Author’s practical guidance
Waking at night and wandering the house
Waking in the night is not a failure of sleep training.
Say this now
“It's still night. I'm taking you back to bed.”
The same sentence every time, in the same flat voice. Familiarity is the sedative.
“I'll sit with you for two minutes.”
Only if you can genuinely leave after two. A promise you break costs you the next hour.
Do this
- Keep the house dark. A dim night light in the hall is enough to walk by.
- Walk them back without conversation. No questions, no explanations, no drink negotiations.
- Make their room worth staying in: a flashlight they control, a water bottle within reach, the door at the angle they like.
- If they wander, secure the house first — stairs, front door, kitchen — then work on the waking.
- Praise it in the morning when it goes well: "You stayed in your bed until it was light."
Avoid this
- Turning on the big light — bright light tells the body the night is over.
- "Why are you up AGAIN?" — frustration wakes them further, and they cannot answer it.
- Starting a negotiation about where they will sleep at two in the morning.
If it repeats
Look at the day, not the night. A child who went down too late wakes more, not less — so an earlier bedtime often means fewer wakings. If a child snores, breathes through their mouth or wakes gasping, that is worth raising with your pediatrician.
Why the book suggests this
Waking in the night is not a failure of sleep training. Every human surfaces several times a night between sleep cycles; adults roll over and drop back down without remembering it. A three-year-old surfaces, notices the room is dark and that you are not in it, and goes looking.
What keeps them up is rarely the waking itself — it is what happens next. A lit kitchen, a conversation, a spell in your bed: all of it teaches that 2 a.m. is a social hour worth waking for.
Related prepared situations
What happened next?
From this collection
Same Words: Both Parents
45 prepared situations in this family area.