Parents want to do all they can to help their children sleep better. As children move from infant to toddler, this can become harder. You can’t just make changes without discussing them with your child, and it becomes important to involve your child in the process. One of the best ways to do this is through a family meeting.
A family meeting sounds simple enough. You just sit your child down before bed and tell them how things are going to be from here on out, right? Not so fast! A family meeting takes thoughtful planning and follow-through. Here’s how to have a family meeting so you can talk about improving your family’s sleep.
Involve Everyone
A family meeting needs to involve everyone. Little baby in the house? The baby attends the meeting. Older sisters and brothers in high school? They also attend the meeting. Busy parent who works lots of hours and isn’t ever home at bedtime? It’s very important they are there, too. A good time for a family meeting is typically a weekend morning, potentially over breakfast, when nobody is in a rush. Make a batch of pancakes (or just put out cereal if that’s too much work!) and eat together. Talking around food makes conversation flow much more easily. Toddlers and younger children are also going to be more alert first thing in the morning. I can get my kids talking about anything if there is a fresh batch of bacon on the table :).
Begin With Something Positive
You may feel you are at your wits’ end with your three year old coming into your bedroom 10 times a night, but if you start out by saying, “Sophia, you need to stop coming into my room!” you are only going to have a defensive child on your hands. Start by saying something positive that happens at bedtime. It can be something really small like, “Sophia, I love reading books to you at bedtime. I love how you say goodnight to me and tell me you love me to the moon and back.” Then you can talk about what may not be going so well.
The Issue Needing Work is a Family Issue
There are a few ways to talk about the problem. One of the best ways is to state the problem as a family issue rather than an issue with just the child. Using our example of the 3 year old coming out of bed 10 times a night, we may say,
“Sophia, we had a hard time staying in bed last night. When you came into my room, we woke up a lot. I had to walk you back to bed and then we couldn’t fall asleep again. I see your tired face today. Look at my tired face. I love you too much for us to have tired faces everyday, so we are going to work on helping everyone sleep better. We are going to work together as a team.”
Another way may be to say, “Last night your body had a really hard time staying in bed. We’re going to practice some ways to remind your body to stay in bed if you wake up tonight. I know it can be hard without practice, so let’s go up to your room now and practice together.”
Or perhaps, “When you woke up last night, you kept telling me you didn’t want to go back to your bed. We’re going to practice walking back to your bed so you aren’t surprised when I walk you back tonight. I’ll show you first and then you can show me” (role reversal practice).
Prep for Change
You will most likely need to make some changes to your current bedtime routine. A great way to help children during your family meeting is by making a chart. Make a mission statement and a plan!
For example:
If I were to have a family meeting in my home, we may need to talk about how everyone is getting to bed too late (this may or may not be true, ha ha). Our mission statement may be:
“We are a family of Strong Sleepers and we will go to bed earlier so we can get the sleep we need.”
Then, our plan may simply list the times that we all need to turn off our devices and start getting ready for bed. (Note: my kids are older, so they are able to tell time and move along. If you are the parent of a toddler, they will most likely do well with a bedtime routine chart with pictures. This link takes you to many options for pre-made charts. Use these as inspiration to make your own personalized chart. Be sure to include all of their steps so there are no surprises and few places where they can stall and ask for extra things. Place this chart in your child’s room at their level.
Put Your Child in Charge
Now that you have your plan in place, it’s time to put your child in charge a bit. You’re probably thinking this is nuts because your child already seems to run the show every night and gets everything she wants. That happens because there’s a lack of consistency and a struggle for power. If you can give your child a chance to show independence and a little bit of authority at bedtime, chances are very high this behavior will improve. Why? Because they will feel confident in how things are supposed to go. You will feel more relaxed as a parent because they are moving in the direction of getting into bed and going to sleep. We give control during the bedtime routine because in the grand scheme of things, there are few things that really matter choice-wise in the bedtime routine. Do you really care if your child rebels against the striped pajama top and wants the green ones again? No.
You can give control over what pajamas your child is going to wear. They can choose the 3 books that they read at bedtime (if their chart says to read three books). They can tell you what they are doing next based off of their chart. Tasks get done quickly as the child gets ordered around less. Children love to be in charge and this is a place where they can be helpful to the family in getting to bed on time and with more ease. What could be better than that?
Continue to Talk
A family meeting is not a one-and-done kind of thing. It requires follow-up. While your first meeting may be kind of long (age appropriate for the child), your follow-up meetings will most likely be shorter. They can occur the next morning after implementing a change. If everyone is together at breakfast, a quick “morning meeting” is a great way to recap the night and look at everyone’s faces. Are they tired or are they rested? How did the night go? What good news can be shared? If something needs work, what will we work on and continue to practice? Always try to find some good to share (even if you feel there is nothing, there is always some good news). Use a toy microphone to give your morning report. It’s a great way to get kids excited about being held accountable for change.
Always Room to Try Again
One of the great things about a family meeting and morning reports is it gives parents a chance to remind their children that there is always another chance to practice again. We don’t just try to make changes and then give up on our children. We encourage them that even though it may be hard right now, we still have time to try again. This is good news! It keeps expectations in check and reminds all of us that we can make mistakes and we don’t need to be perfect on the first try. When you begin to use a family meeting with your family, it may take time to find the words that resonate. Keep practicing. Your child wants to surprise you and impress you. Keep working towards that family mission for better sleep.
We LOVE to help families get their family meetings going. This can be a great topic to discuss in one of our Ask Us Anything sessions. Contact us so we can help you craft your own family meeting!
**Special thanks to one of our mentors, Sharyn Timerman, who has taught us for many years about the power of the family meeting. She truly believes in parenting from the heart and we are so grateful to have learned so much from her.