When your kids are not getting all the sleep they need, ask yourself, “Where they are when they’re not sleeping?” Maybe they’re in their own beds, but maybe they’re somewhere else.

There’s a small percentage of families that are committed to co-sleeping, with everyone in one big bed. But there are many more families that have separate beds for everyone even though not everyone uses his or her own bed.

In some households, children start the night in their own beds, then wander into their parents’ bed sometime in the wee hours, not just occasionally but every night.

In other households it’s a parent who sleeps in the child’s bed on pretty much a nightly basis.

In other families, kids with separate bedrooms end up all in one bedroom, either sleeping on an empty bunk or curled up at the foot of a sibling’s bed.

And let’s not even consider the kids who spend the night in the dog’s bed or who fall asleep on the couch each evening and spend the night there.

The long and the short of it is that even though people may say everyone sleeps in his own bed, in actual fact this doesn’t happen all that often. That’s fine if it works, but if children aren’t sleeping well or if adults are kept awake night after night, then it might be time to reconsider the sleeping arrangements.

If it’s time for a change, then you’ll get some resistance from your children and you’ll get it in the middle of the night when you’re least likely to be at your best. So talk through the new plan and the reasons for it during the day when everyone’s more agreeable. Say, “Tonight, when you go to bed, we’re going to try something new. You sleep in your bed all night without getting up or coming into Mommy and Daddy’s bed. In the morning I’ll say ‘High Five!’”

Remind the kids of the new plan before bedtime. And during the night, stick to the plan. Take your midnight-wanderer back to his own bed and tuck him in, reminding him that in the morning you can say “High Five!”

Make sure, of course, that the child’s sleeping arrangements suit her. Let most of the stuffed animals sleep on a shelf (and live pets in their own beds) so there’s room for your child to stretch out and move around in bed. Make sure she’s warm enough (maybe wearing footie pajamas) but not too warm. Experts say a good sleeping temperature, even for small children, is 67o. And if your child needs a night light and a sippy cup of water handy, set that all up before lights out. Make it easy for there to be no excuses to get out of bed.

It will take a few nights of consistent reinforcement to make the new sleeping locations work, but work they will.

There. Don’t you feel more rested already?

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved.

Has this ever happened at your house?

Your child sits bolt upright in bed, eyes open in the dark, screaming and yelling at the top of his lungs. You shake him gently but he continues to holler. He flaps his arms and trembles, seemingly terrified, but he won’t stop and he won’t say what’s wrong.

After at least 10 minutes of this (what must the neighbors be thinking?) he subsides and allows himself to be tucked back in. Trembling yourself now, you go back to bed. The same thing has happened every night this week.

This is a night terror. It’s not the same as a bad dream.

A dream happens during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, when a child can be awakened. This is the problem with bad dreams, after all, that they wake a child up. But a night terror occurs in the deepest levels of sleep when it’s nearly impossible to awaken a child. This is why you can’t get him to stop.

And it gets worse: night terrors recur. They often happen night after night after night.

Night terrors are most common in preschool children. They may be related to some anxious situation that happened during the day, including a major family disruption. One way to make night terrors stop is to figure out what is upsetting the child and fix that situation if you can.

Another way is to intercept the night terror before it starts. Because these episodes usually happen at about the same time each evening, you can often head them off by waking the child up just before a “scheduled” event. Rouse her just enough to bring her from fully asleep to drowsy (though you can wake her up enough to get a sip of water or go to the bathroom if you like). Breaking the cycle often works.

Children outgrow night terrors but before they do night terrors can strike real fear into a sleepy parent’s heart. Understanding what these episodes are and how to handle them makes everyone sleep better!

© 2012, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved.