23 Apr Why is my child not sleeping

This is a question I have been presented with thousands of times in my practice.

It is possibly the most asked question that parents have for me when it comes to their newborn babies and toddlers.

The first thing that I believe needs to happen with this issue is acknowledgment. A child doesn’t choose to not sleep unless on some level it feels that sleep is not an adaptive or beneficial process for its survival.

We must acknowledge the fact that the child is not sleeping for a reason. This is important feedback from the child’s nervous system demonstrating that it does not feel safe enough to let go of its need for conscious awareness.

A happening is always driven by reason and in nature if there is a happening then there must be a reason for this happening.

From my experience the most common reason for a child’s inability to sleep is safety. The nervous system needs safety for sleep to occur. If danger is perceived the nervous system decides that sleeping is not an adaptive process and can increase the child’s awareness and stress response to improve its chances of survival. Danger can be consciously perceived but also unconsciously perceived. It is the unconsciously perceived threat that I have found to be the most prevalent in sleeping issues.

From an adults perspective safety for a child can mean a comfortable bed in a nice warm room, loving parents to watch over them keeping them safe, good food whenever the child needs it and relaxing music to help the child relax as it is put down to bed. These are only a few examples and all of these are fantastic assets to provide for a child and if a child has all of these they are very lucky.

What I have found to be some of the  reasons for children not feeling safe however may not be what a lot of people might think of and are more common than people might think.

For example, a very common reason includes unconscious fear from past trauma.

The most common trauma being birth trauma. Even though the pregnancy and delivery may have been without issue from a mother and doctors point of view, it is the process the baby went through that is most often where the trauma occurred.

To quote Dr. Gabor Mate – “trauma is not what happens to you but what happened inside you as a result of what happened to you”

I have treated many children who haven’t slept properly for months or even years and when working with them it becomes clear that their birth process is most often the reason why.

The dynamics of giving birth for a mother is not the same as the birth dynamics of a child being born. Both are incredibly beautiful and miraculous in their own ways but both are uniquely different. How a child felt as it was being delivered is often never known as we cannot ask the child at this age because they cannot answer in the same language the question was asked in. However, they can and do tell you in another language and this language is behaviour and feeling.

Understanding this language is key to helping children in all areas of their lives.

I have also quite often found some children to be so sensitive to their environment that they could sense the (RF) radio frequencies from the wifi router in the room beneath or near where they are trying to sleep. This type of stress can be measured by an RF meter and in many cases the levels in the house at night can be extremely high.

Even RF levels below the recommended safe levels for humans can be enough to upset a sensitive child.

Another common reason I come across is if a mother, parent or other primary caregiver doesn’t feel safe in themselves or has a lot of unconscious fear and/or trauma suppressed inside them. A child can easily feel this tension and this is also another reason a child’s sense of safety can be altered. It’s important to know that a child doesn’t think like an adult, it simply feels and responds. So if a child feels stress it responds – it doesn’t concern itself with who’s stress it is – it just responds.

VERY IMPORTANT– The importance of self care and emotional processing for parents is so important for the growth and development of a child. It is not a person’s fault if they have trauma nor is it something a person should ever feel ashamed or guilty about.

It is, however a person’s responsibility to address that trauma and work with it in a way that brings safety and peace back into your body, mind and life so you can be the living example of what you wish to teach your children. If children experience emotional projection like fears, guilt and shame by their parents then they learn that this is a natural and acceptable thing to do and they can follow in your footsteps. This can all be completely unconscious.

If a child received nothing more than the wisdom and confidence to feel and process their emotions without fear of judgement then you would be giving them the most incredible gift you could give them.

Low melatonin, elevated stress hormones, food sensitivities, allergies and digestive issues like colic etc. are other possible reasons for poor sleep and these also show up in behaviours children present with.

The key is understanding the language of behaviour and how children demonstrate their discomfort.

I have worked with children who can perceive more of the unseen world  than what we adults do. This can be another reason they won’t sleep because they experience very real interactions with people who they believe have passed away.

I have had a lot of parents who don’t believe in this type of experience and who find it too difficult to accept based on their own experiences or lack of but the fact of the matter remains – if your intention is to help any child with any issue the first thing they need from you is trust and for this they must feel that you believe them. For a lot of children they won’t speak about what really matters because they feel they won’t be believed so they keep it inside which makes them feel very alone.

If a child needs you to believe in ghosts so they no longer feel alone and scared then believe them for the reason of making sure they don’t feel alone. From here you have a much better chance of helping them reframe their experiences and learn new resources.

Remember, a child isn’t asking you to believe in ghosts – they are asking that you believe in them and their experience.

At the core of it, a child wants to be seen and heard, to feel wanted and loved.

If they for any reason don’t feel these core needs have been met they can become very creative at bringing our attention back to them.

Feeling alone with fear or pain is the biggest trauma I see people suffer with on a daily basis. You can literally save lives by helping a person feel that they are not alone.

So from these few examples you can see that there are many common reasons a child might not be sleeping but there are just as many if not more not so common reasons for the same issue.

Regardless of the actual reason for a child’s poor sleep pattern we need to find out what resources make a child feel safe and increase them. At the same time we must find out what happened that made them feel scared and support them so they can grow from their experiences.

We must be mindful that the adult level of understanding within us does not get in the way of the child level of understanding needed to meet a child where they are.

We must meet them where they are and not require them to meet us where we are.

When a child knows and feels that their core needs are being met the expression of feeling their absence changes.