So Jonah is 11 and we are still not quite “sleeping through the night.”
It’s not like it used to be when he was younger with 3-hour meltdowns, but it’s more like he just doesn’t want to STAY sleeping in his room.
Every night Jonah will want to sleep with us in our bed, just for extra snuggles.
It has been this way since he was little.
I used to have to sleep on the floor in his room just to get him to fall asleep. Then he would come into our room in the middle of the night and wake us up by rolling around on our bed. Sometimes I’d just get up and go sleep on the couch.
(And then he’d follow me down to the couch).
The first OT I talked to about this issue told me “well, just lock the bedroom door.” 😒
Like I actually WANT to deal with a meltdown at 2am and heap on bedtime anxiety EVERY NIGHT on top of that. Terrible advice in my opinion.
This is a solution I came up with.
This lightbulb is a “smart bulb” made by Govee and it can change colors. It comes with an app that you can program on your phone so you can actually pick the color(s) and schedule WHEN it changes to those colors.
I told Jonah he could not come out of his room at night until the light turns from red to green.
The first week was rough. The first night, he was whimpering on the floor, trying to “not cry”…
I hadn’t set the timer terribly late (probably 11pm) but he stayed up until it changed colors.
So the rest of the week, I slept on the floor of his room with him and waited for the light to change.
By the end of the week, he had gotten used to the light and was falling asleep on his own, and I was able to push the scheduled change back to midnight without issue.
And Jonah would honor that. When daylight savings hit, I pushed it back to 1am. Still no problems.
I now have it at 2:30am and Jonah will not leave his room before then.
I could conceivably push it all the way back until it’s time to wake up, but part of me knows that one day he will stop coming into our bed on his own one day…
…and then I will miss him running into our room and climbing into bed for some extra snuggles.
#ausome