How to stop co-sleeping with a preschooler without making bedtime a battle
A single mother of a nearly four-year-old has been lying next to her every night for three years. She wants her evenings back without making sleep frightening. Here is the order to do it in.
Short answer: how do you stop co-sleeping with a preschooler?
- Not by starting with sleep training. Fix the bedtime first: the goal is that she falls asleep within 10 to 15 minutes of lights out, not 45.
- A long wait in bed makes everything worse. It feeds nighttime fears, boredom and bedtime resistance, because she has three quarters of an hour to lie there and worry.
- Then the routine and the room, designed together with her — at four she can talk about it, and being part of the plan is half the work.
- Only then sleep training, and gradually: a version of the chair method, where you sit instead of lying down, and move further away every few days.
- Be sure you want it. At this age sleep training is limit-setting, and a child hears hesitation. Wanting your evenings back is a good enough reason.
Would you like to listen to a podcast episode about this? Can I have my evenings back?
“My nearly 4-year-old takes 45 minutes to fall asleep and I have to lie there”
Hello lovely parents. Any advice on how to gently transform the bedtime routine of a nearly 4-year-old high-needs sleeper in a way that she learns to fall asleep more independently? I know that it's quite a sensitive topic, but I'm at a loss right now. I feel so exhausted. I'm a single mom starting my new job next week, which means that we have to get up really early in the morning, and especially that I need time to work in the evening. Right now, our sleep situation looks like this: we kind of bed-share co-sleep. In her room, we have 2 mattresses on the floor so that we both have enough space to sleep. So I go to bed with her every night, reading books, laying down with her, sometimes telling a story, or just be there. Most of the time she doesn't ask for something you can actively do to help her fall asleep. I'm just laying next to her, waiting for her to fall asleep. I have my own bed in my bedroom as well, where I mostly fall asleep until she wakes up in the middle of the night and cries or calls me. Then I'm switching beds, staying with her the rest of the night, because I don't want to change rooms like 3 or 4 times a night. The problem is that she, of course, can't regulate herself down. She's kind of over the top, singing, talking, moving like 100 times, and at the moment it takes her about 45 minutes to fall asleep. When she was younger, there were times where it took us 1.5 hours. It triggers me so much that she's in that party state, and even more that she falls asleep so late in the evening, especially when I think of next week, that I honestly just lose it most of the time. And that, for sure, causes even more troubles. We end up with tears nearly every night, and this is pretty tough for me because bedtime for both of us means nothing but stress, tension, and often open conflicts between the two of us. It makes me sad that for her, sleep is so negative and frightful. It's boring. It takes too long, Mommy. I don't want to sleep. I can't sleep. I hate sleeping. And so on. Because I want her to experience sleep as something peacefully, peaceful, relaxing, lovely, cozy, cuddly. When we started that whole sleep arrangement, she was only 1 year old, and for me it was the only way that I could get some sleep. But now she's nearly 4, and I'm doing this for quite some years now. And right now I really, really feel that something has to change. I just can't do this anymore. I really feel that I need more space for myself when it comes to the evenings. It's not mostly about the nights. It's quite hard for me because on the one hand I see that she definitely needs Mommy to be with her, especially right now, because at the moment she's afraid of everything. That stage where almost everything is creepy and scary. No way that she could accept audiobooks or music to fall asleep. Every time I try to talk to her about sleeping, sleeping alone, she totally freaks out. For me, it is so important to meet her needs, but on the other hand I'm just so exhausted. I have needs as well, and it's so hard for me to find a balance between the two of us. I have tried quite some things, but right now I have no idea how to go or even think about this topic without feeling all of that pressure and tension. I want and need her to sleep in time, not only for myself but also for the sake of her own well-being. But I also want to meet her needs and her to experience sleep as something positive. I know that I can't just sleep-train her and that's it. And I believe that it's mostly about removing tensions and creating a peaceful, loving, caring, cozy atmosphere for both of us. I just don't know how and where to start. Any advice is welcome. Thank you so much for reading this.
You have been doing this for three years, so give it more than a week
Okay, so, dear Mama, I know it's tough, and you've been doing really, really good. I mean, you've been there for your daughter for 3 years, sleeping next to her and waiting for her to fall asleep. It's time to think of yourself, especially if you start a new job, and I can absolutely understand that you want your nights back, and your evenings back especially. But keep in mind that you have been doing this for 3 years, so it's a long-term habit, and it might not change in a week until you start your new job.
