Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

by Richard Ferber

To take another example, your child may fall asleep alone at bedtime and nap time but need to be rocked after nighttime wakings. Or perhaps he falls asleep easily at day care, even though his sleep associations there differ completely from those he has at home. Children with sleep patterns like these have learned to associate different conditions with falling asleep at different times or in different places. This is no more or less normal than needing the same conditions each time one falls asleep. 7. If your child falls asleep by himself at nap time but needs you at night, then you can expect the relearning to go very quickly. He already knows how to fall asleep on his own; he simply has to learn to associate that behavior with the nighttime as well as with nap times.