We asked our readers, “What sleep problems did you encounter after you adopted your child, and how did you handle them?” Here’s what they said.
Help Your Child Sleep Through the Night
Waking in the night is very common and can have many causes.
Easing the Post-Adoption Adjustment
We’re about to adopt a toddler. How can we ease his adjustment during our first weeks as a family?
Establishing Sleep Patterns
Why can’t my new child sleep?
To Have and to Hold: Attachment Parenting
AF looks at a hands-on parenting style that’s natural for our families.
The Family Bed
Parents and experts talk about co-sleeping with an adopted child or infant.
Ask AF: Sleep Routines That Promote Attachment
Our newly adopted, 1-year-old daughter wakes often throughout the night, crying and wailing. If I rub her back or pick her up, she stops almost immediately.
Establishing a Healthy Sleep Routine
Help your child sleep through the night while promoting her attachment to you.
Ask AF: Rocking and Sleep
Rocking is a common sensory-seeking behavior, particularly for children who spent time in institutionalized settings.
Raising a Sound Sleeper
When we, as new parents or parents-to-be, think about our children sleeping, we all dream of a happy, peaceful child sleeping soundly while we’re in the other room getting a full night’s rest ourselves. This is rarely the reality, however—at least at the beginning of parenthood. How do we make that dream a reality?
Ask AF: Sleep Problems
After two bumpy years, we finally got my daughter, now five, to sleep through the night. But she’s recently had a slew of sleep problems: night wakings, anxiety at bedtime, and so on. Is this because of adoption? What can we do? We are exhausted!
“Talking About Adoption at Bedtime”
My daughter brings stuff up at bedtime. Most five-year-olds do; they don’t want to be left alone to sleep. She likes when I tell her stories in the dark and rub her back. Who wouldn’t like all that? Aside: bedtime can—if I let it—take forever.
View the Baby Care for Adoptive Parents Webinar Replay
View the replay of a webinar with Nicole Mayer, RMA, RN, BSN to learn about baby care basics and hear answers to commonly asked questions from new parents.
“My Nights with Tiana”
So Tiana moved into our bed. As time went on, she began to awaken, startled, reaching her little hand toward my side of the big bed. As soon as she felt me beside her, she would fall back asleep. By her third or fourth month home, Tiana was waking up every 10 minutes to make sure I was beside her. Her panic was palpable.
Sweet Dreams
If you thought you’d seen the end of bedtime battles, your preschooler may show you a thing or two!
Ask AF: How to Respond to Night Terrors
Answers to your parenting questions.
View the Sound Sleep Strategies Webinar Replay
View the replay of a webinar with adoption medicine specialist Sarah Springer, M.D., FAAP, to learn why sleep problems are common in children after adoption, and get her advice and solutions.
“Losing Sleep”
As my daughter discovers the brave new world of sleepovers, she and I are both missing out on some shut-eye.
Helping Your Child Sleep
Last month we asked: Have you discovered ways to make bedtime easier or to help your child sleep through the night?
No More Bedtime Battles
The safety and predictability of a regular evening routine can end go-to-sleep struggles with your preschooler.
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