So just try to let it go and relax, and accept the fact that it might take longer to fix your evenings and your nights.
What is different when the child is four and not one?
So, I have to say that my book is only for kids until 2 years of age, and your daughter is 4. The reason I set that age range, from 4 months to 2 years, is that I wanted to write a separate book for older kids. Although the main steps you have to go through are the same, exactly the same, but there are some differences. For example, schedule.
I always start with schedule. So if you fix your schedule, some of the sleep problems will just disappear. But the schedule is much easier for older kids since you don't have to juggle with all the naps. You wrote that your daughter does not nap any more, so it will probably be quite easy to fix any scheduling problems, if there are any.
Also, another major difference is that after your child learns to speak, to talk, it's really important to discuss all the changes with her. So it's another aspect that you have to take into consideration. So it's different than with smaller kids. And also, your main problem, nighttime fears, that also appears after 2 years of age.
So usually around 3 years of age, and at 4 years of age it's still completely developmentally normal. So don't worry about this. Your child will outgrow this, but in the meantime you will have to help her.
Start by measuring sleep onset latency
Okay, so here are my suggestions. In the first week of my sleep program, I always advise parents to log their baby's sleep. But it might not be necessary in your case. So if I were you, I would just skip week 1 of this because there are no naps, and the schedule is basically just bedtime and wake-up time.
So you might already know what time you usually start the bedtime routine, and what time usually you switch off the lights, and what time your child usually actually falls asleep. So what you want to decrease, from what I've read, is sleep onset latency. Sleep onset latency is the time between lights out and the time when your child actually falls asleep. You said that it's around 45 minutes now for your child.
That's quite long. You want sleep onset latency to be maximum 15 minutes. 10 minutes is better. The problem is that if it takes a lot of time for your child to fall asleep, it invokes other problems. So it actually increases nighttime fears because, of course, she has a lot of time to think about these scary things.
And it usually also increases other behaviours, like resisting bedtime. Children don't like to lie in bed and just wait to fall asleep. That's boring for them, and it might be scary for them. So you really want to decrease this time, and I will tell you how to do that.
So your primary goal should be to decrease sleep onset latency, right? If your child falls asleep in 10 minutes, I guess you wouldn't mind staying in the room with her, right? But since it takes so long, it's very frustrating for you. So that will be your primary goal.
Your other goal can be, if you want, that your child falls asleep independently. This might be important too if you want to fix the nighttime awakenings. So most children will want the same environment when they wake up in the middle of the night as it was when they fell asleep. So if you are part of that, if the child fell asleep with you, then of course she will wake up when she wakes up, which is absolutely normal to wake up in the middle of the night.
We do that too. Adults do that too. But if something is different at that moment, they get afraid. And of course they will want you to come back.
So that's why you have to spend the night there. So if you don't want to do that anymore, then you would like to also set a goal to teach your child to fall asleep independently. But then that can be a secondary goal. And it would probably, most likely, fix the nighttime awakenings too.
Does your 4-year-old get enough sleep?
Okay, so let's go back to your schedule. The first thing to figure out is whether your child sleeps enough. At 4 years of age, for preschoolers from 3 to 5 years of age, the recommended amount of daily sleep is 10 to 13 hours. So 10 to 13 hours.
I don't know how much your child sleeps, but if it's within this range, then it means that you are probably okay. A little less sleep, like 8 to 10 hours, might be appropriate for certain children. And also a little more sleep, like 13 to 14 hours, may be appropriate. It means that for most children it is not appropriate, but there are exceptions.
Children with less sleep needs or more sleep needs than the average. Okay, so this is the first thing to note, whether your child sleeps enough. Or in bed too much, because that can be too when the expectation of parents is that their children sleep more than what is developmentally appropriate, is that they put their children to bed too early, and then they spend too much time in bed, and that can cause problems too. But if your child doesn't sleep enough, that can cause problems too, because then they will be overtired.
So another thing that I would ask you, if you were here, is do you have to wake up your child most of the days when she goes to school and you go to work? Do you have to wake her up? If you have to wake her up more than 3 times from Monday to Friday, that means that she probably doesn't get enough sleep. So it's okay to have to wake your child up 1 or 2 times, because of course no one sleeps exactly the same amount every day.
So it's okay if on some days your child would want to sleep a little bit longer, and then you, of course, have to wake her up because you have to get to work and she has to get to school. But with an optimal schedule, with an optimal bedtime, your child would wake up on her own most days. The second question I would ask you, whether your child sleeps in on the weekends. So whether your child sleeps longer in the morning on the weekends.
