I think if you were to ask parents about what the big “issues” are in their families, bed time and sleeping habits would likely make each parent’s top ten. From the time a child is tiny; parents fuss and work to make the child get to sleep and stay asleep. BUT, in reality, we cannot really MAKE them sleep…
I learned the “You can put a child to bed, but you can’t make him sleep” rule when I had my third child. My son was never a sleeper. After having two daughters who slept through the night and took great naps, I was quite shocked to welcome a sweet little child into the world who not only didn’t want to sleep as much as they did, but who also seemed to simply need less sleep. It took me a couple years to realize that there really wasn’t anything I could do to change my son’s sleep clock and we were all just going to have to learn how to live with it, and make the best of it.
To be honest, I actually found this realization to be liberating. Up until then, I had been trying everything I could to make him sleep at certain times and to encourage him to sleep as often and as much as his older sisters’ did. It took a conversation with our family doctor to help me to understand that different children have different sleep needs and schedules from birth. Parents can create bedtime routines, and make a smooth transition toward bed time; you can even set expectations regarding what happens at bedtime. I ended up creating “quiet time” things my son could do in bed if he wasn’t sleepy. He still had a reasonable bed time, but he didn’t have to go right to sleep. He wasn’t allowed to roam the house, or get out noisy toys, etc. The result was that he became quite the avid reader and very skilled as self soothing himself.
To this day, my son has a sleep schedule that is different from the rest of us. He tends to need less sleep and has never been a napper (this did create some issues when he was in preschool and kindergarten), but while I’ve adjusted to his sleep ways, he’s also learned a great deal of self-awareness about himself.
Also: Getting Enough Sleep Should Be a Priority
When Your Child Won’t Go to Sleep