“By the time Sarah was 12 we were at our wits end. I felt as if we had tried everything and nothing has worked, at least not for a long period.
Her problem was she was not able to get to sleep on her own, she has always been like this, there have been times when this has been better, not sure about worse!! This meant that me or her Dad needed to stay with her until she was asleep. If she woke up we needed to go back to her and it got to the point that I was staying with her all night, I was exhausted and so was she.
Background history..
I suffered with post-natal depression with my first son and it wasn’t until Sarah was born that I suddenly had a complete panic attack and thought I can’t do it again. My way of coping was to put an emotional wall around myself and not bond with her. I think subconsciously I felt that if I didn’t suffer that dreadful tearing of one’s heart when one’s baby cries and cries and you can’t do anything, I would be OK.
By the time Sarah was 3 months I realised she was nothing like my first who cried all the time. At this point I began to bond with her, but felt guilty for those early days and wondered if this had effected her.
When Sarah was 5 months old, I tried controlled crying and she cried for about 5 hours. I checked on her every 10 minutes or so as per the plan but she did not give up. Again I was concerned I had caused damage leaving her for so long?
I am very interested in complimentary therapies and I tried healing with Sarah on many occasions and used visualisations, meditations, all which she likes but it only helped temporarily… I have also taken her to practitioners for PLR, EFT (which helped for a short time), hypnotherapy, NLP and herbal medication and still most nights were disrupted.
When I came to your EFT course, Sarah was nearly 14. I suppose she was a little better but that was mainly because a friend who was struggling at home was virtually living with us and sleeping in Sarah’s room. The nights that her friend did not stay over we were always faced with the ‘ I cant sleep’ scenario.
So on the course Tamara asked who had any issues that we wanted to deal with. I had decided that I was going to talk about my throat blockage that bothers me but I strangely found myself saying:
‘I have an issue that is not really mine but it really effects me – my daughter has a great deal of difficulty sleeping’
You asked me if I had tried tapping on myself. My first thought was why? I said I hadn’t. After all its not my issue. You explained that sometimes parents, particularly mothers, sometimes find that working on how the mother feels about the child’s issue can release the child’ s issue. This is because of the deep connection a mother has with her child. Anyway we tapped on the issues I said were significant to me as a mother to Sarah.
Some of the EFT setup statements we tapped on included:
‘Even though I did not love Sarah straight away, I deeply and completely love and accept myself’
‘Even though I left her to cry, I am open to the possibility of forgiving myself’
‘Even though I feel guilty and it no longer serves me, maybe I can let this go’
‘Even though I am still trying to make up to Sarah for the time i believe we lost, I sooth and comfort myself’
It was very emotional and felt very cathartic.
Well, to cut a short story long…Sarah has been fine ever since!! It was some months before I dared say anything to her. When I did, she said, Oh you are right, I suppose I have grown out of it! I told her about the tapping and she was interested but a little skeptical.
The main thing is she sleeps and goes to bed every night on her own!! Happy Days.
What a miracle EFT is.”
The steps I suggest to working with children’s issues are:
- Tap with the mother on how she feels about the issue. The reason I suggest starting here is because when a child is suffering it is painful, sometimes unbearable for mums to witness this. They often feel powerless to do anything about it so to get rid of their pain they want to fix their child (I know this feeling from experience!). But actually the first place to start is with themselves. Once they have released their own pain they can be much more able to be present and supportive with their child and their child’s suffering. Sometimes the issue that the child is experiencing is triggering an old issue of the mother eg if the child is being bullied and the mother was bullied as a child, it can feel unbearable to watch their child experiencing the same.
- Do surrogate tapping with the mother for the child. This involves the mother tapping on behalf of the child (with permission if that is relevant). At the beginning of the session she would say “I am <child’s name>”. Then she would tap on whatever feelings and body sensations arise when she thinks about the issue (without thinking – what would my child think and feel). We would then tap on these in the usual way. When our daughter was younger, my husband and I did surrogate tapping for her on several occasions while she was in bed and in the morning, the issue was resolved 🙂
- Tap directly with the child.
Steps 2 and 3 may not be necessary after step 1.
For more information about sleep issues see:
Does your baby sleep through the night yet? Part 1
Does your baby sleep through the night yet? – Part 2 (EFT video)