If she does, that is also a sign that she doesn't get enough sleep. Okay, so based on your answers to these questions, you would know whether your child sleeps enough or not enough, or maybe too much, or stays in bed too much at least. Since your wake-up time is fixed, because it depends on school and your work, the only thing that you can change is the bedtime. And with this I mean the time when your daughter actually falls asleep.
Okay, so if you think that you have to shift bedtime earlier, then of course it can cause difficulties because you said that you feel like you don't have enough time with your daughter in the evenings. And you mentioned that by the time you prepare dinner and you finish dinner, there's not much time left for playing with your kid, or reading books, or doing anything else fun. So my suggestion here is that you just make the necessary parts shorter, like dinner. Either you can prepare food in advance, or if you don't have time to do that, just do something really, really simple for dinner.
If we get home late from the playground, or if we meet friends and we get home late, and I have to put the kids to bed in like 30 minutes after arriving home, I always make semolina pudding for them. They love it. Semolina pudding is just really semolina cooked in milk, and it takes 5 minutes to cook. And even more importantly, it is really quick to eat.
So the kids can eat it in like 2 minutes, the whole plate. Because if I make them like toast, which also takes a very little amount of time to prepare, but toast takes a lot of time to eat, and they would eat it for like 10 or 15 minutes, and that's not the time we have for dinner on those days. So I love semolina pudding, or you can experiment with oatmeal or anything that is quick to eat. Okay, if you think that you should shift bedtime later, then of course it will be very easy because you will just have more time to play.
Okay, so I hope this helped you figure out whether you have to change anything about your daughter's schedule. Namely, and in this case it only means bedtime.
Build a bedtime routine she helps design
Okay, the second thing you should figure out is the bedtime routine. And this should be something really fun to do. You can talk it out with your daughter. You can make plans.
And you can ask your daughter to help you to figure it out. Okay, so what are the things that she likes to do? You said that she likes to listen to audiobooks before bed. That can be a really fun part of the bedtime.
What else does she like to do? Maybe if you make a chart that depicts all the activities in the bedtime routine, with little drawings and symbols, maybe that would help your child to keep that and also to expect and to wait for the next activities. And if you feel like you have to shift your bedtime earlier and then there's no time for the audiobook, then you can put it somewhere else. Like you say, "Oh, honey, we don't have time for the audiobook in the bedtime routine every day, because that takes too long, and then you would get to bed too late." But what if we have a special audiobook activity during the weekends?
Like every Saturday morning she can listen to audiobooks, and then it can be more than one book. Or you can buy her new books to make this more exciting.
The sleep environment for a child who is afraid of everything
Okay, so after figuring out the bedtime routine, I would see if there are any things in the environment that could make it more soothing for her. You have already had a lot of suggestions for this. So I'm not going to go into detail with this, but you can think of night lights, a canopy for the bed, or maybe new sheets for the bed with your daughter's favorite characters, or pictures on the wall that, I don't know, maybe a superhero that scares the monsters away if she's afraid of monsters. Some kids also like white noise, but you mentioned that your daughter doesn't like any kind of noise in her room after lights off.
Also, you can discuss with your daughter whether she likes her door open or closed, and etc. Okay, if that is all figured out, I would take, I don't know, half an hour to discuss with your daughter, and then you would implement it the next day. And then leave it at least 3 days to see how it works, together with your schedule. If you change the schedule at all, I would wait 3 to 5 days with the new schedule and the new bedtime routine and the new environment to see if anything changes.
Because sometimes only these things would change everything. Okay, especially the new bedtime.
Is she overtired, or not tired enough?
So I haven't mentioned, but some kids become hyper if they are overtired. That means that if you push bedtime later than what is ideal for them, then it will actually take them much longer to fall asleep. For example, you put your daughter to bed at 9 o'clock, 9 p.m., then it would take her an hour to fall asleep, and she wouldn't fall asleep until 10 p.m. But if you put her to bed at 8 p.m., it would only take her 10 minutes to fall asleep.
That can happen. But that said, not every child is the same. Every child is different. So of course there are other children for whom the opposite is true.
So if they are tired, they actually fall asleep easier. Okay, so you have to figure out which is your daughter. Does she fall asleep easier when she's more tired, or does she become hyper when she's more tired? Sometimes an earlier bedtime helps, and sometimes a later bedtime helps.
