Ever noticed a lot of upset  in the late afternoon before dinner and bedtime?

Crying and tantruming are not behaviors parents are comfortable with in their children. From the time our children were babies we’ve been taught to soothe them as much as possible, to eliminate crying, to fix what is wrong.

I invite you to explore the possibility that by eliminating the release of tension and stress that crying allows our children, that we are ultimately encouraging more whiny, demanding, unsatisfied, frustrated, and angry children.

Think about stress and anxiety for a minute. As a culture do we release our stress and anxiety in healthy ways?  The Biggest Loser is one of America’s favorite shows.  America is facing an obesity epidemic.  So, it’s clear that food is one way we may be dealing with our feelings.  Anti-depressant usage among adults, teens, and children are at an all-time high.  We are seeing more and more high profile celebrities becoming diagnosed as sex addicts.  Alcoholism and illegal and prescription drug use continues to be another way individuals cope with their emotions.

What does all of this have to do with getting your young children to sleep?

Everything.

Understanding how young children express their feelings is important knowledge for you to have as a parent so you know how you can begin creating healthy and safe ways for your child to express happiness, sadness, and even anger.

Author and parent educator, Aletha Solter explains that “there are 4 primary ways in which children cope with stress:

• talking,
• symbolic play,
• laughter,
• and crying (including raging).”

Young children will use symbolic play, laughter, crying & raging as their initial stress-release tools and as they mature, they will talk more about their feelings.

Certainly, parents encourage their children to laugh and play and talk to release energy and stress.  However, parents are not as comfortable with their child’s crying and raging because there is a false belief that their child will feel better if they would only stop crying.

“Children will not feel better until they have been allowed to cry and rage as much as needed.” ~ Aletha Solter

Okay, I know what you’re thinking here. You’re thinking, “are you crazy? I’m not going to let my kid scream his head off because his crayon broke.”

Whining, frustration, hitting, biting, defiance…hmmm…is it not interesting to think that these negative behaviors are linked to a child’s pent up stress?  Let’s think about this as it applies to your own life.  You’ve had a horrible day, nothing is going right – your computer crashed, your car won’t start, you feel a head cold coming on, then, your 3 year old is joyously running through the house with a full glass of milk and spills it all over the couch.  You hit a wall on a day like this when you just explode – you, in a very real way, have your own tantrum.

Well, young children, even when a day has gone well (from our perspective), are experiencing stresses and anxiety.  They’re learning new things, short separations from their caregiver, over-stimulation from an outing or from media,  experience an undesirable consequence, lack of attention, illness, getting hurt…

You do the best that you can to create a stress-free, simple childhood for your kids but the sources of your child’s stress are not always easy for you to detect. You don’t know until a crying jag or tantrum that a change in routine or a new friend could have caused your child anxiety or stress.

So, a typical time of the day for your child to release these tensions through, specifically crying, is between 4pm-8pm.  Instead of punishing or shaming your child for crying, let it run its course.  Accept the crying as part of the release.  Respond in a way that allows the child to fully release.  Once you’ve met their basic needs, recognize that allowing crying to occur will bring better, less restless sleep.  You want to your child to release feelings through healing tears.  Firm, but loving holding is a great way to help your young child to let go.  It’s much more comforting and nurturing than sending your child to their room or to the corner for a “time-out.”

From Parenting With Presence:

“I prefer to support my nearly three year old daughter to vent her feelings daily, often in the evening before she goes to sleep. When she doesn’t have a cry for three or four days, she starts showing that she has unexpressed feelings. She takes a long time to go to sleep even when she is tired, and moves a lot during the night. During the day she seems agitated, gets easily frustrated, and avoids being close. On the other hand, when she has a cry every day or two, she easily goes to sleep lying beside me when she is tired, is relaxed throughout the night, and happy and alert during the day. She concentrates for long periods and enjoys cuddles and closeness. Time and again the differences reassure me that crying in my arms contributes significantly to her daily well-being.”

