Sometimes I wish I could read what’s on his little mind. It had been about 2 weeks since we started to let him sleep on his own. There were times when he is very cooperative and would obediently turn off the light after his bedtime stories. Most of the time he will try his luck in getting me sleep with him. He will whine a little and repeat to me how bored and sad he will be and how he will miss me in the night. There were even times when he will throw tantrum at little little things just before bedtime. Take for example tonight, he insisted that we should make some cards before going to sleep. He cried and whined and screamed when I told him NO that we will make the cards the next morning. I did not give in and finally he gave up. I could tell that he was angry. I got him into bed and read him his stories while hugging tight to him hoping that he will feel better. Surprisingly, before I could finish the stories, he told me ‘Mummy go sleep in your room’. I was puzzled. Wasn’t that what he dreaded most?! What was he up to this time?? Was he thinking of sneaking over to my room again in the middle of the night?? which was what he had been doing the past few nights. He would wake up sometimes in the middle of the night, sometimes close to dawn and sneaked over to our room and refused to return to his own.
Training him to sleep on his own may be just a passing phase, but it sure can be quite draining emotionally and physically for us. Sometimes, I worried whether this may be too traumatizing for him and may cause more problem to his sleeping habits. These few days, he had been napping very little in the afternoon. We would be out in the morning and he would normally doze off in the car by the time we drive home. The moment I tried to carry him from the car to his bed, he would wake up, which was normally not the case before we started him on this ‘sleeping alone’ thing. I am afraid that with all these enforcement going on, he will associate sleep with bad feelings and anxieties. The last thing I want is to see him being deprived of his sleep. If only I can read what is going on in his little mind, then maybe we can think of a way to fast forward this sleeping alone episode.
No experienced in this at all but is it a “MUST” to train him to sleep on his own now?? I mean won’t he outgrown this phase in time to come? He sure dread sleeping on his own now from what you have mentioned and it would be awfully bad to have him associate sleep with negative factors & the lack of rest resulting from such training. Sorry but one vote goes to Mal for this : )
bo bian, this is something that he needs to learn and not something that will come naturally…i think.