Many parents come to Aware Parenting because of sleep.
In the 18 years I’ve been an Aware Parenting instructor, I’ve spoken to so many parents having challenges with sleep, who then discover Aware Parenting.
Parents who’ve been walking up and down corridors with their baby for hours, or having a toddler who’s waking up every 45 minutes, or a 4 year old who wakes at 5am, and who find that there is a different way.
Then there are the parents, like me, who come to Aware Parenting because it so deeply resonates as a path to help children stay deeply connected with themselves and their feelings, be securely attached and heal from daily stresses and larger traumas. And who find, to their surprise, that restful and easeful sleep comes as a result of focussing on these things!
Most other approaches believe that a parent needs to choose between offering their baby or child secure attachment, or having restful and restorative sleep for them and their little one.
In contrast, Aware Parenting has a very different way of understanding babies and children that means that both secure attachment and sound sleep are possible!
We see that babies and children have innate wisdom, and we trust that wisdom. If a baby is restless, or a child is waking up frequently, if a baby has circles under their eyes after a short nap, we can see that something is going on that is getting in the way of that natural wisdom.
It is often our own conditioning that is preventing us being able to follow the lead of our baby or child and trusting that they intrinsically know how to be both securely attached and to experience restorative sleep.
So, instead of offering increasingly complex adult-led solutions, we return to the baby or child, and to observing them. Watching them. Listening to them. Trusting them. Following their lead.
It turns out that babies and children do know how to be securely attached and sleep restfully. And indeed, that rather than them ‘fighting sleep’ as is often perceived, it is actually often us who are fighting against their innate relaxation processes.
It also turns out that babies and children have such deep body wisdom that they also intuitively know how to heal from daily stress and both small and large trauma.
And lo and behold, the process that brings about healing of stress and trauma is actually the same one that leads them to feel relaxed enough to sleep restfully and restoratively until they’ve either had enough sleep, or wake up because they’re hungry.
Not only that, but when we trust babies and children, and follow their lead in these processes, it deeply affects how they feel. Most of all, they feel more relaxed. We can observe that increased relaxation at nighttime, where they sleep more restfully, with less movement, and for longer, but we can also see that during the daytime, in terms of theme being more present, smiling more, concentrating for longer periods, having more relaxed muscles, and being more calm.
If you want to discover more about these natural processes that we’re all born with, I will be sharing more about the upcoming weeks whilst I create a new course – Sound Sleep and Secure Attachment with Aware Parenting 2.0. I’ve just finished writing a book on it too! You can also listen to the Sleep Series of The Aware Parenting Podcast, which is about half way through. You can find that on all the usual channels.
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