Mary: When Your Kid's Worries Disrupt Bedtime

In today’s episode, Mary shares how her 4 year old son, Oliver seems to be struggling after the loss of his infant cousin. Oliver began to show signs of regression with bedtime during which he seems to experience high anxiety and fears. Sleep regression is normal and very understandable when dealing with something as big as death. Mary explains how Oliver is most open and communicative at bedtime. While it may seem intuitive to re-enforce this behavior so that Oliver continues to open up at bedtime, it's actually important to not keep reinforcing the behavior of doing this right before sleep.  Instead, keep the intention to connect to your child, but change the time and place for it.

CW:  Brief mention of Infant Loss and Death

For a full transcript of this episode and more information about the host visit https://lesliecohenrubury.com/podcasts/ . You can also follow Leslie’s work on Facebook and Instagram. Join the conversation with your own questions and parenting experiences on Is My Child A Monster? Parenting Community.

Time stamps:

7:35 Regression in your child’s sleep is normal when dealing with difficult times

11:40 Common for kids to open up most around bedtime. Parenting can feel counterintuitive to stop your child from expressing themselves at bedtime and switch that openness to a different time of the day.

16:40 The worry box or the worry tree

26:03 Bedtime techniques/mindfulness practices

Leslie-ism: Help your child to understand: feelings come and feelings go

Here are two books mentioned in this episode.

• Starbright:  Meditations for Children by Maureen Garth
• Jibberwillies at Night by RachelVail (Author) and Yumi Heo (Illustrator) 

Credits: Is My Child a Monster? is produced by Alletta Cooper, Dale Rubury, and LeslieCohen-Rubury. Theme music is by L-Ray Music.  Graphics and Website Design by Brien O’Reilly. Transcriptions by Eric Rubury. A special thanks to everyone who contributes their wisdom and support to make this possible.