When Yours and Your Child’s Needs Clash
This has come up many times recently. In fact, it was one of the main questions that people had in the sleep-related topic on the Low Demand Sleep Summit. At the point of bedtime with your child, I expect you are likely spent. You have nothing left in the tank. You need to be done and you probably want nothing more than to plonk yourself down in a quiet and empty space (no children and flying items) and zone out. Basically, you need as much sensory rest as possible. This is also commonly the time when your child is a bit wired, needs lots of movement and is dysregulated in varying degrees. And so we have it: Clashing needs.
The first thing that we should look at is your nervous system regulation - after all, you are the one thing that you can control.
Our sensory system and nervous system are deeply linked and we can access the nervous system through the sensory system. If the above scenario is similar to your own, you are likely overstimulated. We all need to address this throughout the day as our arousal system builds throughout the day as we experience everything life has to offer us. Whenever you build in breaks (20 minutes at a time is amazing but 2 minutes of simple breathing exercises is also very valuable), it releases some of that arousal pressure so that we can lower our overall arousal/stress levels at the end of the day. What that then means is that our sensory system isn't on as quite as high alert as it would be otherwise by the time bedtime arrives. Just the same for our kids, when our sensory system is bombarded, our bodies don't quite know where we are in space and so firstly, I’d like to suggest some grounding practices.
Sitting on the floor with your back to a wall/kitchen cupboards/something sturdy.
Tired mother being open for connecting with demand avoidant child. In grounding position for nervous system regulation.
What this does: It gives your body the signals that you are somewhere solid. It makes your body feel somewhat protected in that your back is covered and you are likely to be pushing against that wall and so there is some pressure.
Added advantage: Being in this position could feel less threatening to PDA children if they are in a stress response. You are physically below them in a docile position, but without, for you, your most vulnerable body parts accessible.
When: When you need a break and you are alone - bonus if you can drink a cold glass of water and/or eat a cold apple for the crunch, or when your child is in front of you and they are talking or acting in a way that is activating your stress response. Obviously, please use this with judgment. If you cannot get out of this position quickly but there is a likelihood that you will have to mobilize quickly for some reason, maybe this isn’t a good position at that time.
When we have lots of touch, regardless of the intentions of the touch, and especially lots of light touch and sporadic touch, it can provoke our body to go into a stress response. Simply put, you are touched out and when your child - or anyone else touches you, it can send make you shout, want to hit out, want to run away, or freeze. We can counteract that with heavy pressure.
How: Deep hugs, massage, weighted products (I have a weighted shoulder pad that I enjoy), can you wrap yourself up tight in a blanket? Can you lift weights or do push-ups against a wall? All of those things can send signals to our bodies that we are safe.
When our overall wellness is improved over a period of time, our regulation baseline lowers and goes closer to the restful zone. Put simply, you are calmer in your natural state.
Now, this bit I often find so heavily missed in our lives when we have children with constant or near-constant needs for nervous system co-regulation. We, as human beings have needs for all different experiences and rest. We have needs for physical rest, but also emotional, spiritual, social, sensory, and creative (see Sacred Rest, by Saundra Dalton-Smith, MD). Quite often we get lost as to what makes us happy after we have children. When we have children with additional and intense needs, that period of not being in touch with what fills our cup and expands our capacity, is more intense and longer. What we enjoy now, possibly isn't what we used to enjoy as a childless person, motherhood, and fatherhood changes us (it actually changes our brains in transitions called matrescence and patrescence). Sometimes we need exploration to create our own happiness manuals. Staying up late, staring at the TV screen in a method called Bedtime Procrastination is doing you no favours. The likelihood that you are filling your cup effectively by mindlessly binge-watching Netflix and depriving your body and brain of sleep is pretty low. What do you really enjoy? Would you be better off, taking small breaks throughout the day? Maybe during one of those breaks, you could do something that really makes you laugh. Maybe you could get your hands in the soil and plant something. Maybe you could have some music playing (even in earplugs) while you sort Lego out into colours (just me?). It doesn't matter how small, it just matters that you do it.
To speak to you in the moment of bedtime, I would like to ask you to be curious as to what you can do to help your child’s needs while protecting your own. For example, maybe you have a child who is bouncing off the walls, climbing all over you and all that touch is driving you mad. You think you might snap at any moment and perhaps you do. That’s not you as a bad parent, it’s you as a person, whose body is telling them that they are under attack. Our senses do that. They will send you into fight, flight, freeze or fawn. We will either shout, hit, rage, get out of there, completely disassociate or even give in to everything and try to pander to try to appease our child. This isn't bad parenting, this is crisis mode. It’s not likely a conscious choice at that moment - especially if you have had traumatic experiences that are being triggered in that moment.
Let’s think of how you can help “co-regulate” with your child to help them get that energy out, but without triggering you. Some ideas:
Can you set up a simple obstacle course? By adding some order, it is helping their thinking mind click in, the series of tasks, will hopefully get their energy and sensory needs satisfied. Without the unpredictability of kids flying around, your body is likely to feel safer too.
Scale of emotional arousal. We can help our children to regulate and deescalate through “co-regulating”.
What about turning your child into a burrito? They need to lay down on the bed, on top of and at the end of the duvet. They are protein. Then you add in the veggies and sauces with plonking stuffies over them, rolling a gymball or something over them which is adding in the proprioceptive input. Then you wrap them up in that duvet. Some kids like the vestibular input of literally being rolled, some don’t and so they need to be wrapped more like they are being swaddled. As you are getting this heavy pressure workout in doing this, and hopefully also feeling joy and promoting all those feel-good hormones by having fun, you are also feeling a release of pressure. Then, try to eat them. Is that fun? If that’s allowing you control over your child in a way that they would find triggering, could they give you that massage with a foam foller/gym ball, could they then swaddle you in a blanket? Sounds like my kind of play. If you have one child that likes to take charge more so than the other, can they do the making of the burrito with the other child, can you make it so that this highly regulating play is done by each other. Having your child do the heavy work can be what they need to feel grounded within their bodies.
Child under blanket for sensory play at bedtime.
If you can, a nice way to wrap this up would be to have them both in those burritos as you read to them because then they aren’t touching you and their nervous system is calmed. That is holding their hand and guiding them down to a more regulated and restful state.
Now, some children love this, but some hate it. I have two children. My eldest LOVES it, my youngest feels like he is being strangled. Always proceed with caution and be very aware and responsive the first time you try this. If you have the slightest inkling that your child is not enjoying it - stop. With any play like this, if it doesn’t work with your child’s sensory profile, it can trigger the fight or flight response. The last thing you want is to have your child feeling trapped and unsafe. Never dismiss feelings. If they are telling you, however way they are telling you, that they don’t like it, believe them, apologise, and take them seriously.
If this does not work for your child, what about some other type of play that ticks the movement boxes but is also calming to the body? We have an indoor swing that attaches to the doorframe and that was excellent for bedtime as we’d read stories while my child swang in the swing. That rhythmic movement with the bodywork required, worked a treat.
None of these examples might work for you, but looking outside of the box of the typical bedtime routine is where I find the most success. If you can use your PDA child’s ideas, that is even better because it will help them to feel more in control and therefore less unsafe and more regulated.
