We've had people tell us over and over how remarkable it is that our children are able to go to sleep fairly easily in places other than their own beds. To me, I see this as a natural result of the purposeful steps we have taken to teach them this skill. Now, I don't take full credit, because some kids are naturally better sleepers than others. But overall, we work to instill in our children from the very beginning the skills, abilities and attributes we want them to have later on in their lives, and so I am not surprised at their ability to sleep.
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| Even I was impressed with Jackson's nap in Costco this summer! |
Just as Proverbs 22:6 states "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." I believe there are many skills, abilities and attributes that we need to be working to teach our children even from a very young age. Of course what we work on teaching a newborn is different from what we teach our toddlers, which will be very different from what we teach our pre-teens. But the principle remains: as parents we should be looking ahead to the attributes we want our children to possess and start teaching those lessons while they are still young. (I'm not saying that teaching your children to sleep anywhere is a skill all parents should teach, but we've been asked about it so many times, I thought I'd share it as an example of something we've tried to be intentional about.)
As parents of small children there are a few practical life skills we have intentionally worked to teach them, and are already working to teach Judah as a newborn. The very first skills of this nature relate to sleep. We want our children to be able to go to sleep anywhere, and even with a moderate amount of noise. We do this by putting our babies to bed in various places right from the newborn stage. I make sure that even at home, the baby doesn't sleep only in his or her crib. Starting when Micah was a little baby, I would put him to nap on a blanket on the floor, or on our bed, or in his stroller, so he didn't grow to need his own bed as a sleep cue. Then as he grew a little bit older and we created a bedtime routine for him, we purposely chose to incorporate only activities that were portable. For example, we didn't bathe him every night before bed, because we couldn't always do that if we were out somewhere. What we did do was get him in pajamas, brush teeth, read a story, sing a lullaby, and say the same words each night, then put him in bed. This way we provided consistency even within the flexibility of going to sleep in various places.
Along with putting our kids to sleep in various places right from the beginning, we also did our best to get them used to sleeping with noise. We purposely keep making noise and aren't quiet during baby nap times, so that noise becomes normal. I've heard it said that the sounds in the womb are as loud as a vacuum cleaner to a baby, so as newborns they are used to loud background noises. I believe babies lose this ability as we tiptoe around them and train them to need quiet. With our first baby I purposely did loud activities and put on music while he napped. Now with three older kids, I have Judah nap on the main floor and we don't have to put any extra effort into making noise! I think this is why Jackson is our best sleeper yet - the background noise in our house is near continual.
We repeated this with each of our children, and the result is that we are able to go out in the evenings with the whole family, and still maintain a usual bedtime for the kids. Earlier this week we had a lovely adults-only dinner at a friends house, by first feeding our kids and putting all four to sleep there. The older two shared the bed with a head at either end, and Jackson slept in his playpen, while Judah napped on a living room chair. Each of the older three were happily cuddled up with their own special fleece blankets that we bring with us every time they sleep in a place other than home. And I found myself again thinking how thankful I am that our children have the gift of portable sleep.
