Sleep.

As all parents can tell you…sleep…how much or how little and what quality is being had and by whom… has a direct impact on family life.

When people ask about daily life in our house and how we stay sane with 10 kids, I always say that I don’t mess with two things…meals and sleep.

While most parents expecting a newborn baby are aware of the fact that their sleep is going to be significantly impacted, adoptive parents should also be prepared for sleep struggles in the beginning, no matter what age of child they are adopting.

When a child has a big change in their life, their sleep is often impacted. So when a child is newly adopted, and their entire life has changed…everything from their home, the people they life with, the food they eat, the language they hear, etc, it is very likely that their sleep will be affected.

Even children adopted domestically are facing huge changes in their lives and often encounter sleeping difficulties.

Most of us know what it feels like to try and go to sleep in a strange place. For newly adopted children it isn’t just that they are in a new and different place, but that the circumstances are often drastically different as well.

Children adopted from orphanages are used to sleeping in rooms with lots of other children, sometimes even with other children in their beds. They are typically used to lots of noise (crying, snoring, coughing, etc.) and a strict and structured routine that is not to be messed with. Children from orphanages are also typically used to having to fall asleep on their own without cuddling, rocking, etc. and can often have some self-soothing behaviors such as rocking back and forth or head banging.

Children that were in foster care in Asia or South America are probably used to sleeping in a family bed, and having other warm bodies to snuggle with and hearing the sounds of other people sleeping very close by.

If you stop and think about it, it is not hard to imagine how difficult it would for a child used to sleeping in an orphanage or in a family bed to all of a sudden be put in a crib alone, in a strange room, with no one else around and to be expected to go to sleep. You can imagine that they would likely feel scared and lonely.

And in addition to the newness of everything, the drastic changes in their life and being used to sleeping with other people close by, most newly adopted children also have some level of anxiety about Mom and/or Dad disappearing. It is very common for kids, even kids who are doing very well during the day, to have their anxieties surface or heighten at night time.

Continued...