Are you ready to get your child’s sleep back on track in time for school?
You’ve had a fun-filled summer and although you set out with the best intentions to stay consistent, your child’s bedtime started to drift later and later as the summer went on. No judgment here! I get it. The summer is short, heck the years are short!
But now the goal is to get your child back on track so that they can get to sleep at a reasonable time the day before they start school.
Here are my top 6 back-to-school sleep tips:
1. Set an Early Bedtime
First of all, I recommend that your kids should be going to bed somewhere between 7:00 and 8:00pm. And by that, I mean sleeping by 7 or 8 o’clock at night. And I suggest keeping that early bedtime until your child is about 12 years old.
There are two reasons why I think kids should be asleep by 8:00pm at the latest.
Reason #1: Children need 10-12 hours of sleep a night. And after working with many families, I find 10 hours to be on the lighter side, and that most kids actually need 11-12 hours of nighttime sleep.
So, if your child needs to be up by 7:00am in order to get ready for school, they should be asleep by 7:00 or 8:00pm so they can get those 11-12 hours of sleep.
Reason #2: You and your partner need (and deserve!) some kid-free time for a few hours a day. You need to be able to relax, watch a movie, and just do grown-up things to recharge your parenting batteries. It’s vital to your relationship with your partner and with your kids.
Now that we know when to put our kids to bed, let’s move on to the significantly more difficult issue of how.
2. Adjust Your Child’s Sleep Schedule Gradually
The easiest way to get back on track is by adjusting your child’s sleep schedule gradually. If your child has been going to bed around 9:00pm, try adjusting bedtime about 15 minutes earlier every 3-4 days until you’re back to the 7:00-8:00pm bedtime.
It can also be helpful to adjust the clocks in their room 15 minutes later each time you shift bedtime 15 minutes earlier. To your child, it may still seem as if they’re going to bed at 9:00pm.
If you’re reading this and don’t think you’ll have enough time to shift your child’s bedtime early enough in time for the first day of school, you can try a less gradual approach. Move your child’s bedtime 30 minutes earlier every 3-4 days until their bedtime sits between 7:00-8:00pm.
And don’t panic if your child doesn’t start sleeping later in the mornings right away. It may take about a week for your child’s body to adjust to the change.
3. Establish a Consistent Bedtime Routine
If you had an effective bedtime routine before summer break but let it slide, I encourage you to re-implement that same routine. Familiarity and consistency will definitely help your child settle back into the schedule quicker and with less resistance than trying something new.
On the other hand, if you’ve never done a bedtime routine with your child, this is a great time to start! Your child’s bedtime routine should be repetitive and predictable. For example, they have a bath, put on their PJ’s, brush their teeth, and read a story. When the same steps are done at the same time every single night, it acts as a cueing system for your child’s body and brain, and stimulates melatonin production, making sleep come easier.
4. Use a Timer
Although your child’s bedtime routine should be enjoyable, sometimes things like baths or stories are so enjoyable that your child doesn’t want them to end! If you find your child constantly negotiating for two more minutes in the tub or one more story, a timer can help keep things on schedule. Plus, it’s much easier to blame the end of bathtime on the timer. Afterall, Mom doesn’t always need to be the bad guy, right?
5. Turn Off Those Screens
Along with letting bedtimes drift later during the summer months, we also tend to ease up on the rules around screen time.
The thing about screens, whether they’re phones, TV’s, computers, or tablets, is that they emit a large amount of blue light. Our brains associate blue light with sunshine, and therefore daytime. So, when our children are having screen time before bed, it actually tends to wind them up when they should be settling down.
Try to avoid any screen time for at least one hour before bed.
6. Darken It Up
While we’re on the topic of light, depending on where you live, it may not get dark until significantly later than 8:00pm, and sunlight emits a massive amount of blue light. If there’s any amount of sunlight shining into your child’s room at bedtime, I suggest getting some blackout blinds and/or curtains. Tinfoil can be helpful to close the smaller gaps where light gets in. I’ve also had families secure a dark blanket or even super heavy dark trash bags to block out the light if they don’t want to buy blackout blinds or curtains. It’ll make a huge difference.
One final thing, beware that as you start to tighten up the rules around bedtime, you may get some resistance from your child. There’s a good chance they’ll come up with some clever reasons why they should be allowed to stay up later. But stay strong, mama, and don’t give in to the pressure, because as I said earlier, this 7:00 to 8:00pm bedtime is going to be in place for several years. The sooner they accept that as the norm, the easier this whole bedtime thing will be for you and for them.
Getting plenty of sleep will help your child maintain a strong immune system, have a more positive attitude, be more socially outgoing, and show up ready to learn.
If your child’s sleep has gotten way off track this summer and you need some help getting them sleeping again, book a FREE Sleep Evaluation Call with me. We’ll talk about what your child’s specific sleep struggles are and how we can help them start getting the sleep they need.