The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep

While chatting with a friend from high school on Facebook about our children and how hard it is to get them to sleep at night another one of her friends mentioned a book to help get their child to sleep. The book is called The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep: A New Way of Getting Children to Sleep and it is written by a Swedish Psychologist (Carl-Johan Forssén Ehrlin). CBS News did a segment on this book and she gave it a try and has had great results. Here is the link to the video if you want to see it. 

With nothing to lose (but the $11) I went on Amazon and ordered it. Man, I love Prime because that book arrived the very next day. Seriously, if you don't have prime you should get it. I also suggest using Amazon Smile too. This way you can help out a non-profit organization of your choice while shopping.  

So this package was dropped off by UPS at 7pm and Liam was hyper as can be. Like bouncing off the walls hyper. I grabbed his little hand and took him to bed. We laid down and he was rolling all over the place. I was very doubtful that this book was going to put my son to sleep. I could see how it could work but really didn't think it would. You can clearly tell the book is using suggestive terms and is emphasized with how you are saying those works. At the beginning of the book it gives directions on how to read certain words. Bold words are to be emphasized while italicized words are to be said in a calm and slow tone. The book also tells you when to insert your child’s name into the story.  

After a while, they met the beautiful and wise Heavy-Eyed Owl again. Heavy-Eyed Owl told Roger the Rabbit, “I can see that you are tired, Liam, and that both of you are very close to falling asleep, now.”

Roger was very tired and slowly nodded his head, said yes, and felt how right Heavy-Eyed Owl was.  

I am well on my way to falling asleep now, you thought.

“Good night.” Said the wise Heavy-Eyed Owl. You are now shutting your eyes and yawning yourself to sleep. 

We are now half way thru the book and Liam is still acting wild (but rubbing his eyes). I realized I left the TV on with the sound of mute for light. So I flipped the TV on and turned on the bedside lamp. I really was hesitant about doing this because the light is a little bright and I wasn’t sure how this would help him go to sleep. I continued to read the book using soft and calm tones like the directions told me too. I was doing this all while Liam rolled on top of me and played with my hair.

Then something amazing started too happened. Liam started to settle down and rub his eyes more and more. At this point we were almost to the end and I really wished there were a few more pages because Liam was almost asleep. I think if we had turned the TV off at the beginning or at least earlier than we did he would have fallen asleep. I closed the book and gave him a kiss and walked upstairs to get him some water he asked for. By the time I got back down stairs he was out cold. I was amazed that a book could calm my crazy, wild child and actually encourage him to sleep.

This could have just been a fluke so I will continue to read the book each night to see if it continues to work. I will post an update at that time. If nothing else it will be a nice change up from the normal story of Winnie the Pooh or Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site.