Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #65 2 Year Olds and Bedtime

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#65 2 Year Olds and Bedtime · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: This is the Happy Family's podcast with doctor Justin Coulson.
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  Speaker 1: We are Luke and Suzie and this is the podcast
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  Speaker 1: for time poor parents who just want answers now.
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  Speaker 2: And let's ask a question.
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  Speaker 3: Lake.
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  Speaker 2: She said, my two year old is refusing to sleep
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  Speaker 2: in his own bed. He insists on sleeping with me
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  Speaker 2: and refuses to go to bed until I'm going to bed,
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  Speaker 2: screams the house down. If I go to bed when
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  Speaker 2: he's meant to be going, I get no downtime and
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  Speaker 2: often fall asleep without getting the dishes done, et cetera.
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  Speaker 2: Any suggestions on how to get him to love his
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  Speaker 2: bed again?
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  Speaker 1: Well, well, I like that question. It's a great love
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  Speaker 1: his bed again. Whether or not we have an answer for.
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  Speaker 2: You, Well, we've brought him the expert, Dr Justin Coulson,
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  Speaker 2: parenting expert from Happy Families dot com dot au. How
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  Speaker 2: do you get a two year old to love his
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  Speaker 2: bed again?
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  Speaker 3: That's a great question. I don't.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, as an adult, I just don't relate. Right,
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  Speaker 4: My bed is one of my fast things in the world.
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  Speaker 1: One isn't four my bed my pillow Like. We went
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  Speaker 1: on a holiday recently and we stayed in some wonderful
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  Speaker 1: places could not wait to get to my bed with my.
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  Speaker 3: Now, what is it with two year olds?
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  Speaker 4: I don't have a specific answer how they can love
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  Speaker 4: their bed again, but certainly I've got a few ideas
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  Speaker 4: that can help us to calm our children and help
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  Speaker 4: them to go to sleep well.
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  Speaker 3: So let me go with a few of the obvious ones. First.
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  Speaker 4: I'm sure that most parents have thought about this, but
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  Speaker 4: it's worth highlighting them anyway. So the first thing we
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  Speaker 4: need to consider is what we call sleep hygiene. What's
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  Speaker 4: the room temperature? Is it too hot? Too cold? Is
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  Speaker 4: our child going to be comfortable? Is the bed nice?
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  Speaker 4: Is it dark enough?
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  Speaker 3: Are they scared of the dark?
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  Speaker 4: Do we need to have a tiny little lamp that's
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  Speaker 4: plugged in somewhere. We want to look at how much
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  Speaker 4: noise is happening. You know, they're big siblings that are
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  Speaker 4: running up and down the corridor or playing Fortnite in
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  Speaker 4: the lounge room and screaming at the screen.
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  Speaker 3: Is it conducive to sleep?
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  Speaker 4: If we've got all those things happening, then the next
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  Speaker 4: thing I'd say is how much screen time is your
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  Speaker 4: child getting? Because research tells us clearly increased screen time,
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  Speaker 4: especially close to bedtime is associated with less sleep and
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  Speaker 4: poorer quality sleep. The brain's so stimulated, so that leads
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  Speaker 4: us to the next thing. Is there a nice routine?
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  Speaker 4: Do we have a nice calming routine after dinner? Is
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  Speaker 4: at bath time and could time and singing and stories
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  Speaker 4: and all of those things that are calming and soothing
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  Speaker 4: on a personal level in our home. We've just started
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  Speaker 4: doing something kind of different and I feel a little
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  Speaker 4: funny mentioning it, but let's do it anyway. We've just
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  Speaker 4: had a friend who got us out of those essential
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  Speaker 4: oils the thing at the moment, and they gave us
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  Speaker 4: some oils and they said, try this on your kids.
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  Speaker 4: And so we've been just getting the oil thing happening,
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  Speaker 4: and our children have gone to sleep in about two
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  Speaker 4: or three minutes. With one of the kids, we put
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  Speaker 4: a little bit on their feet. With another one of
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  Speaker 4: the kids, we've just got a diffuser in the room.
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  Speaker 4: With another one, we just put it on their neck
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  Speaker 4: or behind their ears or whatever. These oils are sending
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  Speaker 4: our kids to sleep. It's beautiful and they it's like
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  Speaker 4: the smell just calms them.
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  Speaker 3: It's legal and it's legal.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, these are these are these things I mean,
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  Speaker 4: it's beautiful, and what type of.
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  Speaker 1: Oil it is? Shopping shopping online now.
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  Speaker 3: I would have to check with my wife to find out.
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  Speaker 4: I know one of them loves this wild orange and
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  Speaker 4: the other one loves lavender, so lavender oil and wild orange,
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  Speaker 4: different kids have different responses. But there's something about the smell.
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  Speaker 4: It's so soothing and it just calms them instantly, and
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  Speaker 4: so we found that to be an extraordinarily.
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  Speaker 3: Bathing just go to sleep forever. So I think that's it.
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  Speaker 4: And the one other tip that I'd give is, you
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  Speaker 4: know when you when you know you've got a headache,
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  Speaker 4: and you put your thumb on one eyebrow and your
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  Speaker 4: index finger on another one and you just kind of
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  Speaker 4: rub across your forehead. Doing that with your kids, it
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  Speaker 4: seems to actually calm them. You put your thumb on
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  Speaker 4: one eyebrow one of your other fingers and you just
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  Speaker 4: stretch your fingers out across their horrid of their eyebrows
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  Speaker 4: and it's really calming. And again, I'd never read a
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  Speaker 4: great scientific paper saying that oils or a forehead rub
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  Speaker 4: will do it for you, But these are the sorts
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  Speaker 4: of things that parents consistently say help.
