Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. This week, I've been thinking about night time wake ups for children, when they wake up in the night, they've gone off to sleep, and you know, hooray, we've been successful, off they go into sleep, and then a few hours later, two, three, four hours later, they wake up again, and what are some of the things we could do to help them get back to sleep and not panic, not feel that they need to come into bed with us, not feel we need to get into bed with them. I mean, these things are all, you know, who hasn't done some of those things? But what what's a way of having a child learn to self soothe, self soothing, being able to be just a little more independent, when, when there is a situation where a child feels a little bit of panic, a little bit scary, things aren't right, I've woken up at night.
How can we help them be able to be a little more independent in those, those moments? And here's a here's a leading thought. As we put a child to bed, and the story is finished, then develop a little three minute ritual, five at most, but around about three minutes, I'll give an example of what I mean. So they're in bed, story is finished.
And that may perhaps a candle is lit, the lights go quiet, and a candle is lit, perhaps in a glass jar for safety, and so on. But these and this is just by way of example, you may or may not want to do this, but might invent your own, of course, but a candle is lit. Then, some lovely lavender cream comes out.
One of my favorites is lavender rose arum cream, the the lavender for for that for that lovely relaxation, the rose for soothing, and the arum, which is a tiny little trace element of gold is for warming. You can get it from Uriel Pharmacy, that's spelled U R I E L, Uriel Pharmacy, my favorite creams for children. And so you may be just rub their little chest and tummy with the rose arum, they may turn over, and you do their scapula, their little wings, and you rub and you and as you do it, you may be humming their nighttime song, just a just a lovely little sleepy time song that you're singing.
And so you've got the light is quiet, you've got the aroma for the olfaction, which is deeply soothing. And you've got the sound, the humming, the music, the little song, you can perhaps sing it, but I'd advise to hum it so you don't stimulate a child too much. And you just hum the song.
Now all these three things, because you've done them earlier in the evening, when a child's gone off to sleep, and you've done them night after night after night, are very, very strongly associative, because you're, you're touching on some of the key sensory experiences. Again, it's touch, smell, light, sound, and all these things, a child begins over the weeks and months that you do it, to recognize it. So therefore, and when a child wakes up, a little one, an older one, you know, it could be even an elementary age school child.
You repeat the process that they're very, very familiar with, engage very little in conversation, just hum the song, soothe them. If they want to talk to you, just uh-huh, uh-huh, I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just that, don't get involved in big conversations.
If they want to talk, well and good. And then light the candle, have the cream beside them, soothe them with the little rub, the little massage, begin to hum the song, and just be with them, and go through that ritual again. And then sit with, for just a moment, not too long, because then they'll reattach in that sense of wanting you, and then move away.
And if need be, you can sit in a chair beside them. I prefer not to lay on a child's bed, I prefer to have that as being their space, but we all have different preferences, but that's mine, is to have their bed be theirs. And I might have a comfy chair nearby, and I might continue to hum the song a little bit if they're still restless, but again, the song is going to bring up those feelings of safety, and it calms that wake up nerve, that nervous waking up, which is not very nice for a child.
And then when you're ready, just blow out the light, leave the room. Now it doesn't always go as smoothly as that, you may need to sit for a little longer, you may need to hum for a little longer, but as you do this more and more and more, the association becomes, for a child, it actually becomes involuntary. They actually can't help it, they associate all those lovely things with sleep.
And by the way, when you're rubbing their wings, keep the covers up so they don't get cold, do that underneath the cover when you're putting the cream on, even warm it up in your hand a little bit, so nothing is cold, it's all cozy. And then under the blankets, just rub their shoulders, their scapula, you know, and whatever it is that you have, and I'm not suggesting that's the only way to do it by any means, but whatever you establish as a night time ritual after the story, have it be soothing, and have it be repeatable, so that when the wake up comes, you can do exactly that. You can replicate it.
And if they wake up again a few hours later, replicate it. And after a relatively short period of time, the wake ups become less, and the soothing becomes shorter. And so that's one way of, and it's kind of a way of thinking, it's a frame of reference, that will offer you alternatives to sort of, you know, laying beside a child semi-comatosed.
Because when the parents who do this, and there are many, many parents that do that I've spoken to over the years, they say to me, we can almost do this in autopilot now. We can almost do it then. Quite a number of parents have also commented over the years that when their children are poorly, when they're sick, when they have fevers, when they replicate this, and maybe extend it a little longer than, you know, three minutes, it might be a little longer period of time, but it also, again, is associative of warm, cozy, safe.
And so it can be done for children actually when they're not feeling very well as well. And it can also be done to help children who are going through times of anxiousness and nervousness. So this simple way of establishing these little rituals at night have a way of being able to use them in other situations.
And the one that we've particularly focused on today has been wake-ups. All right. As always, hope that's helpful.
Bye-bye for now.
