Family Matters: Making bed time easier

How is your sleep? How is your children’s bed time? Is everything in your household getting enough shut-eye, or is getting people up in the morning a living nightmare? 

Living a healthy lifestyle isn’t just about maintaining a balanced diet and getting enough physical activity: healthy sleep patterns are also a vital part of living well. Ensuring your child has a healthy sleep structure and getting enough sleep will benefit their mood, their growth and development, their focus and their hunger signals. 

Follow our tips for a good night’s sleep, every night.  

A parent’s guide to bed time

Start with a good daytime routine

Having a consistent routine helps our body’s natural rhythm, getting the body used to waking up and going to bed at the right time. Here are some ways you can ensure a good daytime routine: 

Carve out some worry time

Allocate a specific time during the day to talk about worries. This can relieve the need for children to talk about them at bedtime and feel anxious before trying to sleep. 

It’s important to make the time to talk about whatever is on your child’s mind, but by encouraging your child to put their worries to one side until a dedicated Worry Time, they can get on with the rest of their day (and bedtime) without their head swimming with anxieties. 

Ask your child to keep their worries safely locked away until it’s time to talk: you could ask them to put them in an imaginary worry box that they could close the lid on or give them to a worry bear (one of their teddies) to look after. 

Good times to talk and listen might include while on a family walk or during some quiet play time, at bath-time or after dinner. If they find it hard to verbalise what is worrying them, suggest drawing a picture or building some Lego. 

Get active

Research has shown that physical activity is closely linked with falling to sleep more quickly and having longer-lasting sleep. 

Children are recommended to have at least 60 minutes of moderate activity every day. This can be broken up into small bursts throughout the day, if you prefer.

Of course, exercise workouts count, but so does climbing the stairs, dancing around the kitchen, helping with the housework or going for a brisk walk. There are loads of ways to keep active at home too: walk to school or to the shop, try YouTube workouts or just have fun making up silly games around the house. 

Making sleep easier for children

Bedtime dos & don’ts

Creating a relaxed, calming bedtime routine helps signal to our bodies that it is nearly time to sleep. The routine might include:  

• A warm bath  

• Dimming the lights as they get ready for bed  

• Story-time, a quiet relaxing chat or listening to calm music

However, you should try to avoid these things before bed:  

• Screens for at least an hour before bed

• Screens or devices on charge in the bedroom  

• Talking about worries immediately before bed 

Make your bedroom the perfect place to sleep

Is your child’s bedroom a good environment for sleeping in? Have a look at our checklist:  

Cool: The body needs to cool down to be able to sleep. If a room is stuffy, it can be hard to sleep. Lower the thermostat and use duvets and blankets to get cosy instead.  

Dark: Lower the lights before story-time and close the curtains. 

Calm and quiet: Leave pets outside the bedroom to avoid them inadvertently disturbing sleep in the middle of the night. Saying good night to them could be part of the bedtime routine. 

Encouraging a better bed time is all part of making sure your children stay healthy. And practice makes perfect – so once your new routine is set up, sticking to it will get easier and easier. 

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