Let's face it. Every parent knows that life is better, parenting is easier and the sun shines brighter when you are getting sleep at night. And for parents to get sleep, their kids need to be sleeping well at night. Therein lies the challenge. Today in my Transracial Adoption ABCs, I am going to write about sleep.

Sleep - If you go to Adoptionshop.com and search for "sleep", you will get over 50 products, most of which are books that try to teach parents how to get their kids to sleep, and this is certainly not an issue special to adoptive parents. If you join any parenting group or new moms' group, one of the most common topics is going to be sleep (or the lack thereof).

However with adopted children, sleep can be even more complicated than usual. When you stop and think about it, it is not hard to imagine why.

Most people do not sleep as well as they could when they are in a new place. Kids especially tend to like things to be familiar and predictable when it comes to sleep. For a newly adopted child, nothing is familiar and nothing feels like "home".

Kids often do not sleep well when they are going through big changes or upheaval, and let's face it, when a child is adopted their entire life is changed.

Anxious attachment, or fear that a new parent is going to suddenly disappear can make sleep challenging, too. Many children, when they first come home, feel a panicked need to always have their new parents very close by, and waking up in the middle of the night alone can be traumatic and cause them to not want to go to sleep at all.

When Belane first came home, she had to have as much of her body as possible in contact with my body for her to be able to relax and fall asleep.

With young children, night feedings can make sleep challenging. In many orphanages, young babies tend to be brought in very small and malnourished, and are then fed around the clock at the orphanage. Bringing home a baby that is used to eating every three hours all day and all night can be tough on everyone.

It is also very common for older children to feel emotional at night. During the day, kids can be good at keeping themselves busy playing and engaging in activities, but at night when all gets quiet, their emotions can overwhelm them. Bedtime is a very common time for older kids who were recently adopted to want to talk about their feelings, cry, feel scared and be very emotional.

It is easy when you stop and think about it all to see why sleep can be so challenging in newly adopted children.

So what's a parent to do? Although you can't force a child to sleep (unfortunately) there are lots of things that can be done to help build healthy sleep habits for you and your child. See my next post for lots of tips, and you can also check out the posts below for lots of reading on adoption, kids and sleep.

Sleep and Adopted Children Part One

Sleep and Adopted Children Part Two

Sleep and Adopted Children Part Three