Health & Parenting

Get Your Bed Back

If you've got a young child who wanders into your bedroom at night and are wondering what to do about it, you're not alone. Plenty of toddlers, preschoolers, even school-aged children nationwide are sleeping with their parents at least some of the time. According to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), as many as 24% of parents have their children sleep in their beds for at least part of the night.

When Karen Higdon converted her 4-year-old twins' nursery into a "big girl room" this summer, complete with toddler beds and colorful new bedding, Kaylee and Gracie Higdon were excited, up to a point. They were eager to explore their room during the daytime. But after the sun set, the pair would nervously chatter about monsters.

When the twins were 3, Karen and Richard Higdon had snuggled up under the covers with them to make bedtime less frightening -- one girl in the nursery, one in the parents' room. A year later, the Higdons felt trapped by their routine, so they redesigned the nursery with hopes that an inviting new sleep venue would give Kaylee and Gracie confidence to sleep by themselves.

"At first, we felt like bedtime was our 'alone' time with the girls. But they were starting to get too dependent," Karen says. "We needed to wean them off of us."

Changing Habits

"There are two reasons for co-sleeping," NSF spokeswoman Jodi Mindell, author of Sleeping Through the Night, says. "One is a family lifestyle decision; it's important to the parents. Reason two is reactive co-sleeping. You don't really want them there, but it's easier than having to solve a problem at 2 a.m. No matter which you do, at some point, you'll want to make a change."

Switching a nighttime routine can be difficult because biology isn't on your side. Child sleep expert James McKenna, PhD, professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, says, "There's nothing wrong with parents, or children, if they can't get their kids to sleep all night. Sleep is a flexible behavior. People needed to be able to wake up back when we had predators and nighttime was dangerous. And children who wake seek out their parents."

At the Higdon household, after three nights of a new bedtime routine -- involving nightlights, bedtime stories, music, and talking about the bedroom as a safe place filled with love -- Kaylee and Gracie were falling asleep in their own beds and sleeping in their own room all night. "Gracie told me I was right," Karen says. "There are no monsters in the room, and she loves sleeping there."

Here's how to transition your child to sleep in his own bed all night:

Start Early

It's easier to train a toddler to sleep in his room when he's in a crib, since he won't be able to get out of bed and look for you. "If a child in a bed thinks he can visit you at bedtime," child sleep consultant Dana Obleman, author of The Sleep Sense Program, says, "it can turn into a game, and that's usually when problems occur."