10 Tips for Navigating Night Tantrums & Bedtime Struggles
Sleep is essential for health, no matter your age. But getting little ones to bed can be difficult. If your family is navigating bedtime tantrums, nighttime negotiations, and struggles with sleeping, you’re not alone. Night tantrums are one of the most common parenting concerns.
Learn 10 expert guidelines to reduce night tantrums and help your child become a better sleeper.
Bedtime struggles and sleep challenges come in all shapes and sizes. Childhood insomnia, sleep tantrums, night terrors… the list goes on. Every child and family is different. Some children may struggle with separation anxiety; other kids might fight bedtime to test limits, while another may not know how to fall asleep alone.
A one-size-fits-all approach to helping children become better sleepers (unfortunately) doesn’t exist.
General prescriptions just won’t work, and may lead to even more frustration for parents and caregivers if they aren’t effective.
Instead, here are a few guiding principles you can use to help your family get a good night's sleep.
These aren’t solutions to specific sleep challenges, but rather broad strategies and mindset shifts that empower you to design a sleep strategy that meets your child’s and family’s needs.
1. You can’t make your child sleep.
As much as we may wish otherwise, you can’t actually force your child to sleep. This is a biological process that only they control. (In fact, commanding children to sleep usually results in them redoubling efforts to show that you can’t make them do that.)
Focus on what you do control: creating the structure and boundaries around sleep to help your child calm their mind and body at bedtime.
This may include a simple routine with clear boundaries, that includes calming activities like bed time stories or even children’s sleep meditation.
2. Remember, limits are loving.
Sleep is just another in a long list of clear limits you’ll need to set to help your child thrive. And if your child is like most, they won’t go down without a fight.
If your child is currently dictating the plan at bedtime (i.e. 6 books, 10 kisses, your sleeping in the room), it may be more difficult for your family to set these loving limits.
One of the hardest and most confusing aspects of parenting is that what feels “right” and “loving” isn’t always what your child actually needs to thrive.
For you to successfully set and enforce clear limits with your children, you’ll need to remind yourself that limits are loving, even in the face of your child’s protests and night tantrums (“I don’t feel safe!” “I’ll never go to sleep if you don’t lay with me!”).
For most parents, this requires changing the voice in your head telling you it’s harmful for your child to be unhappy or distressed sometimes, or that you must be doing something wrong and hurtful if they’re upset. In fact, it is a gift to help your child learn how to sleep independently.
3. Learning to sleep independently is a skill.
Sleeping independently is an essential life skill. It’s something we learn how to do; it’s not something we’re just born knowing. As with learning any new skill, there’s likely to be a period of discomfort before mastery. The same is true for sleep.
Most children experience some stress when learning to sleep independently. But the only way to master this skill is by working through it. They’ll need to experience that they can soothe themselves, even though they feel they can’t survive without a parent next to them helping them go to sleep. They’re learning that they’re okay on their own.
This is what we consider “positive” stress: discomfort that isn’t detrimental, and leads to growth.
It may be painful to hear your child’s screams and protests at first. But days later, when you wake up and realize everyone got enough sleep and your little one is happy, you may realize that it wasn’t only your child who needed to live through a challenge to see they could master it.
4. Sleep is all about associations
As children grow and try to understand this big, complex world, they’re constantly making associations. It starts in the earliest months of life, when babies stop crying when they hear their parents’ voices coming closer. This sound means care is coming, and they calm down.
If children come to associate falling asleep with being fed, held in someone’s arms, rocked, or laying next to a loved one, they come to depend on these experiences to doze off. When they wake up in the middle of the night, they may need that same familiar parental support to fall back to sleep.
Adjusting your family’s bedtime routine to reduce night tantrums and bedtime struggles may involve changing these associations. This can mean going through a period of discomfort, as your child learns they can fall asleep on their own.
When changing associations, it can be effective for the parent to whom the child has a less strong sleep association to carry out the plan. If mom is nursing, it’s less stressful for dad to be the last one the baby sees before being put in the crib, and the person who appears in the middle of the night. This is because the baby doesn’t associate dad being fed and soothed, can’t smell the milk, and tends to protest less. It’s also helpful to provide some space between feeding and putting your baby down, in order to disconnect going to sleep from being fed. This is exactly the plan we put in place for one baby I worked with; within four days, she was sleeping through the night again.
Looking for more relaxing activities for before bed? Get this free Children’s Sleep Activity Kit.
5. Less is more.
For your sleep strategy, remember that less is more.
More interaction equals more stimulation. The more you emotionally and physically engage with your child after lights-out, the harder it will be for them to settle down and calm themselves.
The truth is, engaging with children in the middle of the night is confusing to them.
Kids do best when expectations are clear: daytime is for interaction, play, and cuddling; nighttime is for sleep so our bodies can grow big and strong.
It’s often better to whisper a loving mantra from the doorway (“Goodnight, sleep tight, everything is alright, I love you”) and then leave, instead of making physical contact. It will feel awful when they start crying out for you to come back — how could it not? That’s when you have to remind yourself that, although they want connection with you, engagement at that moment won’t help them. The goal in this moment is to help them adapt to the fact that nighttime is for sleep, not interaction. This is another example of how what feels right and loving is actually counter to what your child needs.
6 .There’s no right or wrong plan.
There’s no right or wrong bedtime plan. What is important is to be able to implement the limits you set.
For example, telling a child to stay in their room is useless because you can’t actually make him do that. If your little one can leave the room at will, they’re in control. That is where a gate or monkey lock can be very useful. While it may feel uncomfortable to erect this boundary, it's more loving than engaging in the ugly tug of war that tends to take place when children repeatedly come out of their rooms after bedtime.