If your child is the kind who falls asleep easier when she's more tired, then I would push bedtime later, even to a time when it's really uncomfortable for you, and just temporarily. And I will tell you why. So if your child is the kind who falls asleep easier when she's more tired, I would push bedtime to, I don't know, I'm assuming it's now maybe 8 o'clock, and you say that it takes 45 minutes for your child to fall asleep, then I would push bedtime to 9:30 maybe. And at that time your child will be very, very tired.
So probably it will take her a very little time to fall asleep. And that not only has the effect that bedtime struggles become easier because she won't resist bedtime, but also it becomes a habit not to resist bedtime. And that's the main thing. So if she gets used to the fact that she falls asleep easier, then you can shift bedtime earlier and earlier every day until you reach the desired bedtime that you think is appropriate for your child.
And then your daughter won't even notice the difference, and then she will fall asleep easier. Because she already got used to the routine that she falls asleep easier. It will just become her new thing: I am the girl who falls asleep in 5 minutes. So you push it back to around 8:45 or 8:30 or whatever your desired bedtime is, or rather, the desired falling-asleep time.
And I haven't mentioned that during these 3 to 5 days that you take for getting used to the new schedule, the new bedtime routine, the new environment, during this time I would not change the sleeping arrangement. So you would still be there with your child sleeping next to her, right?
Sleep training comes last, not first
After seeing how it worked, and if you still don't like it, you can go to sleep training. That's always the last step. And it's the last step because if you try to do sleep training first without figuring out the rest, it won't work. And the reason is, for example, if your child has to be in bed for too long because your bedtime is too early for her, whatever you do, your child won't fall asleep.
Whatever sleep training method you use, your child won't fall asleep earlier because it's just not her time to fall asleep. It's not her sleep window. And vice versa, if your bedtime is too late and maybe your child becomes hyper, then whatever sleep training method you use, it will just be very, very difficult for your child to fall asleep at that point during the day. Okay, so after fixing all of this, I would choose a sleep training method.
And for you, I would definitely choose something "gentle." I really don't like the word gentle because it supposes that what seems gentle for us is gentle for the kids. And that's not always the case because some kids will take the Ferber method more easily than any kind of so-called gentle methods. And vice versa, for some kids, of course, the gentle methods are easier and they get used to them much more easily than the cry it out or the Ferber method. So I would rather say a gradual approach than gentle approach.
So for you, I would choose a gradual approach because from what you've wrote, I see that you're really compassionate with your child. I don't know how your child would take it, but I think you would take it very hard if you had to make an abrupt change to your routine. And this is very important that you should know what you want. And you should really know that you deserve it.
Okay, so whatever you decide to do, be consistent. And also you have to be sure about your goals. If you are not sure, if you feel guilty about it, if you feel guilty that you need this time in the evenings, if you feel guilty that you won't give your child what she wants, then it just won't work. Your child will feel it and you will be hesitant and it just won't work.
Because at this age, sleep training is basically limit setting and habit forming. So you have to form new habits, but since she already walks and talks and can reason, she can come up with excuses, so you really have to set the limits.
The chair method, step by step
Okay, so gradual approaches or gentle sleep training methods. I would choose, if I were you, some variation of the chair method. The chair method is basically fading. So you give less and less help for your child to fall asleep.
You say that usually you are just there and you don't really do much to help her fall asleep. So the beginning shouldn't be difficult. You said that you just usually lie there next to her. I would just take the mattresses out, out of sight.
You have to explain to your child that you would like her to fall asleep alone eventually, and you will help her learn that. And for this, you don't need the mattress anymore because you won't sleep there. So of course it will be difficult first, but since you don't really give much help to your child to fall asleep, like you don't rock her or you don't pat her or anything, then physically it won't be that difficult for her to fall asleep because the difference won't be that much. I'm not sure whether your child still wants to sleep on the other mattress or if she wants another bed or whatever.
But I would do, I would just sit next to her. So on the first day, the only difference would be that you don't have a mattress and that you are not lying down, but just sitting. You can sit on a chair or on the floor or whatever. And then every day you would sit farther and farther away.
If your new job already started and you have to work, I'm not sure what you have to work, but if you need to read something, for example, you can explain this to your daughter that you will sit there and read this thing. You can explain it to her that it still takes too much time for her to fall asleep and you need this time to read. So you can be in the room if she lets you read. Okay, so I would do that if it's necessary.
