Hush-a-bye Baby

By Sujatha Rajagopal

Establishing good sleep habits for a lifetime

Everyone knows that sleepless nights come hand-in-hand with parenthood. Sometimes, this improves after baby’s first birthday. Sometimes, it doesn’t. You may think that after a full day of play, she will long for bedtime. And usually, you are sorely mistaken. Unless she is totally overwhelmed by exhaustion, your child may use every last bit of energy to fight sleep, stalling bedtime with various tricks that only children can think of. Often, young children can stay wide-eyed and bushy-tailed way past midnight, leaving their hapless parents, especially working ones, woefully resigned to another night of lost sleep.

You can avoid this by introducing good sleeping habits from a young age. Here’s an eye-opener on the importance of shut-eye for children, as well as some tips on establishing and maintaining an early bedtime.

Why kids need sleep
Sleep is as essential as food and drink. Sleep aids your child’s body to build strong muscles and allows her mind to rest, recharge and stay alert for the next day’s challenges. Therefore, sleep affects both physical and mental wellbeing, playing an especially crucial role on the central nervous system. Sleep experts say getting enough sleep also prevents infections as it allows the immune system to rest, repair and strengthen itself.

Most of us know this, but while it may be simpler to feed our kids and give them other basic necessities, it is often more difficult to ensure that they get enough sleep. Thanks to our own long hours at work and a tight growing-up schedule that includes being packed off to a babysitter’s or pre-school early in the morning, our children rarely get the complete daily quota of sleep they need. Missing these crucial hours can add up and affect your child’s development — with consequences that last a lifetime.

Ideally, a baby needs about 14 to 15 hours of sleep a day — two to three hours from daytime naps and the rest at night. The following is a useful reference chart for how much sleep your child needs.

Not getting enough sleep does more than just throw your child’s biological clock off-balance. Without sleep, your child will be irritable and exhausted. She may suffer from a testy temperament, lethargy or hyperactivity (due to over-stimulation), poor appetite, and a host of other problems you and your child would rather do without.

Naps play an important part towards childhood health too, so it is better not to take them lightly. From age two to three, your child’s daytime naps may become shorter till they eventually cease at about age five. So do ensure that your older child gets enough night-time sleep.

Sleep experts also stress that it’s not just about how much, but also how well, your child sleeps. A toddler who sleeps for 12 hours a night may not be getting high-quality sleep if she experiences frequent interruptions in-between.

If your child has not been sleeping enough or well, it is best to do something about it now. Research has shown that children don’t always outgrow sleep problems, and that getting regular sleep from young has a significant effect on IQ. It makes sense because sleep improves attention span which in turn, improves learning.

Tips for an easy and early bedtime
It is best to get your child to fall asleep on her own at a fixed time each night before she turns one. When babies are younger, it is common to nurse or rock them to sleep, but when this habit is continued into toddlerhood, your child will find it more and more difficult to sleep without you.

Start by putting her in her own cot from about nine months of age. Give her a soft toy and a favourite blanket to comfort her. Resist the urge to run back to her if she cries after you’ve left the room. Comfort her quietly if the crying gets worse, but leave after a few minutes. Eventually, she will learn that she must sleep alone but that you are nearby if she needs you. There will be instances when she will wake up at night feeling fretful, especially if she is teething or having a fever. Cuddle and comfort her and put her back to bed promptly. Try not to over-stimulate her, or she will have difficulty going back to sleep. Also, avoid using a night-time feed to ease her back to sleep. Once a pattern has been established, try not to disrupt it. Young children need consistency and predictability to give them a sense of security.

Your child should also be able to fall asleep despite the presence of household noises. You can’t have her waking up every time the dog barks or someone switches on the TV. Getting her used to these background noises from a young age will help her become a more adaptive sleeper when you go on holidays together or sleep over at Grandma’s house.

Here are some useful ways to get your child to sleep with minimal fuss:

• Keep her room lights low and her bed inviting — you may want to get her a cartoon-character night-light, store favourite toys nearby — anything to convince her that her bed is a nice place to be in.
• Keep the room temperature comfortable. Children may have trouble sleeping in warm, stuffy rooms.
• Establish a bedtime ritual such as teeth-brushing, bubble bath or wipe-down followed by a yummy glass of warm milk and 15 minutes of soothing bedtime stories. Stick to your chosen ritual every night.
• If your child sleeps in a cot, don’t rush her into moving to a toddler bed. Sudden changes can be unsettling.
• Some children may need to let off all their pent-up steam before they sleep — let her bounce around or ride her rocking horse as long as it is followed by calmer activities closer to bedtime.
• Reading to your child at night or singing her a lullaby is often very effective. There is nothing more calming than listening to the hushed and soothing tone of a parent’s voice as sleep beckons. Alternatively, you might want to buy some restful bedtime music just for her.
• You may want to alternate bedtime stories or lullabies with stories of your own childhood or school days. This is a great way of passing on family values and history.
• Make bedtime good self-esteem time by getting your toddler to tell you how she spent her day. Praise her for tasks well done so that she is happy and sleeps well, looking forward to pleasing you again tomorrow.
• From about age two, toddlers may begin to develop night-time fears such as hearing monsters under their bed or in the closet or dreading sleep if they get frequent nightmares. Don’t ridicule your child, for these fears are very real to her. Instead, build up her courage. Some parents may tell their children to punch these monsters when they ‘appear’ or to spray them with a ‘magic water mist’. If you have to go as far as arming her with a spray-nozzle water bottle to squirt at the ‘monster’, do it. Show her when she awakes in the morning that her bottle was very effective. Give her the resources necessary to face her fears, and she will outgrow them sooner.

Sleep tight
Sleep deserves our attention. It is our duty as parents to help our children get enough of it, just as we do with their breakfast, lunch and dinner. With proper care, it isn’t difficult to establish an effective bedtime routine. And as long as you can teach your child to equate sleep with something good and beneficial, you are almost there. Begin as soon as possible, for that way, you will be buying yourself better sleep too!