For some parents, going “cold turkey” is best. They say goodnight, put up a gate, and if necessary, provide a boundary so the child can’t keep coming out of the room. Then, they don’t return to the room until the next morning, no matter how hard their child protests.
Other parents know they could never be comfortable with this, and instead take an incremental approach. For them, a new bedtime routine might be sitting in a chair by the child’s bed, and moving the chair further away each night. While this approach can feel more loving, it may be more stressful for both you and your child. In this situation, most children will keep bidding for their parent’s attention, which is very hard for most parents to resist. This plan can backfire by causing more stimulus and interaction at bedtime.
No matter what you choose, know that best plan for your family is the one that works for you.
7. Create boundaries that help children calm their minds and bodies before bed.
Many families find that kids get wound up right before bed; after bath time and toothbrushing, they can become so energetic.
This can make parents frustrated; parents will engage in all sorts of strategies to calm their kids down and get them to bed. Parents sometimes coax/cajole, threaten, offer bribes/rewards (which are the same thing, by the way). All of these tactics unfortunately only increase the child’s dysregulation, as bedtime becomes a big chase game. Toddler bedtime tantrums can easily ensue.
Instead, don’t enable your kiddo to go into overdrive after the bath. Here’s a sample bath and bed time routine that might help:
Make it a rule that kiddos go straight from the bathroom to the bedroom.
For bedtime, close the door to provide a boundary during story time.
Dim the lights to create a soft, soothing atmosphere to help your child’s mind and body quiet down. This better enables them to get to sleep during lights out.
It can be helpful to start reading the bedtime story while your child is in the bath. Let them pick out a book, and at the end of the bath, you read it halfway through. Put in a bookmark your child has made, then finish it when you get into their room. This creates a bridge from bath to bed and makes the transition easier as your child looks forward to hearing the rest of the book.
8. Tone matters.
As you implement your plan, consider your tone and approach. There’s a big difference between a harsh or threatening approach, and a loving and empathetic one:
Threatening: “If you don’t stay in your room, we will put up a gate to make you stay in there!” This engages the child’s negativity and defiance. This is the perfect set-up for a protracted power struggle.
Empathetic: “The rule at bedtime is you stay in your room so you can calm your mind and body to sleep. If you choose to come out, we will escort you back and put up our friend ‘Mr. Gate’ who helps you stay in your room.” This matter-of-fact approach helps keep bedtime calm.
It’s meaningful to acknowledge your child’s experience of this change. Express that you understand they may not like the new rule, and that’s okay. You’re still setting this limit because it’s your job as a parent to keep them healthy and safe.
Avoid trying to talk your child into accepting the limit, as that puts them in charge. When you let your child know that it’s okay if they don’t like the rule, but you’re not afraid of the meltdown. (This diffuses the power of the protest.)
9. Let your child know exactly what the plan will be.
Children thrive when they know what to expect. As you create a bedtime plan you feel is loving and appropriate, make sure it's one you can follow through with, no matter how much push-back you get. Then, clearly lay it out for your child.
If and when they protest, reiterate that you understand their perspective. They don’t like it, and that’s okay. They don’t need to like it, but you’ll still be following through because it’s important.
Expect that it will get worse before it gets better.
Many kids up the ante to see if their parents are really going to stick to the limits.Once they realize you’re not changing your mind, adaptation and coping begin.
A great strategy when putting a new limit in place is to play-act the routine. This helps kids experience what the new plan will feel like; and, it’s fun, which takes some of the tension out of what are usually stressful encounters. Parents may also feel better-equipped to actually implement the plan in the moment.
10. Whatever plan you come up with, what’s most important is that you are loving, clear and consistent.
When your little one is losing it, they need you to be their rock. Try to stay loving and present, even in the face of protests. Consistency is also important. Changing rules can cause confusion; children don’t know what to expect, or where the boundaries are. They’ll keep testing to see where the “grey” area is.
Remember, kids are strategic - not manipulative. They’re trying to get you back in their room, not drive you crazy.
Now you have 10 expert guidelines to reduce night tantrums and help your child become a better sleeper.
As you start developing your bedtime plan, take time to develop one that fits your family, and that you feel you can implement. Play out the possible scenarios in your head so that you’re ready to maintain the limit, no matter how hard your child protests. Otherwise, you are more likely to cave and the cycle continues.
Looking for additional support? Little Otter is here to help your family navigate night tantrums and bedtime struggles.
Meet the Writer: Claire Lerner, MSW
CLAIRE LERNER, MSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and child development specialist. She served as the Director of Parenting Resources at ZERO TO THREE for more than twenty years. Claire has also been a practicing clinician for 35 years, partnering with parents to decode their children’s behavior and solve their most vexing childrearing challenges.
Claire also provides training to local preschools and pediatric residents. Claire is the author of hundreds of parenting resources, including books, blogs, podcasts, and videos. She writes a column for PBS Kids, and her work has been published by several parenting publications. She has also served as a content expert for numerous national daily newspapers.
Claire is the mother of two very spirited children of her own, Sam (30) and Jess (28), and mom to two stepchildren, Justin (30) and Sammy (27). She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and two, also spirited, pups.
Learn more about Claire’s latest book:
Why Is My Child in Charge?: A Roadmap to End Power Struggles, Increase Cooperation, and Find Joy in Parenting Young Children (Rowman & Littlefield. Hardcover) ISBN: 978-1-5381-4900-3.
Through stories from my practice, I show how making critical mindshifts—seeing their children’s behaviors through a new lens —empowers parents to solve their most vexing childrearing challenges. Unlike many parenting books that offer a one-size-fits-all approach that often leave parents feeling frustrated and defeated when those prescriptions don't work, the real-life stories in my book provide a roadmap for how parents can tune into the root causes of their children’s behavior and how to create and implement strategies that are tailored to the unique needs of their child and family. Read more about and order the book: