What is Your Child Developmentally Ready For?
Most parents have some kind of goal or expectation in regards to sleep. Maybe you want your baby to sleep in their crib 12 hours overnight, or fall asleep without feeding. Perhaps you’d love it if your toddler would go to bed at a specific time without a struggle or actually stay in their own bed overnight.
Culturally, there are so many expectations around what infant and toddler sleep “should” look like. But, what can you actually expect of your infant or toddler based on biology and development? If you listen, your child will tell you exactly what they are comfortable with, what they might be ready to learn with your help, and what they are definitely not ready for yet!
“What a child can do in cooperation today, he can do alone tomorrow.”
The Sleepy “Zone of Proximal Development”
Originally developed by Psychologist Lev Vygotsky — An infant or child’s Zone of Proximal Development refers to the difference between what they are able to accomplish on their own, what they can accomplish with guidance and encouragement from a parent or carer, and what they are not developmentally ready for even with help.
The idea being that, to learn, we must be challenged with tasks or skills that are just barely beyond our range of ability - but not so far that it is totally overwhelming or developmentally inappropriate.
This concept can easily be applied when you are considering making changes to your infant or toddler’s sleep. Here’s how —
Making Changes To Your Child’s Sleep
The Sleepy “Zone of Proximal Development” is a helpful reflective tool to help you find the “learning zone” - the place where you can lovingly and gently nudge your little one to help them reach a smaller goal - rather than pushing them too much or forcing them to leap for a goal that may be well beyond their developmental reach.
Think of this as rungs on a ladder. If you asked your child to grab the top rung without climbing up all of the other incremental rungs - it would be impossible and likely cause more tears and frustration for everyone involved.
Instead, reflect on and consider what smaller steps or bite-sized goals might help you all to incrementally move toward that goal. Most importantly, this encourages attunement to your child, respect for their current developmental stage, and encourages growth that is not forcing, but is kind, gentle, and acknowledges their individual needs and capabilities.
The beauty of it is that you can always revisit this to reflect and reassess - and it doesn’t have to be just for sleep! Reflect on this today and then set a reminder in your phone for a few weeks or months from now. You might be surprised just how far you and your child have come. It’s the little things that make up the joys and wonders of life - don’t forget to celebrate them!
