Is your child anxious around bedtimes? Do they need you to stay with them at bedtime until they’re asleep? Or perhaps your child wakes frequently in the night because they’re anxious about being alone?

If your child is anxious about bedtime, the evening can become long and protracted (“One more story, pleeeeeese”!) Once they’re in bed, your child is likely to need you to stay with them until they’re asleep. And even with you right there, they might find it difficult to drift off. You could be sat in their room for hours waiting for sleep to eventually take over.

As a parent in that situation, it can feel really frustrating. The longer you’re in their bedroom, the shorter your own evening becomes. There’s less time to relax at the end of a busy day. You and your partner might start to feel like passing ships in the night. Or if you’ve got an older child, it might mean that you can’t spend the time you’d like with them before their bedtime.

If bedtime anxiety is an issue for your toddler, then ‘Cry-It-Out’ or ‘Rapid Return’ sleep training is unlikely to work. It certainly won’t solve any underlying issues, and it could in fact make things worse by adding additional stress to an already difficult situation.

The good news is that there are lots of ways you can help your child start to feel more confident at bedtime and help them on their journey to sleeping independently.

In this blog, I’ll explore strategies that you can use to support your child's journey towards independent sleep while ensuring they feel secure and loved.

Understanding Your Child's Bedtime Anxiety

First and foremost, let's delve into why your child might be feeling anxious at bedtime.

For lots of children, especially under the age of 5 years, sleep is a form of separation. When they fall sleep, you might not be with them in their dreams (a bit philosophical, I know, but it’s true!) And for the first 5 years of life, they may not have the full confidence that they’re going to see you again when they wake up. That’s big huh?!

When you look at things through this lens, then it can make a lot of sense as to why your child might be doing anything they can to avoid going to sleep.

So how can you help them overcome separation anxiety at bedtime? Let’s get into the nitty gritty of the practical steps you can take to help your child feel more confident at bedtime.

Build happy memories in the bedroom

How much happy awake time does your child have in their bedroom? Do they play there with you during the day? Do they have a bedtime story before bed? If not, then this will be a good place to start.

Try these ideas:

Every day take a favourite activity up to their room and spend 15-20 minutes on the floor with your child, playing with them.
Having time feeling connected with you in the bedroom will build safe and secure associations with the room.

Have a disco in the bedroom!
This is another way to build happy memories in the space! As an extra, you could dim the lights and perhaps use a disco light. Having positive experiences in the bedroom with the lights lower won’t hurt, and in time, might help your child feel more confident when they’re in the dark there at night.

Play hide and seek in the bedroom

Hide and seek provides the opportunity to practise a moment of being alone in a fun and non-threatening way. With practise under their belt during the day, you may find your child is more able to feel confident when they’re alone in their room at night time.

With your toddler, this could be a simple game of peek a boo in their bedroom (or even while they’re in their cot if they’re happy there!). Start with ducking down at the end of the cot before popping up like a jack in the box. From here, you can build up to hiding behind the bedroom door for a second before jumping out!

With your older child, you could play hide and seek, with the bed being the base that the “seeker” counts from. When it’s your child’s turn to count, see if they can count to 10 while you leave the room and hide somewhere close by. When this feels okay, make it 20!

Toddler playing in bedroom to overcome bedtime anxiety

2.Build a bridge between bedtime and morning

Remember what we were saying before about how your child might not have the absolute confidence that they’ll see you again in the morning? Or that perhaps the thought of waiting until morning time might feel like FOREVER for your child?

One really easy way to help with this is to reassure your child that you’ll check on them during the night, and that you’ll see them in the morning. I know it sounds simple, but it’s one of those things that can make a real difference!

So, when you say goodnight, you could say something like:

“Have a lovely sleep! I’ll come and check on you later. In the morning, we’ll have a big cuddle on the sofa and then we’ll have weetabix for breakfast”.

See what we’re doing here?

“Have a lovely sleep” - You’re sending the message that sleep is indeed lovely, and nothing to be worried about.

“I’ll come and check on you later” - You’re reassuring your child that you will indeed check on them while they’re sleeping. Also, by phrasing it this way, the ball is in your court. If you do need to go back in because your child has called for you, you can casually stroll in as if you were always going to come and check on them before they fell asleep.

“In the morning, we’ll have a big cuddle on the sofa and then we’ll have weetabix for breakfast”. With this, you’re providing your child with the reassurance that you will be reunited in the morning! And by talking about what you’ll do when you’re back together, they’ll be able to picture this and hold the happy thought!

Another way you can help reassure your child that you do go and check on them is to use fabric hearts - pre-schoolers and older children love this one!

Grab some soft felt and cut out a batch of fabric hearts. When you say goodnight at bedtime, you can give one of the hearts a kiss and pop it on your child’s pillow next to them. Tell them that when you come to check on them in the night, you’ll pop another fabric heart on their pillow.

Of course, you don’t need to keep checking on your child - you can make a bulk delivery of a few hearts when you go to bed! But the idea here is that when your child wakes up, whether that’s in the middle of the night or in the morning, they’ll find the hearts on their pillow, and this will be a visual affirmation that you did come and check on them during the night.

3. Try popping out of the bedroom just once at bedtime

This is mostly suited to older children, perhaps over 2 years old. When you’ve read a story, before you start settling them, ask them to wait just a second while you pop out of the bedroom to blow your nose/get your pjs on/do a wee etc.

Literally, pop out just once for a few seconds if that’s all your child can cope with. When you go back in, stroll in as calmly and confidendently as you can (even if they’ve called out for you), then you settle your child in the way that they’re used to.

The idea here is that you start to build your child’s confidence and trust that you do return when you leave the room. To start with, they might have a sense of panic when you leave. However, every time you return, they’ll learn that you do come back, and that sense of panic they’re currently feeling when you walk out the room will hopefully start to subside.

In time, you might find you’re able to build up the length of time you leave the room for. Perhaps you could use reasons such as grabbing a glass of water or brushing your teeth. Then eventually, perhaps you can say that you need to do something that takes a bit longer. I always recommend that you make it something that you know your child will want you to do - for my children, this would be making pancake mixture for breakfast! This will give them a bigger incentive to let you go!

If you do this longer pop out, reassure your child you’ll check on them when you’ve finished. Again, by saying this, the ball is in your court. If they stay settled, you can leave them to see if they do manage to fall asleep without you. Or if they call out, you can stroll back in casually, declaring you’ve finished making the pancake mixture and thank them for waiting. From here, you can do what they need to help them fall asleep. There’s no pressure on your child to fall asleep without you. You’re just building them up, helping to build their confidence that you do return, and you’ll always check on them in the night.

Helping your child settle to sleep more independently without feeling anxious requires patience, understanding, and consistency, but there is lots you can do to support them. These are just a few of the ways that can help, but there are many more. There’s unlikely to be a single golden bullet, but when done in combination, you’ll find they do make a difference.

Remember: Every step forward counts no matter how small - so keep going! You got this!