OK, confession time. With the nuttiness of COVID-19 summer, my family and I have been spending A LOT of time together. And I have let my typical commitment to sleep routines slide. Like…a lot. I know what you’re thinking: “Wait, you’re a sleep doctor! Why are you messing this up?” Well, the short answer is that we’ve got a new playbook now. The rules of COVID have meant long, unstructured days, with me and my partner trying to squeeze in work where we can, and having little energy left at the end of the day to face the battle of enforcing the sleep routine.
So there you go, that’s my confession. It’s been rough, guys!
What I know, and you also know, is that this can be fixed. Sleep and kids, while challenging, can be modified with a few behavioral tricks. And the good news is that you already know all of these tricks! But with school (or whatever version of remote learning your family is attempting this fall) starting up in the next few weeks, I thought we could all use a refresher on how to help the terrorists (ahem..I mean, children) in our life get their much needed rest. We know sleep helps kids perform better in school. So let’s roll up our sleeves and do this!
1) Have a routine. This one is obvious, right? But the body’s circadian rhythm doesn’t take very long to entrain itself back to, well, a rhythm. So talk to your partner or whoever else is helping you with childcare duties and negotiate a bath time and bedtime that are going to work for your family. Be realistic about what it will take to get dinner on the table, finish homework, clean up, etc. Stick to a regular bedtime and wake time, and within 5-7 days, your child’s body will adjust.
2) Set a soothing wind down ritual. Kids need time to transition. Any parent who’s dealt with a transition tantrum knows this. Well, turns out our brains and bodies need a calm down routine to ready ourselves for the transition to sleep. So if you’ve fallen off the routine, recreate it. The old standby routines are bath, brush teeth, pajamas, read story, bed. But you can modify that to your liking. We sing lullabies before bed. I’m usually nodding off myself after the 2nd song. 🙂
3) Talk to your kids about the importance of sleep. You can start to reason with kids as early as 3-years-old. Tell your child how important sleep is for their bodies and brains to work. Tell them the cool research about how your brain is bathed in cerebrospinal fluid during REM sleep, which is like a carwash for the brain! Or the way growth hormone is stimulated during the non-REM deep sleep to repair tissue damage from the day, which is like eating fruits and veggies to get your nutrients! Obviously adjust the above language to be age-appropriate for your child. But try to get their buy in. It might work!
4) Be patient with yourself and them. These bad COVID summer habits didn’t set in overnight. It may take a week or two to get back on track. Just know that you can do this, and that their little bodies (and our bodies for that matter) crave routine, so if you stick with it, it will work!
Good luck!
