I hear my four-year-old in my sleep. I think she is dreaming and answer her in a soothing voice:
“Sure, honey.”
She sits up straight and grabs the remote.
The TV goes on before I can protest, and for the next forty minutes I try to explain to her why I yanked the remote back and turned the TV off again. In the meantime, my five-month-old has been roused by the noise and wants a feeding for her trouble.
I wish I could say that this didn’t happen often, but once or twice a week my night’s slumber is disrupted by one of my children. One wakes up hungry, or wet or just because she is too tired to sleep.
We live in a sleep-deprived society. We all want to stay up and watch the late show and finish those chores that we didn’t get to finish through the day. Of course we train our kids to do the same-we make them finish their homework after spending all day at school, attending troop meetings, ball games and karate lessons. Then we expect them to pack it up and shut down in a twenty or thirty minute period. But our desire for their success is leading to sleep problems far too numerous to get into here. Kids under ten years old need between nine and twelve consecutive hours of sleep a night to function correctly. It is when they sleep that their brains absorb information, their bodies grow and the stresses of their day melt away. It is also when we as parents regain a portion of our sanity. Yet there are so many distractions, so many things that can wake a child up at two or three in the morning; it happens to more parents than is commonly admitted. Kids wake up through the night, breaking up their sleep and our respite, throwing us all into an impromptu encore of an earlier circus act and ensuring that we’ll all wake up the next morning in a foul mood.
Children wake up through the night for many reasons. In normal sleep, a child cycles between light sleep and deep sleep: rapid eye movement (REM/light) sleep and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. REM is the dream phase; it is during this stage that your child is most likely to wake up. A child will complete a sleep cycle once every hour to hour and a half, which leaves more than eight chances a night to stir.
One universal reason children wake up through the night is that there was a flaw in the bedtime process. It is a major balancing act, a high-wire walk, to get your children to bed in a manner that is soothing and conducive to all-night sleep. It is a skill that develops only with patience and the willingness to try new approaches. Four years into it I still stumble off the wire a couple of times a week. I know I’ve fallen if midnight rolls around and my daughter is still bouncing from couch to couch and I can sense the Benadryl tablets staring at me from the kitchen counter.
The key to success in the bedtime process is the bedtime routine. It doesn’t have to be written in stone. In fact, the more flexible, the better. As long as the process is followed chronologically and contains the basic components, it won’t make a difference whether you read an extra story or cuddle a few minutes longer. Nor does it matter what your routine is: my five-month-old gets a bath and a bottle and usually falls asleep in her carrier. Twenty to thirty minutes later I carry her to her crib and she sleeps through the night. My older daughter prefers to take her bath before dinner and then winds down afterwards with a little TV, a book and then a snack just before bed. There are no hard and fast rules, but following the same pattern nightly will turn out to be a big help in getting your child to sleep through the night.
You must consider the temperament and sleep style of your child in deciding just what kind of routine to invent. In general, every routine should result in a satisfied child. Try to keep stress and conflict to a minimum. Show how much you love them by talking to them. Cuddling a little doesn’t hurt either.
To personalize a routine, consider the normal activity level and sleep style of each child. Is she constantly on the go? Does she split her day by playing outside and doing puzzles and other quiet activities, or does she prefer to sit and watch TV all day? Does her energy level flow from high to low throughout the day?
The more active the child, the earlier the bedtime routine has to be started. My daughter won’t dream of going to sleep earlier than ten o’clock unless she is physically exhausted from playing outside all day or has had plenty of time to wind down. With children whose energy flows, you will have to catch them in a low period and take the opportunity to get them to bed while you have it, even if it is a bit earlier than you had planned.
Is your child a light or heavy sleeper? Light sleepers need more attention to detail–lights low, TV off, soothing sounds or movements–and a twenty or a thirty-minute window of quiet after they have gone to sleep to ease them into the other realm. Heavy sleepers, who are oftentimes also the more active of the two, need nothing more than to lay still for a couple of minutes. Though the bed is the preferred place to get them to sleep, some parents aren’t that lucky and have to settle for a child who falls asleep on the floor, the couch or the kitchen table. Once you hear the snoring, you know they’re ready for transfer.
Assuming that you’ve followed a reasonable schedule, you’ll finally get your kids to sleep. Now to ensure that they sleep through the night. If getting your child to sleep is a tightrope walk, then keeping them asleep is a trapeze act. You can build a net under your trapeze by paying attention to the details. Don’t give them a reason to wake up! During the day:
Make sure your kids have interesting and varied activities, including physical activity and fresh air. They need activity to expend energy and prepare for sleep. Also, don’t let them take a nap more than four or five hours before you plan on getting them to bed.
Limit caffeine. It is a stimulant that is especially potent to three-year-olds. Just ask the parents who have to scoop their little one from the top of the refrigerator two or three times after a sip of pop. Keep sugary drinks and foods to a minimum after four o’clock.
Begin cutting down on TV viewing in the late afternoon. After dinner, give them a quota-one half-hour show a piece and that’s it for the night. This can be an especially challenging thing to do, as for most American children television has become ingrained in their lives, and many cannot fall asleep without it. It might do you well to slowly wean your child from the TV over a couple of months until they are able to fall asleep without it. Removing the television in the bedtime equation will result in fewer nightmares and less risk of finding your child at the foot of your bed at midnight with the remote in her hand.
Thinking ahead will prevent many of the more common sleep-time problems.
After you have followed a reasonable routine and are ready for your child to jump into bed, eliminate opportunities for your child to fight sleep-time. Give her a light snack and a small glass of water. Take her to the bathroom, check her clothing for scratchy tags or tightness and make sure the sheets on her bed are clean and fragrance free. The heavy smell of detergent can stimulate smell and disrupt sleep.
Make sure your child has something soothing beside her bed. A picture of you, a favorite stuffed animal, a bedtime blanket, a lighted mirror-something that you have already established as a security item. My husband’s employer gave him a security camera for the birth of our youngest daughter. Since the baby sleeps in my room, I set the camera up to film us and let my older daughter keep the television tube in her room. That way she can see exactly where we are if she happens to wake up. It is moderately expensive, averaging between fifty and one hundred dollars, but it is well worth her piece of mind. For a cheaper solution, a walkie talkie would do the same job.
Teach your children how to fall asleep without you. This is the most common cause of children not being able to settle back to sleep. Whatever they associate with falling asleep, like being rocked or cuddled, needs to be present for them to fall back to sleep. Get all your cuddling in before you lay them down, if at all possible.
Set the rules of the routine and remind your child that after all the steps are complete it is time for bed. There will be resistance every so often, but when she knows what to expect there won’t be room for discussion. After you’ve put your child to bed, appreciate the work and time that you have invested in the process. Settle the house down. Keep lights dim and don’t try to fix your bathroom sink or finish three loads of laundry. Work, instead, on your own routine of winding down for the night. You’ve just finished a performance for Barnum & Bailey’s home version and you deserve to have a standing ovation. Just make sure you’re lying down for it.
