Adjusting a child’s bedtime

March 7, 2018 by Angela Walsh Leave a Comment

Daylight Saving Time. Are you Ready?

Has anyone noticed how quickly Daylight Saving Time is creeping up? Did you know it takes place this Sunday, March 11th? I’m not really sure I’m ready to get up in the dark again, and to loose an hour. And what about young families who struggle with their children getting used to the new time? Those are definitely negatives. But in the end we all know it’s worth it to have those longer evenings and lots of daylight!

So what should you do to prepare your children for the time change? Starting tonight, begin putting them to bed 15 minutes earlier than usual. If they always have gone to bed at 7, tonight it will be 6:45. The following night make it another 15 minutes earlier and so on, until they are going to bed, one full hour earlier from when you started.

For adults and children, it can take our bodies a few days to adjust to time changes; it’s good to get an early start on Daylight Saving Time. Initially your child may not feel sleepy, or be able to settle and fall asleep as easily with this change, therefore household activities need to change as well!

What you can do:

Serve dinner earlier

Dim the lights in the house

Turn electronics off

Begin the bedtime routine earlier and increase the time you spend

By doing all these things, you allow your child’s body to begin the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone.

Your child’s internal sleep clock is set by light and dark, so not only do you want to make the house dark at night in preparation for sleep, you also want to expose your child to as much sunshine and daylight as possible. This will reprogram your child’s clock and get him or her adjusted to the new time. Now you can be ready to welcome spring and summer, and the long evenings they bring!

Let me know if you have other tips to help kids adjust to the time change.

Angela Walsh is a Family Sleep Institute, Certified Infant and Child Sleep Consultant and the founder of Babes in Sleepland. She helps sleep deprived babies, children and families, get back on track and get the sleep they need and desire. To learn more about Angela and how she can help you, visit her website: babesinsleepland.com Also get sleep tips, the latest research on baby and child products, and be part of her weekly Q and A at her Facebook page: Babes in Sleepland.

March 8, 2016 by Angela Walsh Leave a Comment

Daylight Saving-Tips for Helping Your Family Feel Rested When the Time Changes

dreamstime_xs_39818544 Spring means Daylight Saving and with it comes longer days. This year we turn the clocks forward on Sunday, March 13, losing an hour and resetting our inner clocks for the shift in days ahead. This can be a challenge for adults and children, and takes some people a few days to adjust while others may take a week. The best thing to do is to be prepared and get a jumpstart on the shift, making a smooth transition for everyone.

With babies and toddlers, even the one-hour time change can throw off their schedule if you are not ready for it. For example, if your child normally goes to bed at 7:30 pm, that will suddenly be 8:30 pm on March 13^th and your family will have some late evenings unless you already have your child’s sleep adjusted. By using the next few days to plan ahead, you can adjust bedtime gradually and have your child on the new schedule before the change even takes place.Starting tonight put your child down to bed fifteen minutes earlier than usual. Using the 7:30 bedtime, you would have your child in bed at 7:15. Each night, shift bedtime fifteen minutes earlier until you have your child going to bed a full hour before her winter bedtime.

Initially, your child may not feel sleepy or be able to settle and fall asleep as easily with this change, so make sure all the other household activities are changing as well. For example, meals should be earlier, turning the lights down in the house, turning off electronics, starting the bedtime routine. These are all the things that act as cues for your baby or child to know it’s getting close to bedtime. By dimming rooms in the house, and turning off TV’s, computers, and other such types of devices will allow your child’s body to begin the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone.

Our child’s internal sleep clock is set by light and dark, so not only do you want to make the house dark at night in preparation for sleep, you also want to expose your child to as much sunshine and daylight as possible. This will reprogram your child’s clock and get her adjusted to this new time change.

When everyone in the house is still on schedule when Daylight Saving and March 13th arrives, you will be thanking yourself for the work you did in advance. In addition to keeping the family bedtime, mornings will not be rushed when everyone’s day starts an hour earlier. You and your child will be ready to start spring, refreshed and well rested!

Let me know if you have other tips to help kids adjust to Daylight Saving.

Angela Walsh is a Family Sleep Institute, Certified Infant and Child Sleep Consultant and the founder of Babes in Sleepland. She helps sleep deprived babies, children and families, get back on track and get the sleep they need and desire. To learn more about Angela and how she can help you, visit her website: babesinsleepland.com. Also get sleep tips, the latest research on baby and child products, and be part of her weekly Q and A at her Facebook page: Babes in Sleepland and follow her on Twitter

November 10, 2015 by Angela Walsh Leave a Comment

Sleeping Well Through the Holidays

Halloween has come and gone which means Thanksgiving is just around the corner. As we begin to decorate the house and stock up on groceries, you may already feel the excitement rising. Although we love everything that comes with the holiday season, it can mean additional difficulties when it comes to sleep.

