Summary
As most parents know, children who wake up during the night can be the cause for a lot of lost sleep in adults. When that becomes a habit, there is truly cause for concern. What we need is a tool or procedure that helps the child change its subconscious or unconscious mind in gentle, non-threatening ways.
We have developed such a tool; it's called O.T.R., or Off-Trauma Retracking. It consists of a specific question that the adult asks the child on a regular basis (hourly for several days) and a specific answer that the child gives back to the adult. Each cycle takes about 10 seconds, which is why we refer to this procedure as "Ten Seconds that Last A Lifetime." Where it has been applied correctly, we have experienced 100% effectiveness.
For a more complete discussion of this plan, click here...
Full Text
Gloria -
Several years ago, one of the young ladies in our childcare group - also age 3 at the time a - a had a habit similar to your daughter's. Together with her mother, we applied a procedure that had been successful in an earlier biting incident, and in a matter of just a few weeks, the sleep issue was completely solved.
We call the plan OTR, or Off-Trauma Retracking. You'll find it referenced in several places on our website. It is based on the idea is that it is better for behavior to be influenced by revised thinking than thinking be influenced by revised behavior. While this idea is logical, the ways we adults usually go about helping a child change a given behavior are actually more based on behavior-to-thinking practices rather than the other way around.
So, here's the program. Essentially, it's a guided thinking exercise.
1. First you determine what it is that you want the child to do in the future in the place of what s/he is presently doing. Then, write down on a paper what you wish to happen. In your case, you may want Susie to stay in bed quietly if she wakes up during the night.
2. Next, you make up a set question and a set expected response. In your case, I would make the question, "Susie, if you wake up during the night, what are you going to do?" And the answer you would guide her to use is, "Stay in my bed quietly".
3. Once an hour during waking hours, you go to Susie or call her to you. Get her full attention, eye-to-eye, and go through the Q&A drill. Your response each time will be something like, "That is such good news, honey. I'm really looking forward to that". Then, you turn to someone or something else - the baby, Daddy, the rocking chair a tree or a Teddy bear - and say, "Did you hear what Susie is going to do if she wakes up tonight? She's going to stay in her bed quietly. Isn't that great?" That whole exercise will take between 10 and 15 seconds. And then you let her go back to whatever. You continue the exercise until Susie has consistent success. That is the definition of one OTR project.
While this exercise may seem relatively simple, it is so effective that people often say, "Why didn't I think of that?" And the truth is, most people do this in an abbreviated, casual form, although most frequently in a negative way. However, they don't recognize the power in an intentional, regular, repeated positive application of the practice and, therefore, miss the dramatic results it offers. What this process does is develop a desire in the child to do what s/he is saying and, almost mysteriously, the child embraces the new behavior as his own. That's the way it needs to be. Not simple compliance, but full-fledged endorsement.
It works so well because there are at least 10 well known educational principles being applied simultaneously -- accountability (looking beyond oneself), affirmation (complimenting a fine choice), anticipation (looking forward), brevity (using short segments), expectation (of new behavior), recency effect (last thing said is most remembered), relaxation (after stress), repetition (of same Q & A), verbalization (of new behavior), visualization (of new behavior). FYI, you can hear each of these explained in our audiotape series that is offered on the website.
Here are several guiding rules to observe along the way. They are each of utmost importance. So important, in fact, that the failure to follow them will also probably mean the failure of the procedure to achieve your hoped-for objectives.
1. Do one project at a time. When you see what kind of success this practice can achieve, you will be tempted to apply it to everything. You would do well to avoid that temptation because a child can easily feel overloaded and manipulated if this practice is applied to more than one project at a time.
2. Use this practice only when you and Susie are at peace with each other when the time arrives to repeat the cycle. If the going is rocky at the moment, skip that repetition until the next cycle arrives.
3. Two important times to repeat the project in addition to your hourly cycles are immediately before Susie goes to sleep and when she first wakes up. A child's psychological filters are exceptionally open during those two windows of time and a lot can be achieved then that would not otherwise be achieved.
4. Avoid scolding and chiding Susie for failing to do what her mouth is saying she will do, although it is fine to remind her that you are still looking forward to her doing what she is has been saying. All of us are that way and it should be no surprise that a child experiences a lag between head knowledge and behavior fulfillment. Just keep doing the right thing and you will eventually see results. Words create. They always have and they always will. That is a foundational truth of the universe. That being true, we do ourselves a favor by aligning our management practices with that fact.
5. When Susie fails to stay in bed (again, you can expect her present habit to continue for a while), take her back right away without any verbalization from yourself or your husband. It is also important that you do it without "attitude" in your actions. If you need to respond to something -- go potty, fix the sheets, rub her back, etc. -- do it without words. If you need to remind her to be quiet, simply put your finger to your lips in a silent gesture.
One other nuance that seems important here is to tuck her in only once. You do that when she is first going to bed. If you fear for her lack of warmth from being uncovered, re-cover her after she is asleep. The point is that being tucked in is so comforting, that some children (and this is especially true of calculating children like Susie) will kick the covers off just to be tucked in again if that action has previously been successful. On the positive side, once she realizes that the tucking gift is going to happen only once, she will experience a natural, inner restraint to kick the covers off, especially if she is doing that intentionally. However, intentional or not, that restraint still does its work inside her heart and mind.
All that said, another consideration that figures strongly into this picture is her going to bed routine. If a child has a defined set of steps in preparing for bed time, she will be more likely to stay in bed than if her practice is spontaneous and without consistent order. At the risk of overloading you, try is our plan for bedtime success. It is spelled out under the first question under Common Parenting Issues on our web site.
Let's keep in touch. Blessings...