It helps to know how to make room for painful feelings when you have baby or toddler sleep problems

Your emotions are like the weather

Our society often tells us that negative emotions are bad, a sign of our failure, and that we should try to get rid of them and live positively. But human emotions are like the weather. It's normal for powerful emotional storms to roll through our body. The trick is knowing two things,

• That the storm will pass

• And how to make sure the storm doesn't push us around, controlling our behaviours.

Otherwise, we might react in ways that we're embarassed about later on, as we try to avoid emotional pain. We might behave defensively, or aggressively, or unkindly - or we might run away when it would have been better to stay engaged.

Habitually trying to get rid of unpleasant or outrightly painful emotions can cause a lot of problems in life. For example, attempting to avoid unpleasant feelings lies at the root of addiction. Repeated attempts to avoid painful feelings can get in the way of creating the life we want to live, a life that is rich and full and meaningful, and aligned with our values.

How to make room for unpleasant feelings and sensations when you have baby or toddler sleep problems

The physical sensations that come along with sleep deprivation, exhaustion and despair when we have baby or toddler sleep problems can be quite unbearable.

It's very tempting to try to get rid of these painful feelings! This is why the promise of a quick fix seems so seductive. It's just that quick fixes often don't help, and can actually make things worse when it comes to baby or toddler sleep challenges.

Here are some ideas for allowing those unpleasant emotions and feelings to sit within your body, without immediately trying to get rid of them.

• Pay close attention to the sensation of the feeling, where it is located, whether or not it has borders, whether or not it has a colour, whether it is sharp or dull or a kind of empty heavy space.

• Notice your breath, in and out. Imagine your breath tenderly surrounding the sensation, making room for it in your body. You might like to imagine you are breathing in a healing light which creates space around it.

• Expand your attention to include as many other things as you can notice in the present moment. This includes other bodily sensations: your feet on the floor, the weight of your body in the chair. What can you hear? What can you see around you? Pay very close, even scientific, attention to the things around you, even as you intermittently notice the emotion you're feeling, too.

• Move, noticing the sensations of your body moving, in your joints, in your limbs. You might stretch, or take a little walk.

• Try placing a hand over your heart in a gesture of profound self-compassion.

I suggest working step-by-step through The Possums Sleep Program over the coming days, to address the underlying problems that can result in painful feelings of sleep distress when you have a baby or toddler.

The information and suggestions in the Caring for you collections within The Possums Sleep Program are not a substitute for health professional support, though I'd still suggest try them out! If you have concerns about your own mental health and wellbeing, please talk this over with your GP.

Recommended resources

How mindfulness works to overcome painful emotions. Professor Steve Hayes, founder of ACT.

Monsters on a boat. Dr Russ Harris

The choice point. Dr Russ Harris

Recommended resources, acknowledgements, and selected references for the articles in the Caring for you section of The Possums Sleep Program are found here, including selected research evaluations of both Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Compassion-focused Therapy in the perinatal period.