As a mother of four, I understand the holidays can be challenging with regards to proper sleep hygiene. Therefore, my suggestion to the parents I work with is, do your best to get your child onto a solid sleep schedule prior to the start of the holidays, and do your best to stick with it. Children who are overtired may become cranky and hyperactive. Not the lovely, adorable side of them you hope to show while visiting grandparents. Having your child well rested will be to everyone’s benefit.

Don’t let visits cancel out nap time
During the holidays, your house may be buzzing with family and friends. If people are in the house during your child’s regular nap time, it can be easy to begin pushing back your child’s nap to a later time, or skipping it all together. Also, with extra people and noise in the house, your child may find it more difficult to settle down. If possible, do your best to schedule these visits after their regular nap schedules. Keep sleep a priority which will keep everyone happy and more importantly, healthy!

If no one else is going to bed yet
If your holiday includes sleepovers with older cousins who have later bedtimes, your child may resist going to sleep for fear of missing out. You know FOMO (don’t we all experience it at times?) If this is the case, take more time with the bedtime routine. Expect that and plan for it. If your child senses that you’re in a hurry to get back to the activity, they will want to as well. They also might feel slightly displaced if you’ve had to give a lot of your attention to others, so they may demand more of your attention than normal. Spend time reading them their favorite story (maybe more than once!) discussing the day’s events, an extra cuddle, and reassure them that the older kids will be going to bed soon. Remember, extra time spent with them at bedtime and a longer soothing routine will help your child relax and fall asleep much easier. There’s bound to be more noise than usual in your house with the added people, so turn on two sound machines to block the noise. One in your child’s room and the other just outside their bedroom door.

Trying to sleep in an unknown place
If your holidays are taking place at another family’s home, your child may find it difficult adjusting to a different bed. Bring along a stuffed animal, favorite blanket, and sheets from your child’s bed at home to provide some familiarity and comfort for bedtime. If you’re unsure how dark the room will be, you can make your own black-out shades using dark green or black garbage bags and masking tape. You want to create as dark a room as possible, in order to promote the production of melatonin (the sleep hormone,) in your child’s body,

Visiting family in a different time zone
If your holidays include traveling to friends or family in a different time-zone, you may need to start making an adjustment to their schedule beforehand, so that they can smoothly ease into the time difference. Begin the process a few days to a week before, (depending on how many time zones you’ll be crossing.) Progressively pushing sleep time slightly ahead or behind by 15 minutes per day.

Planning ahead

Preventing your child from becoming overtired, staying on a regular nap and bedtime, will make things pleasant and enjoyable for everyone. But it can easily happen that during this special time of year, bedtimes can be later than normal and naps can be missed. If your child is well rested from the start, they will be able to handle these schedule changes much better. So try to plan ahead and make sure your child is getting the restorative and consolidated sleep they need before the celebrations begin!

October 22, 2015 by Angela Walsh Leave a Comment

It’s Not Too Late to Prepare Your Little One for the Time Change

We will be turning our clocks back to standard time on Sunday November 5th. This is good news in that we get an extra hour of sleep Sunday morning. However, for babies and little children, unless you have begun to reset their internal time clock, they will still wake up at their normal time. But it is not too late to start adjusting their schedule, so that by Sunday morning, you may all get that extra 60 minutes, that we all so crave!

Begin tonight by serving dinner earlier. Turn down the lights in the house in the hours leading up to bedtime, and have electronics turned off. These are all the things that act as cues for your baby or child to know it’s getting close to bedtime. By dimming rooms in the house, and turning off TVs, computers and other such devices, it will allow your child’s body to begin the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone.

Since your child’s internal sleep clock is set by light and dark, not only do you want to make the house dark at night in preparation for sleep, you also want to expose your child to as much sunshine and daylight as possible. This will reprogram your child’s clock and get them adjusted to this new time change.

Keep in mind that time changes can affect both your body clock and health. Similar to the feeling of jet lag one experiences when traveling to a different time zone, switching from daylight saving time to standard time, can leave you feeling tired; making it more difficult to concentrate or be productive at work. For children, the hour change to their sleeping schedule, can leave them tired and cranky for several days.

So in preparation for this time change, on November 5th at 1:00am, the best thing you can do is begin to stagger your child’s bedtime so that they are going to bed about 15 minutes earlier each night. If you begin this process now, you will be ahead of the game by aligning your child’s circadian rhythms with the new time change.

