Blog - Gentle Touch Sleep Time

March 20, 2020

Survive Work From Home With Children

Coronavirus fears are everywhere. Life feels upside down and crazy right now. Many families are confined to their houses.

How can you survive and thrive while working at home with children?

working from home with children — Frustrated young mother having a business phone call with a crying baby next to her

Five Tips to Survive Work From Home with Children

1. Follow a consistent schedule

Our body works best on a schedule of food or sleep happening at similar times each day. Without the demands of a scheduled work/school day, it is easy to become relaxed about meals or sleep times. But everyone’s mental and physical health is better when it stays on a schedule. Maintain a regular morning wake time and breakfast. Don’t give in to the go-to bed late and wake-up-whenever desire. (Most babies and toddlers will not let you do that anyway.)

Even if you are going to be stuck in the house all day, get dressed in daytime clothes. It helps everyone separate daytime and nighttime.

For babies and toddlers, follow the regular nap routine. Maintain a consistent bedtime each night. When your child goes to bed at the same time each night, their body anticipates sleep which makes bedtime a much easier process. It sounds tempting to relax bedtime and let your child stay up later. But, usually, children will still wake at the same time in the morning. It just means they will receive less sleep.

It is easier to schedule your work hours if your child has a consistent schedule. Naptime is a good time to schedule those work calls and/or meetings. Your child’s consistent bedtimes provides more uninterrupted work hours for you.

2. Go outdoors

Our body functions on a circadian rhythm of almost 24 hours. It is important for everyone to have at least twenty minutes of outdoor light every day to help reset our body clock. Time outside improves the mood of a cranky baby, energetic toddler or overwhelmed parent. This is a great opportunity for a walk around the block or enjoying your yard or deck. The sights and sounds of the outdoors are entertaining for babies. The outdoors provides many things for toddlers to explore or get out their energy with running and jumping.

3. Early bedtime

Children’s bodies are programmed to receive the best sleep in the early portion of the night. That is biological and we cannot change it. If a small child has a late bedtime, such as 9 PM, that child will miss the deeper and longer sleep cycles which would have happened in the earlier part of the evening. Missing that restorative early evening sleep leads to an overtired child regardless of the length of the night’s sleep. Children require an early bedtime. An added benefit of that early bedtime for children is a relaxing evening for parents to enjoy. That is good for everyone!

The bedtime for babies after 4 months is between 5 PM and 7 PM. Toddler’s bedtime is between 7 and 7:30 pm.

What is the best bedtime per age of the child. — Bedtime for Children

4. Enjoy your child

Yes, it can be challenging to try and juggle working from home and caring for your child at the same time. Keep in mind that this is also an opportunity to have more time with your child, especially if you normally have a long workday plus commute time. Play games or with toys with your toddler. Laugh and be silly with your child. Get in those extra snuggles and cuddles.

5. If you are feeling overwhelmed

Parenting is normally challenging and stressful. During unusual circumstances, it can be even more challenging and stressful. Children and parents can get grumpy and annoyed with each other. We all have a breaking point. It is OK to ask for help from the other parent, another family member, friend, neighbor or a community helpline. It is not a weakness to need help. You are a wise parent if you recognize you are at the end of your ability to cope and need help. Sometimes just talking to another adult can give you hope and the strength to keep going.

If you need help, I am here for a 15 or 30 minute Q&A to ask me anything or for a sleep consult. If you have been thinking about sleep training, this is a perfect time to work on it when you are home all the time. Healthy sleep improves the immune system and makes everyone feel better.

www.GentleTouchSleepTime.com

August 27, 2019

Toddlers Want To Sleep

toddler loves to sleep

This week I saw a little two-year-old ask her mom if she could “go nap”. She went happily to her bed, snuggled up with her blanket and favorite stuffed animal. She slept for 2 hours and woke up happy and smiling!

Our toddlers want to sleep. It feels amazing to be well-rested.

Our children love to wake up full of energy and happy. Having enough sleep is an amazing feeling and well-rested children learn to love it.

Yes, it is possible to have a child ask for sleep. It shows the child has begun to recognize the feeling of being tired and that the solution is sleep. What a joy to have a two-year-old that asks for a nap instead of a two-year-old that screams and fights a nap or bedtime.

Dealing with life is difficult while feeling tired.

Children (and adults) become grumpy when they are tired. Toddler emotions are big and challenging for every toddler to manage. If you are the parent of a two-year-old you have seen your child throw a temper tantrum or have a “meltdown”. Those big toddler emotions are much more difficult for a tired child to control. A tired toddler is miserable and makes sure everyone knows it. Toddlers want to sleep to make them feel happy.

How do you get a well-rested child who willingly goes to bed?

1.Timing

The timing of sleep is very important. We all have a body clock which is set by the sun. There are times the body prepares for sleep and times the body prepares for awake time. The body prepares through chemical and temperature changes. Sleep is much easier when it is connected with the body preparation. Sleep connected with the body clock does a better job of restoring the body and brain. This sleep is more refreshing and restorative.

When sleep follows a similar schedule each day, the body begins to anticipate sleep. If you have a regular bedtime for your toddler of 7 PM; their body will begin to anticipate sleep at 7 PM. This helps the toddler be ready for sleep instead of fighting bedtime.

