Parenting Pointers: 5 Tips to Help Your Kids Sleep Better

While getting enough sleep is important for anybody, developing children need their sleep – 9-11 hours a night, in fact.

Sleep disturbances are prevalent throughout society, but ask any parent of a young child – getting enough sleep for parents and children alike is likely to be a major issue.

However, you don’t have to go through life in a zombie-like state if you have young children.

Many parents are not aware of the steps they can take to encourage better nighttime sleep by their children. There are steps you can take to ensure that your children sleep well and soundly.

Get a Red Night Light
At first, this may seem like a trivial issue. Who cares what color a night light is? Don’t people have anything more important to worry about?

However, it turns out that the color of a night light can have a tremendous impact on your child’s ability to sleep.

Surprisingly, blue nightlights affect the sleep hormone melatonin and result in waking up at dawn.

In contrast, a red night light has little effect on melatonin levels and does not interfere with sleep.

Eliminate Screens Two Hours Before Bed
Computer, tablet, and phone screens emit – you guessed it – blue light. Here we go again with blue light inhibiting the production of melatonin and keeping your children awake.

Standard advice from sleep specialists is to avoid screens for 1-2 hours before bed. If your child does use view a screen close to bed, it can cause a delay of at least an hour in falling asleep.

Create a Bedtime Routine
Creating a routine is especially important for younger children – infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Consider doing specific things – like having a story time – before bed.

Your little ones will come to associate those activities with sleep and will find them comforting and relaxing.

If all goes well, your child’s body may automatically start becoming sleepy at the start of their routine, and they will go soundly to sleep!

Give Them a Bath
A warm bath can set the stage for falling asleep. A drop in body temperature is a signal that bedtime is approaching. And when your body senses that, it releases melatonin.

If you give your child a warm bath 1-2 hours before bedtime, it will first raise their body temperature. But then their body temperature will start to drop.

You should see a series of yawns as your child grows increasingly sleepy.

It is important to give them a warm and not a hot bath. Too much heat will keep them awake.

Individualize Your Child’s Bedtime
One size fits all does not work for the sleep routines of adults or children. Many people are hardwired to be early risers or night owls, and as much as you try to get them to sleep at your idea of the right time, they will fall asleep on their own cycle.

An early riser will still get up early even if you put them to bed later, while a night owl will fall asleep later no matter when you put him or her to bed.

Know your children’s sleep cycle, so you can be sure that they get enough rest.

These tips are not just for children. You can apply some of them to your life to help you sleep better, too!