Otherwise, I would just sit there and wait. And I know this is very, it can be very frustrating. So maybe you can listen to something. You can pop your earbuds in and listen to something soothing, for example, a book or relaxation or anything, affirmations that help you to do this.
Okay, then every day you would sit farther and farther away. Then you can go out with little excuses like, "I have to go to shower," "I have to go have dinner," or "I'm thirsty, I will get a cup of tea," or something like that. And see how your daughter reacts. Alternatively, you can just put your chair out of the room.
Like even within sight, but out of the room. I'm not sure whether your daughter wants to close the door or leave the door open, but if you leave the door open, it's still almost like you are in the room. And then you go farther and farther away until your daughter doesn't see you anymore. Okay, so hopefully by the time you are out of the room, your daughter has learned to fall asleep independently.
And I also hope that it will take her less time to fall asleep. Okay, and once this is done, probably, most probably, your daughter won't wake up at night anymore. If she still does, you can decide whether you want to do nighttime sleep training. Okay, so getting out of the room with your chair will probably take you a few days.
Or maybe a week. Or maybe two weeks. You will see. In the meantime, your daughter might still wake up in the middle of the night.
Now you have to decide whether your goal is for your daughter to sleep independently the whole night, or is it just the evenings? If you don't mind sleeping with your daughter during the night, then of course you don't have to remove the mattress. You just have to explain to your daughter that you won't be there for her to fall asleep. But if she wakes up in the middle of the night and scared, you will just put down the mattress and sleep there.
If you want your daughter to sleep through the night without you, then I would start removing the mattress altogether so that you don't have anywhere to sleep in her room. And then I would explain to her that during the night you will come to her. Because I would choose a gradual approach for nighttime sleep training as well. So I would explain that during the night, if she wakes up and she is scared, just call mommy and you will come.
And then you can come and you do the exact same thing as you did with bedtime sleep training. So you can do the chair method again. So when your daughter wakes up in the middle of the night, you leave the chair there at bedtime and you just sit back to the chair where it was on that day. So if it was close to her bed at bedtime, you sit exactly there.
And if it was already almost out of the room, then you sit there. Of course, before that, you go there and console your child for a minute or two. And then you say, "Okay, honey, now go back to sleep. I will sit in my chair again." It will be very tiring for you to sit in that chair.
So sorry to say that. But I would do this because I think a gradual approach more suits your parenting style than a more abrupt approach. Okay, so by the time you finish bedtime sleep training and your daughter falls asleep independently, most probably the nighttime awakenings will disappear too. It's because your child learns to fall asleep independently, and most children transfer that knowledge to the night.
So when they wake up in the middle of the night, which is completely normal, we do that too, they already know how to fall asleep and they are not scared because you were not there when they fell asleep in the first place. So they will just go back to sleep in the same way. But it doesn't always happen. So sometimes you have to do nighttime sleep training longer.
So maybe your child fell asleep independently, but still wakes up at night and calls for you. Then you just do the same process longer for nighttime awakenings until it's fixed. And I hope this won't be necessary because really most of the time when the child learns to fall asleep independently, they will not wake up anymore if they are not hungry, of course. But your child is already four years old, so that's not an issue.
Frequently asked questions
How do I stop co-sleeping with a 4-year-old?
In three steps, in this order. First fix bedtime so she actually falls asleep in 10 to 15 minutes instead of 45 — a child who lies awake for three quarters of an hour has time to become afraid and to hate bedtime. Then agree a calm bedtime routine and a room she likes, with her. Only then start withdrawing: sit up instead of lying down, then move the chair further away every few days.
How long should it take a preschooler to fall asleep?
Ten to fifteen minutes after lights out. That gap is called sleep onset latency, and it is the single most useful number to watch. Forty-five minutes means bedtime is in the wrong place, not that your child is a bad sleeper.
Should I move bedtime earlier or later?
It depends which kind of child she is. Some become hyper when overtired, so a later bedtime makes falling asleep harder and an earlier one fixes it. Others fall asleep more easily the more tired they are — for those, temporarily pushing bedtime quite late builds the habit of falling asleep fast, and then you walk it back earlier day by day.
Is it normal for a 4-year-old to be afraid at bedtime?
Yes. Nighttime fears usually start after two and are completely normal at three and four. Your child will outgrow them, but in the meantime she needs help: a shorter wait in the dark, a light or a canopy if she wants one, and a say in how the room and the routine are arranged.
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