Grizzly Bears and Getting Kids to Sleep (and Wake) at the Right Time

No-one likes being a grizzly bear to their child. It is embarrassing as a parent, and somewhat startling for the child. I would prefer not to admit to this, but truth be told, it has happened to me.

My daughter has this ability to find the button on me and cause me to turn into a grizzly bear. Sharp claws, and loud growls at every turn. It is quite embarrassing when I finally calm down, and often I have had to go back to her and apologise for my immature behaviour. That's not easy for a parent to share with their child, but if I want her to understand that we are all in the process of growing up, even us "oldies", then perhaps it will help her to have more grace for herself too.

We have two kids. Our younger boy loves to go to sleep at the right time every night. Although there are moments when he is excited or worried and his sleep doesn't come like usual, he is very routine and tends to sleep without too much help. We enjoy spending time with him before lights out and then he sleeps. It seems so amazing compared to the struggles we have had with our daughter who is older.

We generally establish a specific time for both kids to go to their room. Our girl loves being in her room so this is not a fight at all. However the lights-out part has become an area that we have decided to let go of completely. After all, I remember many a night as a child, huddled under my blanket, torch in hand, reading a book or my favourite magazine. So when she goes to sleep is up to her. We don't allow technology in the bedroom, so this also gives us peace.

Because we have given her more freedom in when she goes to sleep, it has often drifted to being very late. She then started to sleep in later and later. We would wake her but she would go back to bed. She would even come out and have breakfast and then fall back asleep in her room. As working parents, we had to constantly check on her to ensure she actually remained awake and started to do her schoolwork.

Realising that this was too much, we looked for a strategy to motivate her to get up. Her brother was always awake by 6am. So our first idea was to threatened to blast her with water. This was rough, but would probably be effective. However, I don't know about you, but for me this bordered on nastiness and we were not going to do anything like that to our daughter.

I remembered learning once that you know you have the right systems in place if the kids get angry because of them, and you don't. Well, I was getting angry that my girl was sleeping so much in the mornings. So my system wasn't working. That's when I came up with something that to this day still works very effectively.

My girl loves music, and goes around the house with an earpiece in one ear listening to music all day. So when I told her that she had to be awake and out in the living area by a certain time or she would lose all of her headphones for the entire day and not get them back until the next morning when she had risen as expected... it worked.

Every morning since she has risen and come out to the living area. Only once did she try to return to sleep, and while she was sleeping I removed all of her headphones. Then I woke her and explained what had happened and what she had lost. It never happened again.

These days she tends to sleep much earlier now. Over time she started to understand and change her habits. She sleeps at a reasonable hour and wakes before we ask her to. We still have that rule in place, but haven't needed to use it more than just the once. She knows the consequences, but these are not what drives her now. Her understanding of how sleep affects her, and her experiences of this help her to make better decisions... and has stopped me from turning into a grizzly bear.

Sign up for free access to the guide below — a simple framework to help you find the one thing that will actually motivate your child to sleep and wake well, without turning you into a grizzly bear in the process.