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  Speaker 1: But justin you might get them off to sleep so
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  Speaker 1: beautifully well, and then you go to sleep and everything's
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  Speaker 1: appropriate and rosy until about one o'clock in the morning
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  Speaker 1: or midnight, or fifteen minutes after you go to bed,
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  Speaker 1: ver it might be, and children of all ages coming
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  Speaker 1: in because they want to sleep in the bed with mum,
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  Speaker 1: with mum and dad, with whatever parent is there. And
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  Speaker 1: for me that makes no difference. For sues, that means
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  Speaker 1: she doesn't sleep a wink for the rest of the night,
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  Speaker 1: whatever time that is.
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  Speaker 4: Have you noticed that little kids just chase you around
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  Speaker 4: the bed no matter how close to the edge you get,
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  Speaker 4: they just keep following it.
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  Speaker 1: I got an elbowed in the face on a king
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  Speaker 1: sized bed with a seven year old and I was
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  Speaker 1: on the edge.
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  Speaker 3: Get out of bed, dad, go sleep in my bed.
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  Speaker 4: It's one of those things where I mean, part of
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  Speaker 4: me just oh, I mean, they're kids, and they want
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  Speaker 4: to be close, and it's natural for them to want
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  Speaker 4: to sleep with us. And you know, tribally, you know, evolutionary,
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  Speaker 4: that's what they did. Families slept together, and so in
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  Speaker 4: some ways we're kind of we're kind of fighting against
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  Speaker 4: human nature by forcing them to sleep in their own bed,
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  Speaker 4: on their own in a room five ten twenty thirty.
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  Speaker 3: Meters away from ours. That's kind of hard for them.
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  Speaker 4: I think we need to be as compassionate as we can.
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  Speaker 4: Of course, it's hard to be compassionate at one am
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  Speaker 4: when you've just been elbowed in the face by a
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  Speaker 4: seven year old.
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  Speaker 3: You kind of want to elbow them.
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  Speaker 4: Back out of the bed. And so there's a couple
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  Speaker 4: of things that I'd suggest. The first is this, we've
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  Speaker 4: we've made a decision in our home that our children
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  Speaker 4: were not allowed to date, that they won't be allowed
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  Speaker 4: to date until they're sixteen and sleeping all night in
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  Speaker 4: their own bed.
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  Speaker 1: Ah. I'm just trying to picture twenty three year old
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  Speaker 1: still not going out on dates going because I'm just
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  Speaker 1: not willing to give up.
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  Speaker 3: Well so far.
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  Speaker 4: Can we explain that to them from the age of
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  Speaker 4: about two and they all kind of figure it out
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  Speaker 4: by the time they're five or six or seven, and
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  Speaker 4: we're like, well you worked that out eight or nine
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  Speaker 4: years early.
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  Speaker 3: You're doing really well.
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  Speaker 4: But on a more practical note, there's a handful of
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  Speaker 4: things that you can do. The first is that you
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  Speaker 4: can just get out of bed and go and get
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  Speaker 4: into theirs, and with a couple of my kids who
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  Speaker 4: were just awful in the nighttime, that's what I did
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  Speaker 4: for a number of months. And let's face it, you know,
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  Speaker 4: can I just be a little bit you know, adult
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  Speaker 4: for a second. If you want to have some enjoyable
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  Speaker 4: intimacy with one another, chances are that's done by one o'clock.
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  Speaker 4: And at one o'clock in the morning, all you want
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  Speaker 4: to do is sleep. You don't need to cuddle anymore.
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  Speaker 4: You just want to sleep, So get out of bed
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  Speaker 4: and go and get into theirs. If that's not suitable
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  Speaker 4: for you, you could consider putting a mattress on the
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  Speaker 4: floor in your room so that they can sleep in that,
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  Speaker 4: or so that you can or you could just pick
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  Speaker 4: them up and carry them back into their room and
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  Speaker 4: lay on the floor law next to them and pat
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  Speaker 4: them back off to sleep and get back into bed. Look,
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  Speaker 4: there is no easy answer. Life sometimes is complicated, Life
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  Speaker 4: sometimes is tiring. Life sometimes is messy, especially as a parent,
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  Speaker 4: And this is one of those things where they will grow.
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  Speaker 3: Out of it.
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  Speaker 4: The more fuss you make over it, the more anxious
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  Speaker 4: and insecure they'll feel, and the more you'll prolong it.
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  Speaker 4: The more accepting you are, the more compassionate you are,
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  Speaker 4: the more gentle and loving you are, the sooner they
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  Speaker 4: will figure it out, the safer they'll feel, and you'll
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  Speaker 4: sleep all night.
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  Speaker 1: How you feel. So because it doesn't impact me, because
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  Speaker 1: I sleep, I'm okay with that.
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  Speaker 2: I'm fine with that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so what does that change what we do?
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  Speaker 3: We do?
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  Speaker 1: We do anything different now?
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  Speaker 2: I don't think we need to do anything.
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  Speaker 4: I just need to take the cues because otherwise Susan
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  Speaker 4: is just going to start kicking you out of bed
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  Speaker 4: even if you here's the problem. Though, even if you
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  Speaker 4: do that, you'll still get chased around the bed. I've
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  Speaker 4: got a whole king size bed and they want to
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  Speaker 4: be right next to you on the edge.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Justin Kilson from Justinkilson dot com dot are you.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
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  Speaker 2: on all of doctor Justin Coulson's books, programs, and podcasts,
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  Speaker 2: go to Happy Families dot com dot au. Or if
• 8:22
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