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Other Physical Issues

Insomnia & Sleep Issues

Helping a restless baby to sleep

Important Note: This article was written prior to 2010 and is now outdated. Please use my newest advancement, Optimal EFT. It is more efficient, more powerful and clearly explained in my free e-book, The Unseen Therapist™.  Best wishes, Gary

Sandy Kumskov (from Australia) uses EFT successfully to bring a much needed (and healthy) sleep pattern to a VERY restless 18 month old baby. Note that the baby would not allow tapping and so EFT was delivered surrogately through the mother. This was particularly insightful because Sandy intuited that the mother's anxiety was being reflected in the child. Through surrogate tapping via the mother, both mother and baby were likely to benefit.


By Sandy Kumskov

Morning Gary,

I recently worked with a little girl who was a really restless sleeper. Mum and baby had agreed to see me, encouraged by grandma whom I'd recently helped eliminate shingles pain. Mum was not convinced that "that tapping thing" would really help but she was desperately tired and willing to try anything.

At 18 months old the baby had never slept for longer than two hours. Her mum was exhausted and not coping with other issues in her life including, not surprisingly, great tension in her marriage and with step-children. Baby had been checked out by a GP and was pronounced very healthy.

While the real issue was probably the mum's constant high level of anxiety (always at an intensity of 5 with higher peaks, a lifelong pattern) being reflected by the baby, which mum was not willing to deal with until she felt she had more energy, I agreed to tap on the baby.

Well baby wasn't having any of it. She intercepted my hand every time I approached her. She was sitting on mum's lap so I had mum try tapping - same result. So we switched to surrogate tapping, mum tapping for the baby. I'm working through all the DVDs and have only seen reference to 'surrogate', so was winging it! We started very generally:

I am (baby's name).

Even though I never sleep for more than two hours at a time, I'm still a great kid.

Even though me not sleeping is wearing out my mum, I know my mum loves me.

At this point the baby started to doze off which "she sometimes does, for about 20 minutes", Mum still a bit skeptical. We kept going:

I am (baby's name).

Even though I only sometimes have short naps, I'm still a great kid.

Even though I only ever nap for 20 minutes, my mum loves me.

By now the baby was sleeping soundly, and we kept going. I asked mum what sleeping pattern she'd like to get for the most rest for herself and what she thought would be optimal for baby. Baby never went to sleep before 10.30 at night and was awake at 5am, with at least three half-hour wake-ups during the night. Mum wanted her in bed by 7pm, and to wake up at 7am, with a 1.5 - 2 hour nap in the middle of the day - this seemed reasonable to me.

So we tapped on everything, just as it occurred to me:

Even though I hardly ever nap during the day....

Even though I wake up often during the night....

Even though I'm hard to settle during the night...

Even though I never go to sleep before 10.30....

Even though I wake up at 5am when daddy gets up...

I now choose to go to sleep at 7pm every night....

I now choose to sleep soundly all night....

I now choose to wake up at 7am every morning....

Grandma visited at that point (letting herself in so baby wasn't disturbed) and was amazed to see baby asleep during the day, something she'd never seen. Baby slept on, and the session seemed at a natural end. I told mum she might need to do some tapping around some of the issues we'd tapped for. Mum carefully moved baby onto the couch and covered her with a rug, expecting baby to wake - she slept on.

That evening at about 8.30 Grandma phoned - baby had slept for 1.5 hours, and had happily gone to bed just after 8.00pm (uncle visited and baby played!) Three days later Grandma phoned again - for the third day in a row, baby was sleeping for 1.5 hours during the day, going to sleep at 7pm, waking not at 6:59, not at 7:01 but at 7:00 am. All, including hubby, are delighted. I hope it continues! I am however, wondering if this is a 'fake' pattern. I'm assuming that as baby grows and her necessity for all that sleep lessens, the pattern will gradually shift?

Sandy Kumskov

Brisbane, Holistic Counselor, NLP Practitioner, and enthusiastic EFTer on everything!

FOR MORE EFT HELP ...

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