caution about sleeping arrangements: make sure that both parents have a voice on what the long-term goal is for where everyone sleeps
3. Give the Child A Voice
Enlist your child’s help to solve the sleep issues with you. Ask him what he thinks might help him sleep through the night? Would he like to try a picture of Mom and Dad beside his bed? Is there a comfort toy or a transitional object (like one of Dad’s flannel shirts) that would help? Does he want to try a reward system? Give the ideas a reasonable effort and be willing to circle back and try something else if need be.
4. Is Fear an Issue?
Talk with your child about what she might be afraid of at night? Common childhood fears include:
… being afraid that she can’t fall asleep,
… being afraid that she will die if she falls asleep,
… fear of monsters/bad guys.
Discuss the fears and give her tools for addressing them together and when she is in her bed at night. Read books together about kids with common childhood fears and what they did to overcome those.
5. Take it Slow
Establishing healthy sleep habits is a process. Try to adjust your child’s sleep routines slowly and gradually. For example, over several weeks, move from sitting on the bed while your child falls asleep to sitting on the floor beside the bed. Next, sit near the door, then sit outside the door. Finally, end up sitting out on the couch in the living room.
6. Seek Extra Help
If your child has pre-adoption life experiences (such as abuse or other trauma) that make the nighttime especially scary for him, seek out an adoption-competent therapist to help your child heal.
7. Self-Care is a Must
Don’t forget to take care of yourself. So often, when you have a child that is struggling with sleep, your focus is exclusively on the child. You are pre-occupied with what she needs and what else you can do to help her. It is all too easy to
overlook that you also have needs that deserve to be met. Sleep is a primary human need and impacts your physical, emotional, and mental health, just like it does your child’s.
Sleep deprivation makes it hard to parent well, let alone function in all the other areas of your life. Clear-headed thinking goes right out the window when sleep is out of reach.
Remember that it is not selfish to want to simplified sleep routines for everyone in your home. It’s not selfish to establish healthy sleep habits like sleeping through the night, and you will not ruin your child for life by enforcing those habits.
Our partners at Creating a Family have several valuable tools to help adoptive families find their way to healthy sleep habits, including this interview on Sleep Issues with Adopted Kids.