2. Place

Motion sleep in the car or stroller keeps the child in light sleep. It prevents the deep, restorative sleep. Sleep is more restorative when the child is sleeping in their bed. They have the freedom to position and move their body to find what is comfortable when in their bed.

The sleep environment should contribute to sleep. I recommend a dark place for sleep because it contributes to the release of the “go to sleep” hormones. It is helpful to have white noise. The familiar sound becomes associated in their brain with sleep. Plus the white noise helps to block out other sounds which might wake your child.

3. Process

We are all creatures of habit. We need a familiar process to prepare for sleep. It sends a message to our bodies that it is time to sleep. I encourage a specific routine before bedtime and a shorter routine prior to naps.

It is good to have a calming time prior to sleep. Don’t expect your child to go from running and jumping straight to sleeping.

Turn off all screens at least 30 minutes before sleep. The blue lights from screens wake up the brain. The body and brain need some preparation for sleep.

4. Teach

Sleep is a skill for children to learn. Each child needs to learn to go from the awake state to the sleep state without assistance. Learning to manage their own sleep is a necessary skill for life. Your assistance to put your child to sleep is not sustainable.

Rock a child to sleep and they will sleep for an hour but teach a child to sleep and they will sleep all night.

Toddlers want to sleep. It helps them feel independent when they can go to sleep without assistance and continue their sleep through the night.

Helping Babies Sleep

August 8, 2019

School Performance Impacted by Sleep

School performance is significantly impacted by the amount and quality of your child’s sleep

Nutrition, exercise, and sleep are necessary to be healthy and able to learn. If your child is falling asleep or yawning in class or while doing their homework, your child is not getting enough sleep. Other signs of inadequate sleep are grouchiness, short attention span, impulsiveness, and trouble learning. The National Sleep Foundation says our elementary school children, ages 5-12, need 10-11 hours of sleep per night. Adjust your child’s bedtime to provide the correct number of hours of sleep. School starts at a predictable time each day. Sleeping late in the morning is not an option.

The quality and quantity of sleep determine learning and retention of that learning. Clinical psychologist Reut Gruber, director of the Attention Behavior and Sleep Lab at the Douglas Research Center in Quebec, Canada, led a research team examining the sleep of children. and wrote:

“According to a study, children with reduced sleep are more likely to struggle with verbal creativity, problem solving, inhibiting their behaviour, and generally score lower on IQ tests according to current leading research. In addition, another study has shown that students who had grades of C, D, or E averaged 25 to 30 minutes less sleep per weeknight than their classmates who achieved A’s or B’s.”

The studies by Dr. Gruber research team have shown that children who do not have an adequate amount of sleep have a stronger chance of low or failing grades in school. Math and language courses require the use of memory, sequencing and reasoning; all are functions of the pre-frontal cortex of the brain which is most vulnerable to lack of sleep.

The brain needs sleep time to take the learning from the previous day and move it into long-term memory. The deep portion of the sleep cycle is required to improve the retention of learning from the previous day.

Sleep-deprived children have more difficulty controlling their emotions and impulses

We all tend to get grouchy when we are overtired. Sleep-deprived children can be emotional and impulsive leading to problems in the classroom and on the playground. Lack of sleep contributes to a short attention span. A tired child has great difficulty with making more than one attempt at a difficult task.

Academic and behavioral school performance is impacted by the child’s sleep.

My five sleep habits to help children succeed in school

1. Consistent bedtime and wake-up time

The same bedtime each night sets the body’s 24-hour rhythm. The bedtime chosen should allow the child to receive the recommended 10-11 hours of sleep per night. Most elementary school-age children need an early bedtime of 7:30 to 8 PM.

A consistent bedtime will teach the child’s body to anticipate and be ready for sleep. Make sleep a priority by making their bedtime a priority.

2. Bedtime Routine

Twenty to thirty minutes before bedtime is preparation for sleep. What happens prior to sleep has an impact on the quality of the sleep.

The blue lights from TV, pads and smartphone screens wakes the brain up. Stop all screen viewing for a minimum of 30 minutes prior to bedtime.

Plan so that dinner is finished about 2 hours prior to bedtime. Sleep is the opportunity for the digestive system to rest also. The process of digesting a big meal when going to bed will make sleep more difficult.

Avoid caffeine about six hours prior to bedtime. Caffeine tends to wake the brain up and leads to light sleep or no sleep.

Develop a routine to follow each night before bed. It might include a bath, pajamas, and reading a book together or alone.

3. Bedroom environment

Make the sleep environment very dark. Use room darkening shades or curtains to keep the room dark in the evening or early morning. Do not allow any screen devices in their bedroom as they wake up the brain and interfere with sleep. Their bedroom should be boring and look like a dark cave.

The temperature of the room should be between 67 and 72 degrees.

4. White noise

Background or white noise blocks the other sounds of your house or neighborhood which might interrupt your child’s sleep.

Place the white nosie machine about 5 feet from your child to protect their hearing. A fan can also be used for white noise.

5. Sleep is a privilege

Sleep is just as important as food for your child. Teach your child to value their sleep. Each child should look forward to sleep at the end of their day.