How To Get Kids To Sleep In Their Own Beds: The Pillow Fairy
Around 25% of young children have sleep issues. These concerns aren’t simply bothersome for parents; they may also get linked to children’s attentional, behavioral, and emotional issues. In addition, toddlers go through many changes, from meeting new siblings and learning new abilities to giving up naps.
A lot of parents deal with the difficult and confusing issue of having their child sleeping alone in their bed. However, here are solutions you can to make the transition easier.
Build your child’s imagination
Every day, read to your youngster to encourage them to imagine characters and scenarios from the story. This is the best way to grow a child’s imagination. You can also describe the fairy in certain colors, body shapes, and hairstyles. You can also try to develop a voice that will interest your child.
Explain the rules to your child
This tactic aims to make the child sleep throughout the night and sleep in their bed. Therefore, the parent should develop rules that back up what they want the child to do. For example, you can tell the child, “If you go to sleep and wake up in your bed, the Pillow Fairy will visit you.” You can even tell them that the fairy doesn’t like children who don’t sleep in their beds.
The parent should also read the story to their child repeatedly to entertain them and help the story stick in the child’s head.
Include small gifts/notes/money
Like the tooth fairy, the pillow fairy rewards children for remaining in bed and falling asleep on their own in the morning. It’s not advisable to spend a fortune on the prize; a quarter will suffice. Even better, put your favorite items in a jar or box. The Pillow Fairy leaves modest gifts such as small plush animals or lovely pieces of stationary and notes (one in the book is a genuine note left by the fairy), and the child’s sleep problem gets remedied without the child even recognizing it. So the present doesn’t need to be pricey.
This will act as extrinsic motivation for your child, and they will try their best to keep up with the fairy to get more gifts. The child will now get into the habit of sleeping and waking up in their bed and independently.
Break it off nicely
Once the child is now used to sleeping in their bed, you can now slowly and carefully stop gifting them. A good way to do this is to tell them that another child now needs the fairy’s help and she has to leave. Then, to help them understand and accept, you can tell them that the fairy will come back once in a while to drop off a gift.
It would be such a relief for any parent if their child accepted to sleep in their bed and sleep through the night. Staying up every night to deal with a child who refuses to sleep alone is extremely exhausting. But with these tips you can easily make the transition.
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