Sleep Schedule: Helping Parents Create Healthy Bedtime Routines

Some types of play before bed may increase sleep difficulties

Sleep disturbances can be a caused by changes, growth spurts, fears, and problems at school. Sleep issues can lead to health concerns, behavioral issues, lower grades, dysregulation, and can create communication challenges. Not to mention the extra stress and frustration for wanting to help a child sleep who, for some reason, may fight their adults through the process. If you’re like many parents out there, you may be experiencing sleep difficulties with your child when it’s close to bedtime. In this post, we will be discussing a few factors of sleep routines and we will provide some tools that can be tailored to your families needs.

Fear and Anxiety

When a child is fearful of something, it can often affect their sleep. Whether related to monsters under the bed or a classroom bully, negative thoughts are more likely to surround us at night. I often hear from other parents that their child becomes a chatty Kathy before bedtime. Talking up a storm about classroom changes, a movie they watched, dynamics at play, etc. with idle hands and a full night ahead, their little minds are more likely to wander.

Does this sounds like your child?
​Leave space in your routine to talk about changes, monsters, big thoughts, hard feelings, or anything that could be on your child’s mind. Healthy healing and exploration will help them sleep better and help them feel more connected to you. 

Use of technology before bed may increase sleep disturbances

Control And Autonomy

Who doesn’t want to have a say in how their day goes? Our children have so many options made for them. From rules at school, adults at childcare, rules in the home, etc. it might feel endless to them. When homework is done and they are home they might have more of a say on their schedule and what they can do. Then it’s bedtime. And all of a sudden many kids will have a hard time transitioning into the bedtime routine and into bed.

Does this sound like your child?
If it does I highly recommend trying to give them some sense of control on their bedtime routine. Bedtime needs to happen for their health (and yours) but we can give them an either or that you can offer them. “Five more minutes of play, Henry, then it’s time to start getting ready for bed. Do you want to brush your teeth first or take a bath?” The options could change as they get older but the recipe remains the same. There’s a list of things to complete before lights out but sometimes the order is less important. When children can make a choice, they are more likely to transition to bedtime easier.

Sport and school stress is likely to compound sleep difficulties

Differences And Resistance To Change

While adults may have troubles adjusting to change, kids may have an even harder time. They thrive in consistency and the expectation of what is to happen next. Even positive changes can be hard on them (like holiday meltdowns). While change may need to happen, we can help kids process the change and help them prepare for the expected.

Sound like your child? 
Front loading change can be helpful for your child to expect differences and prepare for them. What may feel mundane to us may lead to big feelings for kids, especially younger children and kids on the neurodivergence spectrum. Did they expect to have their favorite blanket but it’s in the wash? Front load them. Planning to stay out of the home for vacation or because of schedule? Talk about it. The more your child can know and prepare for differences, the easier of a time they can have getting ready for bed. If in some cases, there is change that can’t be planned or prepared for, try to hold extra time and space for them to process. It sounds basic but acknowledging their thoughts and feelings goes a long way.

Consistency is key to helping kids regulate for sleep.

De-personalize The Hard

Just like with adults, it can be hard for kids to get ready for bed and try to fall asleep. Can we blame them? There is a lot going on in the world and home is their safe haven. Children are more likely to personalize the experience about you making them go to sleep. In essence, you may get blamed for ruining their fun and making them go to bed.

Sound like your child?  
With technology advancing, there are many options for using devices to back up the rules. For instance, in our house, the time for the red light goes on and we emphasize that it’s time for bed because of the light change. In your home, maybe a timer can go off or the clock may alert that it is time for bed. Perhaps it’s when the sun goes down. Whichever option you may use removes you and focuses on normalizing bed time. 

Whatever is used, the message is clear. It’s time for bed because it’s the healthy choice, it’s the norm, and because it is time. It’s hard to be in the thick of sleep issues. As these tips are written, let’s acknowledge that there is no perfect parent or perfect bedtime routine. Feel free to tailor these tools to fit into your home and individual needs. If you’d like further assistance, I highly recommend speaking to a therapist, pediatric doctor, and/or behavioral analyst for more tailored tools for your individual home.

​Stay well,

Author

Megan Bowling has acquired parenting tools through her education, more than twelve years of therapy experience working with youth,and being a parent herself. While there is no way to "parent perfectly" she hopes that her expertise helps you.