How To Help Your Child Sleep With Separation Anxiety

Anxiety is something we all know as adults whenever we are overcome with: worry, fear, loneliness, and regret. When children are very young, like say from the ages of 0-5, their little brains aren’t developed enough to discern and identify with the emotions that we as parents and adults experience throughout our lives on a daily basis. A child will only identify with the fact that something has changed in their environment and they DO NOT like the way that it feels. Insert a security blanket here. This wonderful little blanket or security object will be so powerful and instrumental to their growth and development that you will not be able to imagine how life was without it! 

A BLANKET COMES IN MANY FORMS

The security blanket concept comes in many shapes and forms as well as names. The images that pop into my head when I think of them are the cute and colorful little Linus on the Peanuts that always carried his torn and battered little blanket around wherever he was travelling. You’ve probably heard them called; lovey blankets, dream blankets, comfort objects, woobies, binkies, blankies, etc. 

WHAT EXACTLY IS A SECURITY BLANKET

The security blanket can be just a piece of soft muslin cloth, a special soft blanket, a plush stuffed animal, or a combination of the two; a plush object with a blanket. Our blankets at Frankie Dean are animals that are individually specified with a name and a bedtime story book to go along with it. We have seen with our 2 little boys the benefits of having the character story book that is soothing and comforting just further personalizes their experience to identify with the blanket. This experience can be beneficial for any time of day but is especially paramount during that oh so stressful time period that we’ve coined- from BathTime to BedTimeTM  when children have a tendency to be overtired, fussy, and outright resistant to wind down for bedtime. 

CALMING BENEFITS

The benefits that we have seen first hand with incorporating our dream blankets and bedtime books into our end of the day routine have helped with allowing our children to fall asleep faster. They have also eased our child's anxiety of waking up in the middle of the night only to find themselves alone. We see how excited our children get now to rush off to their bedrooms after bathtime only to have their bedtime book and dream blanket waiting for them. Prior to incorporating both of these into the bedtime routine we noticed that our children both had issues falling asleep once we left the bedroom. Now upon completion of the story books, a little rocking, and affirmation they drift right off to sleep usually before we even exit their rooms. We have also noticed that they seem to fall back asleep faster after awakening in the middle of the night whether it's from a loud car driving by or a bad dream they’ve had.

Reference: https://healthychildren.org/English/agesstages/toddler/Pages/Soothing-Your-Childs-Separation-Anxiety.aspx