Feng Shui to Help Kids Sleep

[Backdated to May 15, 2013]

Ever since Bean got her new big girl bed 3 months ago, she's been having trouble with sleeping solidly - first it seemed to be more related to her naps, then it progressed into waking up several times in the night. Of course, on top of the bed changes and the feng shui issues I'll detail below, she's been getting her back molars (ouch!) and going through the that-thing-is-scary stage of being 3.

Poor Bean.

As I mentioned previously, when she first got her new mattress, it was placed right in the flow of chi between the window and the door, head to foot.

We then moved it to the corner farthest from the door, per feng shui. Results: a little better.

After a few weeks, we moved it upstairs to her big girl room. Ah, lots of sleep issues! But when we started having stints of both the kids up for 2-4 hours in the middle of the night, I progressively pushed harder to take action on Bean's space:

1. New nightlights
2. Air the room during the day
3. Clutter out of the hallway leading to room
4. Move extra items out of the closet, so it was just her stuff
5. Finally assembled the drawers and hung her clothes, so she could own the closet
6. Blackout curtains on the window (one night of peace)
7. Clean obvious clutter in garage underneath and sweep its floor (stagnation be gone!)

I began searching for feng shui cures:

1. Beware pointy things. Bean's bed happens to be located above the garage tool workbench, so I moved the pointy tools hanging on the workbench pegboard to be laying down instead of up so there weren't pointy things pointing up at her bed.
2. Hang pictures of family (see Karen Rauch Carter's cure for when a child's bed is nearer street than front door).

Ah... We would see improvement but nothing stable. I was so impressed by the elegance of Karen Rauch Carter's mention of how much it matters whether one's bed is "in front" of the front door - Bean seemed to be showing me over and over that her room didn't feel safe enough. So that became my new focus for her - increase the sense of safety. THEN:

1. Add the same sound machine she had in her nursery room to mask the street noise of passing trucks
2. Remove the picture above her bed and the corkboard above the couch - also making the room more hers
3. Hang some more pictures of family (because she wanted to) and her new painting (because she wanted to)

AND THEN SHE SLEPT THE WHOLE NIGHT!!!

Admittedly, her room is still above a section of the garage which needs to be reorganized, so there is more ahead, but it's so good to see some positive change!