Bedtime struggles

What to you get when you convince your 4-yr-old to give up his very-beloved blankie?? 

F**king misery, that's what.

Luke became attached to his Aden + Anais muslin blankies early on. At some point, he started to suck on them. It was cute how he would walk around with it hanging out of his mouth. Until just recently, I didn't have a problem with it. Unless I forgot it on an overnight away (at the Grandparents) or forgot to send one to daycare and naptime was a disaster. He became reliant on it to fall asleep.

Having worked in the dental field, I know how important it is for teeth health for children to give up any sucking habits (thumb, binkie, fingers, etc) by ~3 years old to prevent permanent damage to the palate (roof of the mouth) and the teeth. We had attempted to have him give up his blankies at another time awhile ago with no success. Since he was so should I say "addicted" to it, getting him to go to sleep easily was not happening. So I gave in and he got them back. It didn't help that I didn't completely hide them so whenever he'd see them, he'd meltdown until I gave it to him.

This is the concern: developing open bite (when the front teeth don't touch when biting together) as a result from sucking on the blankie

Fast forward to about 2 weeks ago. One day out of the blue, I asked him if he was ready to give up his blankies like a big boy. I dangled the enticing reward of a new set of Legos over his head to convince him to give it a go. 

He was all in!

I took all of the blankets (we had 8) and hid them in my closet and told him that I gave them away to a little baby who needed them more than him since we was a big boy. That day, we were out running errands and by the time we came home, he was pretty tired and went to nap very easily. I thought, heck! this is going to be easy!!

Boy was I wrong. That night at bedtime, once he remembered his blankies were gone, he went into hysterics. He sobbed and cried for his blankie and it didn't stop. For 2 hours. At that point, I was so exhausted, Joe couldn't fall asleep either and I went into his room and told him if he wasn't going to go to sleep without a blankie, he could go downstairs and watch TV all night. Yes, great parenting, I know. I plopped him on the couch, turned on Sprout TV and went up to bed. At about 3am, I went down to get him and brought him up to bed. I have no idea what time he fell asleep but I'm guessing it was pretty quickly since I'm sure all that crying was draining.

The next night, it happened again. Though the crying stopped after about an hour-and-a-half. Progress?

Nope. The following night, he decided he wasn't going to go to bed at all. He wouldn't stay in his bed, or even his room. It was a fight to walk him back into his room every 5 minutes after I'd take him back into his room and put him in bed and even lay with him and try to put him to sleep. For the next 4-5 nights, that was how it went. He wouldn't concede and go to bed until 10:30-11. I was exhausted. He was exhausted. It was affecting his behavior during the day as well. And he wasn't taking naps on top of that! 

I was feeling hopeless and most nights was thisclose to just giving him a blankie and accepting the fact that he would have jacked up teeth. I was diffusing lavender in his room at night and rubbing a"calming the child" essential mix on him before bedtime. Nothing helped.

And then during one night while I was lying in bed listening to him scream and make all kinds of racket while NOT sleeping, I googled 'sleep help'. And children's melatonin came up.

The next day I bought this:

...and our lives were changed. I did a happy dance as he actually willingly crawled into bed that night. I even bribed him with "if you stay in bed with the lights off for 10 minutes and be quiet, I'll give you a white blankie"

I was that desperate that I was willing to give him a blanket. It had been 1.5 weeks of bedtime meltdowns and I couldn't do it any more!

But after 10 minutes, he was still in bed and droopy-eyed. I kept my promise and gave him the blankie but he was out within minutes of me giving it to him and he never sucked on it. 

Last night was night 4 of the magic pill. And the past 4 nights have been so easy and amazing. After seeing how well it worked the first night, I dropped it down to 1/2 tab the 2nd night and 1/4 the next 2 nights. Tonight, I might even try not giving it to him and see if the great bedtime routine continues.

He had become so reliant on needing his blankie to suck on, that without it, he just couldn't fall asleep. He needed to be able to have his body produce melatonin on its own to make him sleepy again. I am totally indebted to this remedy and recommend giving it a try if your little one has trouble calming down for bed. He's even taking naps again (whew! His naptime was my get-stuff-done time!)

Today, we are off to Toys 'R' Us to let him pick out his Lego set as a reward for giving up blankies (and now going to bed easily)!!