Parents, Sleep Wellness Begins With You
Parents, are you honoring the importance of sleep with your children? Here are some tips on instilling an appreciation for bedtime and the power of sleep in your family.
As a parent, loving and protecting a child is an empowering decision for you and your child.
Something powerfully human, something reflexive, seems to happen while gazing down into the eyes of their newborn child. Our determination to attend to their needs stimulates us to watch and learn their subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle grating ways of communicating them. We learn from our culture and our support systems ways to interpret them and comfort them. We learn ways to assist them to sleep; some of these ways are more effective than others.
Let's review some basic activities that have proven effective over time. They are powerful, in large part, because they tie into human chemical and physical reflexes.
Welcome in exposure to the morning sunlight.
As the blue-gray light of dawn breaks, it significantly impacts our bodies and health. You might have experienced the harsh sensation of someone turning on the lights abruptly in the middle of the night, as our eyes become extremely sensitive to even the slightest light during the night. This sensitivity is called Central Sensitization, in which the central nervous system amplifies sensory input across many organ systems. The eyelids can only partially block out light, and we are especially sensitive to the blue spectrum, which dominates the light at dawn. This helps to regulate our circadian rhythm, initiating the new day's cycle of rhythmic temperature changes, metabolic changes, and wakefulness. Open the curtains and let the new day dawn on your child.
Similarly, the red spectrum of light from the setting sun makes the body more receptive to rest and sleep. Exposing children to sunlight throughout the day is beneficial.
Limit exposure to blue light on screens around bedtime.
The modern habit of entertaining ourselves by exposing our eyes to the blue light of screens that broadcast media, such as TVs, phones, and tablets, confuses and disrupts our balance and promotes sleeping problems, including various forms of insomnia.
Use the bathing ritual to shift into bedtime and align with the natural temperature before sleep.
The human circadian rhythm consistently has a temperature drop in the early evening that precedes the sleep hour. The temperature drop may not be causal, but when you simulate and accentuate it by giving children a bath at bedtime, it can become a powerful tool for parents to create a seamless transition from waking to sleeping. Like Pavlov's dogs, upon hearing the bath water running, the child can be conditioned to anticipate the joys of preparing for sleep and the associated tremendous pleasure and difficult-to-describe feeling of vitality that attends waking from a pleasant night of good sleep. It is like the euphoria of feeling grateful to be alive and hence closer to Spirit. When you feel it, you know it.
Make massage a part of grooming before bed for bonding and much more.
When we experience massage on the skin, a basic reflex of the human body connected to our chemistry releases the hormone oxytocin in our brains. Oxytocin is generally associated with pleasurable feelings and activities promoting bonding. Apes, for example, that experience the most physical touch in the form of grooming from their fellow apes will also display increased bonding with custodial and protective behaviors. This will, in turn, decrease the physical space between themselves and others.
Combining the bath with an extended period of massage afterward is another powerful method of promoting Sleep Wellness for our children. We massage the baby after the bath by rubbing, patting, and drying them with towels, subsequently rubbing them down and applying lotion to replenish the natural oils displaced by bathing. This soothing combination connects the child to us and adds to the pleasure of rituals associated with sleeping well.
Make them tight and snug to induce sleep.
Tucking in with tightly applied blanketing or clothing snugly applied to the child's body is an age-old technique of mimicking the safety of the womb that has been useful in helping children transition to sleeping seamlessly. It eases the anxiety associated with the transition of going to sleep. Be mindful that this anxiety is enhanced many times over when going to sleep is initiated much later than would be healthy (as discussed in “When Your Sleep Window Opens – Don't Let It Close Without You!”)
Reframe disappointments of the day.
We can distract our children from their concerns and challenges of the day that did not meet their expectations by helping them shift their perspective at bedtime. When parents take the time in the evening to recast perceived disappointments as positive experiences and learning opportunities, children can unburden themselves before sleep. Parents can give an alternative, more mature view and a more optimistic understanding that prevents children from misconstruing, cementing, and disproportionately magnifying negative experiences.
Like lamenting the loss of a loved one: "Yes, Grandma is no longer with me, but she loves me, hugged me, and taught me to play patty cake." The child then falls asleep feeling grateful, safe, and loved. Shifting their feeling and perspective is a Cognitive Behavior Therapy method psychologists call reframing. Bedtime stories with happy endings also help parents reframe what seems terrible into a positive outcome. This reconnection by bonding at the end of the day reminds us to continue reframing and focusing on feeling safe, loved, and cared for.
Teach gratitude to release worry and stress before sleep.
Consider applying one of the tools I have asked my patients to consider for their Sleep Wellness journey to your child - gratitude - because the person who falls asleep feeling grateful tends to sleep more comfortably than the person who transitions to sleep mindlessly or with worrisome thoughts. The daily cares are stamped into our consciousness with passion and a sense of urgency. With mental notetaking and language such as, "I have to do this, and I need to do that," feelings morph into stress that some penalty will be incurred. Going to sleep does not mean the brain will stop wrestling with what must be done or going undone.
Gratitude facilitates letting go of worry and problem-solving thoughts, inviting the sleep that allows the mind to grow and work on it and awake with answers to your problems or feeling refreshed to take on the issues with renewed perspectives. The person who falls asleep feeling grateful sleeps more deeply. Gratitude is a cornerstone of Sleep Wellness.
Provide a safe space for sleep.
No matter what a child encounters during the day, if they can have a safe space to retreat and sleep deeply, they have a better chance to heal, repair, and become more resilient. As parents, it is a primary responsibility to ensure that your child's sleeping location feels safe and secure. A safe space for sleep is another cornerstone of Sleep Wellness.
Other subjects covered in our Parent's Guide are:
Tips for parents of tweens and teens.
How parents can lead by example and model sleep wellness in the family.
Ways parents are unintentionally sabotaging children's bedtime and sleep.
The negative impact of making sleep a punishment.
Why is it healthy to allow children, especially tweens and teens, to sleep in as long as they want outside of school days?
Why do children (and parents) sometimes need an earlier bedtime?