Supporting Your Small To Sleep With Someone Else
I want to start by giving you some reassurance. It’s totally natural for your Small to have a parent or person preference when it comes to settling to sleep AKA bedtime boundaries.
And how to settle your child to sleep with someone else is a very common question I get asked!
It can feel really frustrating. In fact all of the feelings! And parenting is so personal it’s hard not to take it personally.
But it’s all down to familiarity and what your Small is expecting to happen at bedtime. Change is strange and any deviation from what usually happens (going off peep piste!) can cause resistance and/or a Small who refuses to sleep.
Here’s 4 of my sleep suggestions to help your child settle to sleep with someone else:
Practice and patience
Yep two things we don’t always have a lot of time for! But they’re so important. When we’re learning a new way of doing something it takes time and repetition for it to feel familiar. A new sleep skill for your Small is no exception!
Build up to bedtime
Getting the other parent or person involved in the bedtime routine can help build up that familiarity. You could start super slowly with bath for a couple of days then bath and pjs etc. If you breastfeed to sleep you may need to start by feeding to sleep and then handing your Small over. Then slowly over time you can try gradually bringing the feed earlier up the bedtime routine before handover.
Person Preference
If you feel comfortable doing so, you and your Small may find it easier if you make yourself scarce at bedtime. It’s natural to want to hang outside the bedroom door or around but this can make it harder for them to settle with you both there. Sounds super scary but a lot of families have actually found it much smoother this way.
Bed Buddy
If your Small is sleeping at childcare or with a Nanny having a familiar object from home can help them to settle.