THE SPECIAL BED

With all the sleeping problems that we had this summer, I ended up with another bed in my bedroom - a single bed at the bottom of my bed (neither of us sleep well if Alice comes into my bed). This extra bed we called 'The Special Bed' and Alice was allowed to choose where she slept at bedtime each night.

We had 5 nights in a hotel towards the end of August and Alice had a single bed in my room. We didn't have good sleep while we were away, every night Alice woke at least twice having lost her dummy or panda. When we returned I tried to remove dummy, I did it the wrong way because I'd lost patience over all the extra wakings, so we reached a compromise that dummy is only allowed in her room. Alice understands the rule and generally keeps to the rule. This new rule meant that she could still choose The Special Bed but not with dummy - this encouraged Alice back into her Big Girl's Bed in her bedroom. We've been home nearly a month and The Special Bed hasn't been used for anything other than sorting clothes! This week I asked Alice if we could put it away and she agreed, 'I not scared any more!' Very revealing as I'd never managed to establish why she was having so many sleeping issues - in hindsight it's nice to know that it was only a phase!