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Night Time Wanderings
Getting Your Toddler Back to His Own Bed By Margaret Risk
As soon as 2-year-old Kendra moved out of her crib, she began wandering into her parents' room at night. Brenda Clark, her mom, would put Kendra back in bed, get her a drink, and reassure her that there was nothing to be afraid of. Often Brenda went through this routine several times a night.
"Kendra had a rail on her bed, and we used a night light with her as she didn't like the dark," Brenda explains. "I even tried painting her room the same lavender blue as ours so she would feel more secure." But nothing worked. One year later Kendra is still making her way into her parents' bed at night. Now the problem has become complicated because 2-year-old Josh, who moved out of his crib a month ago, has become a nighttime wanderer as well.
"Typically, if a toddler has been sleeping through the night until this point and has just started coming to his or her parents' bed, it is because of two possible reasons," says Dr. Susan Bartell, a child and family psychologist with a private practice in New York. First, he may start to have nightmares. As toddlers develop independence, their life experience expands and so do their fears, frequently causing nightmares.
"If their nightmares wake them up, they will, of course, run for Mom and Dad's bed for comfort," says Dr. Bartell. "Parents will probably find that this will happen around the same time every night because the sleep/dream cycle will be the same, providing the child's bedtime is the same every night."
The second reason also has to do with a toddler's growing independence. Dr. Bartell explains that as the toddler begins to explore and move farther from her parents, she may feel ambivalent about this and her struggle may result in conflicted needs for comfort and dependence, which expresses itself in nighttime wanderings.
Clark says that that she would like her children to learn how to sleep alone -- that she believes that it is beneficial for their own sense of identity and self esteem. But she also wants them to feel loved and secure.
