Have a New Kid by Friday - Dr Kevin Leman [41]
Part of learning to grow up and be age-appropriately independent is having your own bed and your own little space. It’s important for psychological development. That’s why if siblings share a room, the room should be divided in some way that gives each child his own privacy and space.
Every child wakes up differently. Some children will wake up slowly, talk to themselves, and sing. They’ll happily look through books for two hours. They’ll relish time in their own “space.” That’s our Lauren. She was still in her crib at age 3 and would not have complained if she had still been there, reading books, until she was in seventh grade, when she was too old and too big for her crib. Other kids wake up ready to take on the world and insist (usually loudly) on getting out of their bed as soon as possible. That was our Holly, who pole-vaulted out of her crib when she was 18 months. She woke up with fire in her eyes. She was one determined little kid. Our family joke was always this:
“Lemey [one of my wife’s pet names for me], you better go wake up Holly.”
“I’m not going to wake her up. You do it.”
“No, you.”
The back-and-forth continued. You see, if you were smart, you didn’t want to wake up Holly. Some kids wake up with a happy face. Some kids wake up hard.
Some kids go to bed easily. Some kids go to bed hard. And some kids naturally just don’t stay in bed. They want water or a snack, they don’t feel good, they’re scared, they want to sleep with you, or they’re feeling social—they simply want some friendly 3 a.m. conversation (ah, what a nice time to share your innermost thoughts and feelings).
Setting—and sticking with—a solid bedtime is a mountain, not a molehill. If you start bad habits in this area, everyone in the family will suffer. Everyone’s actions and emotions just seem to work a little better when you’ve all had a good night’s sleep. So be extra careful on this one.
Bed-Wetting
“I’ve tried everything—the buzzer, the bell and pad—but he sleeps through it all. Nothing works. Help!”
“Andrea’s been potty trained since she was 2. Then one day I got a call from the school to bring her a change of clothes. She’d wet her pants. I was stunned. Andrea’s in second grade. What’s up with that?”
“Jarrod’s still wetting the bed sometimes, and he’s 10. What am I doing wrong?”
Many parents go to the extreme on bed-wetting. They try all sorts of contraptions to stop their child from wetting the bed. There’s the buzzer that, upon the first sign of wetness, buzzes and wakes up the child. There are the bell and the pad—when the pad gets wet, the bell goes off and wakes up the child.
But let’s put things in perspective here. You can read a dozen books and try all the techniques. You can make sure your child doesn’t drink a lot of fluids at dinnertime; you can have your child go potty before he goes to bed; you can talk about getting up to go to the potty immediately upon feeling a full bladder.
And your child will still wet the bed.
How does this make you, as the parent, feel? Many parents rack their psyches with angst. Oh my goodness! I must not be givinghim enough love and attention. I must be a terrible parent. He must be stressed in some way to cause him to do this. If any of his friends found out, he’d be so embarrassed. And what a mess! I hate cleaning those smelly sheets and changing the bed every morning . . . not to mention the mattresses he’s ruined.
But consider this: a research study indicated that children who wet the bed have deep-sleep patterns. The majority of children will eventually grow out of those patterns and stop wetting the bed.
So chill out! As the wise saying goes, “This too shall pass.” Bed-wetting will stop by high school. I guarantee it. In the meanwhile, just use rubber sheets and install gutters on the bed!
You might also need to do some things behaviorally. For example, if your 7-yearold wets the bed, you wouldn’t allow him to stay overnight at a friend