Children who get a good night’s sleep are more likely to handle life’s everyday stresses and strains. They are likely to be better tempered on waking and may manage to get ready in the mornings with greater ease. Moreover, children and teenagers who sleep well often feel more confident; they show greater ability to learn academically and socially at school.
Some ideas about how to improve your child’s sleep
Switch off devices!
Stopping watching television or other screen devices (kindle, smartphones, tablets etc) an hour before bedtime reduces excessive stimulation; switching devices off may encourage the body’s natural response to tiredness. It is inadvisable to watch gory or unduly exciting programmes before bedtime; these tend to over stimulate and may inhibit rather than encourage sleep. The same is true if your child picks an exciting adventure story to read before bedtime; whilst the story may seem fun it is important to induce calmness at this stage as much as possible. You want to increase their ability to let go, relax and become naturally tired.
One way of expediting this is to have your child read to you and then ask them questions about the story: why did the horseman ride on to the next village? What did the old woman do that made her unpopular with local people etc? If your child doesn’t recall what happened then ask him or her to read that section aloud again – to find the answer.
NB its important that they do the reading – not you! Research suggests that doing this tends to hasten tiredness; it also helps develop memory and focus – useful for enhancing your child’s capacity to learn (as a parent you may need to supervise and vet suitable reading material for this purpose).
Relaxation
Sleepovers, which many children enjoy, can be unnecessarily arousing during school nights; usually they are best carried out at weekends and holiday breaks when schedules are more relaxed. Talking of relaxation, if your child has a very a busy schedule complete with several after-school activities and homework it’s probably worth factoring in some ‘down time’ where they can enjoy simply relaxing. This may be especially needed too in separated families where the children end up commuting regularly between households.
Remember going to bed is a process; having a regular bedtime routine will help your child. Slowly winding down before going to bed is likely to assist with ‘dropping off’ to sleep.
Over the coming weeks I will suggest some ideas for helping promote good sleep that use the senses and natural remedies. Some of these ideas are borrowed, some are mu own: my rule is – try everything and find what works for your child (or indeed yourself). For example: did you know that inexpensive lavender oil, whether applied onto skin, to pyjamas, added to bath water or used in a bedside burner, generally has a calming, sleep-inducing effect? Possibly worth investigating…
Look out for some further ideas on reading too in my next blog on sleep. Good sleeping everyone!
Best,
Jon
