The key to a good night’s sleep at any age is setting up your sleep environment for sleep success. We equip our kitchens with the tools we need to create delicious meals and our dens are our family’s space for relaxation and entertainment. Unfortunately, though, our bedrooms environment often gets overlooked.
Instead of functioning as your space to sleep, it becomes your office, your storage or laundry room, or your kids playroom…sound familiar? It’s important to make your bedroom conducive to sleep to promote a healthier, more restorative sleep, and you can start that by making sure your 5 senses are covered in your new sleep filled transformation.
Our internal biological clocks are run off of a 24-hour schedule. There are many factors that influence our natural circadian rhythms and the main one being our external environment and the light and dark of the day. When it’s dark outside, our sleep drive is stronger making us more tired at night. It’s important to make your sleep environment dark, as in cave like, to rev up your sleep drive and naturally release your sleep hormone melatonin, which aids in you falling off to blissful sleep. Darkness turns the sleep switch on.
Tip! Turn off tech. Your room should be cleared of all electronic devices. Take out your TV’s, computers, and handheld devices. The blue LED lights from the screens right before bedtime ceases the release of melatonin and turns the sleep switch off. All electronics should be turned off at least 60 minutes before bedtime.
Introducing a white noise machine or sound spa to your bedroom can be relaxing and also help drown out any external sounds like a busy street, loud birds, or noisy neighbours. For the smaller kids, it can be a great use to mask the sounds of older siblings running around during naptime. Any consistent sound like static, running water, rainfall etc. can help push you into your next sleep cycle more easily and into more of a restorative sleep.
There are foods that can aid in promoting sleep, and a few foods to include in your diet are:
Lean Meats and Fish - Most are a great source of vitamin B6, which is needed in the creation of the hormone melatonin. Other great sources of B6 are fortified cereals and chickpeas.
Dairy and Leafy Greens - Yogurt, cheese, milk, kale, and collards are a great source of calcium and calcium has been proven in being effective in reducing stress and helping you relax. It’s not a myth that a warm glass of milk can help you fall asleep at bedtime.
Almonds - Just a handful of almonds can push you into the state of slumber that you desire. They contain tryptophan and magnesium, which help steady your heart rhythm and naturally reduce muscle and nerve function. Another fantastic source of tryptophan and magnesium are bananas. Banana and almond milk smoothie anyone?
Cherries - Along with nuts and oats, cherries are a natural source of melatonin and can help in regulating your sleep cycle. While it’s not known exactly how much cherries or tart cherry juice should be consumed it certainly wouldn’t hurt to munch on a few or take a few sips before bed.
We want to keep a cool environment, and natural fibers like cotton are affordable and the most breathable, keeping you both cool and dry throughout the night. And don’t forget about thread count! The ideal scale of thread count would be between 280 and 400. They’ll feel better, wash well with little shrinking, and you can easily find them at multiple price points.
The scent of lavender has been proven to improve more restful and restorative sleep and decrease anxiety. And it smells lovely. There are many ways you can introduce lavender to your sleep environment. You can spray it on your pillow or use lavender oil and rub 3 drops into your cupped hands and inhale until you feel relaxed. You can also make your own small satchels filled with fresh lavender and throw it under your bed or on your night table.
I provide free child and family sleep support on my Facebook page. I invite you to join our sleep community as I work towards Good Night Sleep Site's mission of a healthier rested family unit. For more sleep tips please visit Good Night Sleep Site and visit me on Instagram and Twitter. Join our movement and #BringBackBedtime.
#YMCSleeps is tackling sleep issues as they relate to tired and stressed parents, and tired kids too – because quality sleep is not a once-and-done project; it’s an ongoing and ever changing endeavor.
Follow on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook, where we'll be sharing sleep stories and advice using the #YMCSleeps hashtag.
So here’s to more – and better– sleep!
Often we see toddler sleep regressions happen to even the best of sleepers. When clients contact me regarding their toddler sleep struggles, I first make sure sleep basics are being promoted. Are all the pieces of the toddler sleep puzzle in place?
Ask yourself the questions. Is your child generally well-rested? Still taking a nap, followed by an age-appropriate bedtime? Are you practicing a consistent and calming bedtime routine with your little one and making sure nightly limits and boundaries are being set? Something to keep in mind:
When all else fails we may have to pull out the big guns and incorporating some positive sleep tools or my tricks of the “sleep” trade could be the solution.
A toddler clocks work great in allowing your child to visually see that it’s bedtime and wake time. They’ll understand without you having to tell them that they need to still stay in bed or that it’s not time to wake up yet. Perfect for those bedtime escapee’s and early risers!
When introducing a toddler clock try the following:
I’m not a huge fan of the reward charts and stickers, but I do love me a good bedtime routine chart. If your child is known to pull out every excuse in the book and prolonging their bedtime routine until midnight, a visual chart of each step of their bedtime routine is the way to go, and why not get creative with it? I created this fun chart for my daughter and these bedtime door hangers for the twins.
Your nap strike solution! The longer your little one can stay in their room or in their bed, the better chance they have of falling asleep. When you are struggling with their nap, head to the dollar store and fill a Quiet Time Box full of books, puzzles, colouring and activity books, figurines, etc. At the start of each nap, they are allowed to choose one toy from the box and play with it quietly in their room. At the end of the nap, they can put it back in the box. Next day, rinse and repeat.
Everyone deserves a pass every now and then. Creating a bedtime pass for your little one set boundaries at night. This pass gives your toddler or preschooler a “get out of bed once free” card to be used throughout the night, and this system actually lessens the times of wakings and cry-outs throughout the night. This is a great tool to use – even up to the age of 10 years old.