Besides the time changes that take place when we switch between daylight saving, standard time and back-children often have difficulty settling into a good sleep pattern. This can lead them and their parents to become sleep deprived, hyperactive, trouble focusing on daily tasks and higher learning, and in more serious situations-health issues such as diabetes,obesity,anxiety, depression and attention deficit disorder.

If you feel your child or family could benefit from the assistance of a child sleep specialist, take a look through my sleep success plans or contact me for further information.

Angela Walsh is a Family Sleep Institute, Certified Infant and Child Sleep Consultant and the founder of Babes in Sleepland. She helps sleep deprived babies, children and families, get back on track and get the sleep they need and desire. To learn more about Angela and how she can help you, visit her website: babesinsleepland.com. Also get sleep tips, the latest research on baby and child products, and be part of her weekly Q and A at her Facebook page: Babes in Sleepland.

Like me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter for daily updates on interesting tips and information to help you and your child sleep better.

September 3, 2015 by Angela Walsh Leave a Comment

Back-To-School and Back to a Sleep Schedule

It seems like just yesterday we were talking about how to prepare for sleep issues your children may face as they start their summer vacations. As they say, time flies when you’re having fun.

As you can imagine, transitioning a child into “back-to-school” mode after a long summer of fun activities can be difficult on many levels. The recommendation I give to my parents with regards to sleep, is to approach the transition gradually. Progressively changing sleep time slightly ahead, will make the shift much less abrupt for your child.

During the summer months, it’s easy for us to be less concerned about our child’s bedtime. If they didn’t have to get up as early for camp, or if they were having a later afternoon nap, they may have gotten into the habit of falling asleep at a later time. If you transition their bedtime back to “school time” too abruptly, this could cause them difficulty falling asleep, and potentially lead to your child resisting going to bed.

In the few days, or one week leading up to school, begin to adjust your child’s bedtime gradually. Intervals of 15-30 minutes each night is a moderate approach that should be easy for your child to handle. Each night, have your child go to bed 15-30 minutes earlier, and each morning begin getting them up 15-30 minutes earlier, until they are back on track with their school sleep schedule.

How Else Can You Help With the Adjustment?

Start a New Book for Back-to-School
When you are going “back-to-school” shopping, pick out a new bedtime story or novel to read together at bedtime. This may give your child something to look forward to when they go to bed at night. Be sure to tuck them in comfortably, before you begin to read, so they can settle into sleep once you have finished reading.

Keep the Blinds Closed
Because the days are still long in September, be sure to keep your child’s blinds closed when they go to bed. Sunlight can prohibit the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone, so make sure their room is nice and dark!

Help Manage Anxiety
Kids going back to school, or young ones heading to school for the first time, may experience some anxiety. This anxiety could be brought on by the change to their schedules, or the thought of the unknown experiences they are about to face. This anxiety may keep them up at night if they are constantly running through “what ifs?” in their head before they fall asleep. Be sure to talk to your child about any concerns they may have, so they can talk things through with you. Speaking with Mom or Dad can often help put a child’s mind at ease. A tip: visually walk your child through their first day back at school. This is an excellent exercise that can help your little one feel better prepared for back to school, and hopefully help to manage some of that anxiety they may be feeling.

Be Consistent
Once your child is back to their school sleep schedule, be consistent with their bedtime. Be mindful of extracurricular activities, as these can often have you and your child busy with activities until later in the evening. Try also to keep dinnertime at the same time each night. This can be challenging, but the more consistent you can be with all activities, the more consistent your child’s sleep schedule will be, and ultimately the better rested they will be.

Your children going back to school, or starting school for the first time is a big adjustment for everyone. In addition to a change in their schedule, parents emotions may be running high as they realize their little ones are growing up. A good night sleep will allow your body to get the proper rest, and recovery required to handle this adjustment in your lifestyle. As you work to regulate your child’s sleep schedule, don’t forget parents need sleep too. My sleep success plans and one-on-one training, can help get your entire family back to sleep. I offer a variety of plans to help suit anyone’s budget or unique needs, and always look forward to working with new families.

Please let me know if you found this information helpful.

Angela Walsh is a Family Sleep Institute, Certified Infant and Child Sleep Consultant and the founder of Babes in Sleepland. She helps sleep deprived babies, children and families, get back on track and get the sleep they need and desire. To learn more about Angela and how she can help you, visit her website: babesinsleepland.com. Also get sleep tips, the latest research on baby and child products, and be part of her weekly Q and A at her Facebook page: Babes in Sleepland.

Daylight Saving Time. Are you Ready?

Daylight Saving-Tips for Helping Your Family Feel Rested When the Time Changes

Sleeping Well Through the Holidays

It’s Not Too Late to Prepare Your Little One for the Time Change

Back-To-School and Back to a Sleep Schedule

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