Do you have questions about this theory? I will be sharing with you more about it and how it can support your intentional mothering ways.

© 2007-2010, Raelee Peirce, Certified PCI Parent Coach. nobleMother.com

Related posts:

1. Part 1: Getting Wee Ones to Sleep
2. What To Do When Your Child Sucks Their Thumb or Clothes
3. Day 6: 12 Days to Stop Yelling

There are 4 critical areas that need a parent’s attention

For many of us in the noble mother community we adhere to the principles of attachment parenting.

Many families have found that a period of co-sleeping works well for establishing good sleep from the beginning.

For some, however, it isn’t an easy formula. There is sleeplessness and overwhelm around the bedtime routine and sleeping habits that evolve as our babies turn into toddlers and preschoolers.

Mamas wonder if they have done more harm than good, especially when their wee ones sleep restlessly and night waking becomes a pattern well past the first year. Many parents share that they intuitively feel that sleeping with their baby worked for a time and then evolved into something that stopped working well.  These mamas don’t want their baby to cry by themselves but sometimes sleep is not coming easily for anyone in the house using the sure-fire tools of nursing on demand and co-sleeping.

At the time of my first baby it seemed there were two camps of opinion – co-sleeping and cry-it-out.

I remember the stressful, sleepless nights when my daughter was 9 months old.  She would wake every 30 minutes to nurse, to be re-settled into sleep.  I felt so overwhelmed and exhausted.  Motherhood was not a joy, it was an endless chore.  My lack of sleep dulled every experience with her.  I craved sleep.  I was just trying to survive.

“We live in a society that puts a lot of value on independence. This may be fine for adults but is not as fine for babies. It often leads us to expect babies and small children to be more independent than they are biologically ready to be. It also puts a lot of pressure on parents to push their children toward independence even when they are small babies and toddlers.”  ~ AP FAQ Quote

Clients frequently contact me for parent coaching support to help them find a nurturing way to get their children to sleep better.

If I could go back in time and do things better with my own two children around sleep when they were babies I would.  I’ve learned so much about development, expectations, needs, and emotions from both Waldorf and Aware Parenting philosophies.

Of course, from Waldorf, rhythm is critical to helping children sleep well. I can say that I was very predictable at bedtime for my children but naps were challenging, with my first especially.

The biggest key to better sleep is in the Aware Parenting philosophy. It’s very important for a new mother to know the different needs of her baby.  Babies sleep when they are tired, play when they want to learn, eat when they’re hungry, and cry when they need to release stress.

Babies, toddlers, and even preschoolers can become over-stimulated easily, especially in our culture today.  We have so many lights, sounds, smells, and temperature changes for a little body to take in.

Looking back, it is very clear to me that my first born, who was born via C-section, was never allowed to heal from her birth trauma through crying.  She was a very fussy baby for me and I did what any new mama would do, I nursed her, jiggled her, swayed her, rocked her, and walked with her to get her to stop crying.

Once a baby’s needs of hunger, cold/hot, sleep, and diaper changing have been met, moms can allow their baby or young child to cry to release their tensions from the day, birth trauma, or over-stimulation.

Babies and young children should not be left alone to cry.

Crying-in-arms or companioning your child through their emotional release is the goal.  With a baby or child who has never been allowed to cry their tensions or stress out, this can be a challenging time for both child and parent.  We don’t like to hear our children crying.

A fussy, whiny, or agitated baby or child is showing signs of needing to release stress.  Offering this young child the opportunity to nurse or to use a pacifier, is just shutting the needed stress release down and restless sleep will, more than likely, result.

I highly recommend that you read a full-length article on this topic here. We will continue to explore getting young children to sleep more in Part 2: Getting Wee Ones to Sleep.

© 2007-2010, Raelee Peirce, Certified PCI Parent Coach. nobleMother.com

Related posts:

1. Part 2: Getting Wee Ones to Sleep
2. Day 6: 12 Days to Stop Yelling
3. What To Do When Your Child Sucks Their Thumb or Clothes