bed time

Hi, I have found that what makes bedtime go smoothly for all of my children is a set bedtime routine that we follow every night. We do a warm bath, then a short board game (candlyland, etc.), then a bedtime story where we all sit on the bed together and read a book and finally we have "holding" time, which is when my husband and I turn off the lights and hold the children and walk around their room with their heads on our shoulders for a few minutes before tucking them in (They love that! Even my 8 year old- but he is getting heavy!! LOL). Of course this will not necessarily work the first time you try it, but by establishing a predictable and consistent bedtime routine, after a week or so, you will find the children more relaxed at bedtime and even looking forward to their evening ritual. Best wishes, Kelly

My six year old had trouble sleeping and would manufacture fits. He found the silence of night to be scary as it allowed memmories to creep in that the daytime play covered up. He sleeps better with a radio on. (we did help him deal with his past trauma, but not alone at bedtime).

hi, we have had the same probem putting our 5 yr old in bedtime, he sleeps right through the night, its just getting him to bed. i agree with the last post......routine, routine, routine ours is....eat dinner, take bath, get PJ's on, then in the living room we read a bedtime story...then he goes hide in his room, then we look for him (he loves to hide and be found) he always hides in the same spot...lol. then we read another story......lights off with a flashlight (like were camping) his request, not ours, then we tuck him in and sit with him on a chair and sing him lullabys (believe it or not, he likes when i sing, probably my one and only fan out there....lol) while he falls asleep. this could take 2 minutes to 45 minutes....sounds exahusting, but for some reason, this is what is working without the tantruming.....so we will do it. he wont let us leave till he falls asleep..... anyway, establish a rountine and stick with it everynight...... good luck, i know how tough it can be. dadfor2

I have heard others talk of having their child sleep in their room for a while, and that is helpful. Some people have put the child in their bed, others put them on a mattress on the floor next to their bed. Some have the kids stay in their room all night, others move them to their own rooms later in the evening. Can't speak from personal experience though, we have the opposite concern. My son was so well trained in a Russian orphanage that once he is put to bed, there he stays. It's been almost 7 years, and he still rarely calls out for help if he needs it at night. He just lays in bed and quiety rocks himself back to sleep. He has awaken at night with horrible asthmatic coughing and still will not call out. He just waits for me to come to him. For a long time we had intercoms between our bedroom, the family room and my sons room. I had hoped that even if he was too scared to talk that he would at least push the buzzer. We played with these a lot and would have pretend sleep sessions where we used them, but never once did my son use the intercom during the night. This might help though for some kids. Another idea is to provide increased security measures to help your child feel safe at night. Many parents of children with rad, have to put door alarms on their kids rooms at night. A nice side benefit of this, is that many traumatized kids actually sleep better with the alarms on their door because they feel it will keep intruders out. My son is into the dective toys now. He recently bought himself this bioscan door system. It's really a bogus alarm. He programs it for a certain hand touch (only touches a few of the finger pads). Then the alarm will go off if someone enters the room without pressing the right finger pads. He likes to set it up when he is at school during the day. Then it's a big game to see how many intruders the alarm will tell him entered his room during the day (in our totally quiet and empty house!!!). Its just a toy and for my son, it's just for fun - but I do think it could provide a security measure for kids who have been traumatized at night. He got this at Walmart for about $10, in the toy section. I like this idea versus a formal door alarm (unless necesary for rad concerns), because it is a toy and will appear normal to friends and family. DimasMom

Hi everyone. Thanks for the wonderful advice. Thought I'd give you an update. We now have a routine which the girls have figured out and even recite in a chant as we finish dinner. Most of the time they do it without hesitating; any arguments we have over it now aren't any different than those of other kids! We also added another small lamp and a radio that both stay on all night; the girls really responded well to those. Finally, we also did something that seems to have helped as much or more than anything else, an idea we got from an older child adoption site run by Susan Ward, I think her name is. Anyway, it was simply to rearrange the room. The girls share a bedroom, but we'd had the beds sort of in opposite corners, thinking that they might want their "own" space within the shared space. Well, we moved them around so they are side-by-side, only about a foot apart, which is more or less how they slept in the orphanage. When they saw us moving stuff they got really excited, and when we showed them what we were thinking, we asked them if that was okay and they responded with an enthusiastic yes. Since then, our only bad nights have been after days of too much disruption- either we were out of the house more than usual, dinner was very late, stuff like that. Now that bedtime is no longer such a trauma for all of is, we are all feeling better! Thanks again to all of you!