What Are Sleep Passes?

“Nothing is particularly hard if you break it down into small jobs. ”

— Henry Ford

It seems like for every win we have with sleep we end up with several failures!

Our kids will sleep great for several night, just long enough for us to get used to it and then, they fall off the cliff, up every night, early mornings and late nights. What happens? Why do they do this?

When we try to change a behavior (biting nails, smoking, bickering…) and fail, we get frustrated, we put in less effort and eventually give up thinking we can’t do it. If we define the goal as 100% perfection with no failures, that can be very stressful and failure is inevitable. Passes can bridge the gap between problem behavior and success. Passes provide just what we need to keep momentum, even with the occasional failure.

One of Claudia’s issues is that she used to get up a million times between 3:00-6:00am to potty, get water, snuggle. One of the ideas we had was providing her with a number of “get up” passes. For example, I gave Claudia as many passes as the number of times she normally woke up (20 is not unreasonable). She and I spent time making cute bedtime passes, decorating them and putting them on a hook on her door. We practiced with stuffed animals and her being in bed, bringing me the pass and then going back to bed. When she was on her last couple of passes, we would talk about how that meant she had to wait until her wake up time (Sleep Training Clocks).

That night, she brought me a pass every time she got up. This got her used to the pass system with complete success – no restriction on her getting up other than that she had to turn in a pass. She earned her reward if she brought me a pass every time she got up.

As time went on, I would take a pass, thus limiting the number

of times she was allowed to get up and still earn her reward.

I would tell her that I was taking a pass that day and talk about what “success” would mean at that point. We would celebrate the process of her needing fewer and fewer passes, and it was a great teaching opportunity to discuss with her that she was growing up like her siblings! When we limited her bedtime passes, something that helped to avoid/decrease her worries was to give her an option of how many passes she would like to have for the following night (ex: if she was at 6 bedtime passes, I would ask her if she wanted to now have 4 or 5).

Over time, she needed fewer and fewer passes. Eventually, she did not need any passes at all because she no longer got up before the appropriate time. If your child is unsuccessful and is getting up more than they have passes, you may have taken the passes too fast. I would give several passes back and start again, only slower. This strategy goes hand in hand with the Sleep Training Clock and Sleep Goals and Rewards strategies.

Keep this pass system in mind for

all the other goals and strategies.

All of my children now generally fall asleep without getting up, stay in bed all night (with the exception of bad dreams and potty accidents) and get up at 6:00am or later. Even our child who experiences the most challenges with staying in bed throughout the night stays in bed until her Sleep Training Clock turns on because she gets to watch a cartoon if she stays in bed! It took time, flexibility and creativity, but we have gotten there consistently now and I am so grateful!