WANT OF SLEEP


So far, almost all that has been written--and there has been a great
deal of unavoidable repetition--has been devoted to an attempt to
determine the causes which lead the child to refuse food and the
methods which we adopt to prevent or overcome the difficulty. Other
neuroses may be studied in less detail, because they depend for their
existence upon the same causes. For example, the habit of refusing
sleep, which is as common and almost as distressing as the habit of
refusing food, depends both upon a perversion of suggestion and upon
the phenomenon that we have called negativism.

If struggling and crying has occurred upon a series of nights, the
child comes to associate his bed not with sleep but with tears. If a
mother values her peace of mind, if she would spare herself the
discomfort of hearing her child sob himself nightly into uneasy sleep,
she must be wary how this all-important event of going to bed is
approached. With a nervous and restless child the preliminaries of
preparing for bed must be managed carefully and tactfully. The hour
before bedtime is almost universally the most interesting of the
whole day for the child. Then the baby, with his best frock on, and
books and toys, is the centre of interest in the drawing-room, till
the clock strikes and the nurse appears at the door. Suddenly it is
all over, and inexorable routine sends him off to bed. The good nurse
will give the child a little time to recover from the shock of her
arrival, and will not hurry him. She knows that his little mind is
slow to act, and that he must be led gradually to face a new prospect.
If she hurries him, catching him up in her arms from the midst of his
unfinished pursuits, resistance and tears are almost sure to follow,