Question
I have two questions today.
1. I would love some sleeping advice. My oldest child 5.5yo and my youngest 2.5yo share a room at night. They each have their own bed. They fall asleep fairly normally… book, tucked in, rub back, fall asleep, I sneak out.
Somewhere around 11:45pm-2am my youngest will call me in to put the blanket on her, or my oldest will come and get me to rub her back or snuggle. After this initial wake up, this continues a few times a night after this and eventually I get so tired I stay in one of their beds. Then one will notice I am in the other's bed and then I ping pong back and forth until morning. This is totally unsustainable for me. My husband did it last night and I got to sleep until 4am. My youngest needed her blanket at that point and then followed me back to my bed. My oldest realized her sister was gone and came into my room in a panic that her sister had an opportunity to snuggle with me and she didn’t and was afraid there were not enough minutes left in the night to make it fair for her… I assured her there were and she came in, snuggled and went back to sleep. My youngest woke up at 6am needing an orange…
Getting 7 hours of sleep last night I realized how much I need this to come to an end. Please help!
There are a few issues, jealousy, need for snuggles, the oldest says she’s afraid, and I understand and I am so tired I just do whatever is needed for a bit of sleep.
2. Our au pair is leaving early - she leaves December 6th. When do we tell the kids? I’d ideally like them to talk to new Nannies so they like them/know them when they arrive. What do you think about all of this?
Answer
1) Unfortunately the lack of consistency in response when they wake up is the culprit of the lack of sleep for all. "doing whatever is needed for a bit of sleep" is sometimes the desperate sleep deprived solution but it is creating the problem.
Children wake up because of the sleep cycle of heavy and light sleep. All humans have moments of heavy and light sleep. It is the natural bio-rhythm of sleep. In the light time older children and adults just turn and tussle and get back to sleep. Young children ask for their secure base and caregiver to co-regulate with them to fall back asleep. This is why it's happening. The key is how to handle it when they wake up.
a) Sit with your partner and come up with a schedule of who will help the children when they wake up at night. Also decide if you will sleep in their room or not...I don't have an opinion about this..it's up to you. But from what you are writing your goal is for them to fall asleep and stay asleep in their own room. If that is the case then don't sleep with them in the room. Which means sleep deprivation for the parent that is taking the shift for those nights.
b) Create a response ritual. Try never to speak or use your voice when you go in to help them sleep. Just place them back into the bed. Sit next to them or do the same rub you do at bedtime and wait for them to sleep. Head back to your room.
c) Let the girls know there will be no more sleeping with parents or sleeping in parent’s bed moving forward. You will come to them and help them get back to sleep but that is all. You can give them the option to go into their siblings bed and sleep together...sometimes that works too.
The key is to be consistent. Whatever you choose you have to stick to no matter what...
2) About the new nanny, for children in your age group less is more when it comes to anticipating a change. Bring your search down to two nannies that you feel comfortable with and then introduce them one week before your current nanny is planning to leave. This way you can see the prospective nanny with the girls but you are not putting your girls into uncertainty of finding a new caregiver.
Make them a picture book of all the people who have taken care of them (family, teachers, nannies, mom, dad) since they were born. Each picture will have this information:
a) What they did with them when they were happy.
b) What was happening with them when they missed you, their parents.
c) Why they took care of them.
You will read this book to them at least 4 of the 7 days in the weeks from telling them the current nanny is leaving up to three weeks after the new nanny begins
The point of this book is to help them learn that more than one person can take care of them and to visually see how many there can be. Also to know that you feel all sorts of feelings with everyone that takes care of you. That way they don't think the new nanny is "bad" if they feel a difficult emotion with them.