Sometimes we have to help our little ones stay in their room by adding a gate or childproof doorknob. Safety is key and we want to make sure you are safety-proofing their room and installing certified safe gates or handles. Containing them in their rooms until the sleep rules are established is no different than when they were contained in their cribs.
Don’t just tell your child that they need to sleep. Explain to them why they need to sleep. Why is sleep important for them? How do they feel when they’ve had a good night of sleep? How do mom and dad feel when they have slept through the night? Praise and communicate when they have let you sleep through the night. They want to please us and will continue to try and do so when they see how proud you are of them.
The minute you open up negotiations, you’ve handed over your control, and good luck getting that back. Who’s training whom here??
Which brings me to my concluding rant: A streaming service recently launched 5-minute “bedtime” videos that parents can use to “negotiate” bedtime with their child. In other words when your child screams, yells, and fights you about not going to bed, parents can now give up, turn complete control over to the child, stick them in front of a brightly lit screen (don’t even get me started on that one) and then cross their fingers that their kid won’t ask for 5 more minutes, because then what are you going to do?
Don’t give up mom and dad! Fight the fight and take that control back – minus the TV. Use the above tools to help you get there – it takes time and consistency but you can do it.
RELATED: How To Sleep Train A Baby When You Have Other Children
I provide free child and family sleep support on my Facebook page. I invite you to join our sleep community as I work towards Good Night Sleep Site's mission of a healthier rested family unit. For more sleep tips please visit Good Night Sleep Site and visit me on Instagram and Twitter. Join our movement and #BringBackBedtime.
#YMCSleeps is tackling sleep issues as they relate to tired and stressed parents, and tired kids too – because quality sleep is not a once-and-done project; it’s an ongoing and ever changing endeavor.
Follow on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook, where we'll be sharing sleep stories and advice using the #YMCSleeps hashtag.
So here’s to more – and better– sleep!
To this day I still have to fast forward the MADD commercial where the little boy drops his glass of milk as a mother is told by a police officer that his father isn’t coming home. I just can’t bring myself to watch it. This disturbing commercial drives a message home to many – don’t drink and drive. It can ruin a family.
Another safe sleep video has hit the media and contents within the video share a similar disturbing and terrifying message for parents. In the video we see a close up of a mattress and crib sheet with a large stuffed bunny. As the camera pans out we see that the crib mattress is in a small grave. As a parent and especially parents of a baby it can take your breath away and suddenly you are listening to the message. The message being that all parents should practice the ABC’s of safe sleep and not bed share.
The purpose of the video is to raise awareness to a safe sleep campaign CelebrateOne, which launched in 2014 through the Greater Columbus Infant Mortality Task Force. With Columbus having one of the highest infant mortality rates in America, the final report showed that each year 150 babies under the age of one died in Franklin County, Virginia - it being among the worst in all of Ohio’s 88 counties. CelebrateOne was developed to target Franklin County and reduce infant mortality by 40 percent by 2020. The hope of this campaign and video is that it drives the message of the risk of bed sharing home and that it directs people to find out more about the campaign created and to follow the safe sleep recommendations within the campaign. A scare tactic that may work on some but not all.
The final report is shocking and the need to bring safe sleep awareness to the county is something I think we can all agree on. When I researched the site I was impressed by the magnitude of their campaign and all their work on promoting a safer sleep environment but like many safe sleep campaigns that I see there is one major thing in my opinion that is being left out.
As a sleep professional I am a huge advocate of safe sleep and the ABC’s of safe sleep, recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Babies should always be placed on their backs, alone, and in their cribs. I will always recommend room sharing over bed sharing with my parents and the main reason is that when working with clients we often see parents “reactively” bed sharing. This is where a parent is bringing baby into their bed or falling asleep with them on the couch just to soothe and calm baby and so that both parent and baby can get those last few hours of sleep before the morning. Any parent can remember those hard sleep deprived nights and understand why this happens but when we are reactively bed sharing and no plan is in place things can get dangerous and I don’t think any parent, no matter what your parenting philosophy is, would disagree with that.
All of that being said, I am a sleep educator but I am also a realist. We can scare parents all we want as to the dangers of bed sharing but parents are still going to choose to do it. It could be for religious reasons or because it’s something they choose to do for their family, so instead of us just telling them not doing it, we need to educate parents on how to do it safely. This is what this campaign is lacking.
If a parent chooses to bed share it needs to be a committed decision made between both parents as it’s going to be a complete lifestyle change. Parents need a plan. They need to know what will be involved in safely preparing their sleep environment for bed sharing and everything needs to be implemented to the fullest extent before the baby is ever in bed with either parent.
I stand behind the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Pediatric Society, and choose room sharing as the safer route but I also feel it’s my responsibility to educate parents on the safest steps of whichever sleep environment is chosen. There is always a safer way of doing it and educating yourself is the first step. The state of Columbus has the best intentions at heart and they need to continue with their safe sleep campaign but they need to add ALL precautions parents can take that can possibly help reduce the risk of bed sharing, and that isn’t just eliminating it altogether.
I provide free child and family sleep support on my Facebook page. I invite you to join our sleep community as I work towards Good Night Sleep Site's mission of a healthier rested family unit. For more sleep tips please visit Good Night Sleep Site and visit me on Instagram and Twitter. Join our movement and #BringBackBedtime.
RELATED: Are Your Nights A Nightmare?
#YMCSleeps is tackling sleep issues as they relate to tired and stressed parents, and tired kids too – because quality sleep is not a once-and-done project; it’s an ongoing and ever changing endeavor.
Follow on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook, where we'll be sharing sleep stories and advice using the #YMCSleeps hashtag.
So here’s to more – and better– sleep!
Printer-friendly version