The child goes to bed late. How does an incorrect regime affect a fragile child’s body?
Does your child go to bed late? And all attempts to lay it down earlier just increase the laying time? Does it also happen that a child goes to bed at 11 pm, falling asleep on the floor with toys? Does it happen that the baby only wakes up after a nap at 19:00, and even after 2-3 hours no one can put him to sleep by any means? Our article will help you understand this situation.
Why does my baby fall asleep too late in the evening or late at night?
There may be several reasons for falling asleep late:
- Very long daytime nap.
Calculate how much daily sleep your baby gets in total, try to compare it with sleep standards. Analyze whether your child sleeps too much during the day? Because it is very important for a quality night's sleep. The baby can get enough sleep during the day, and accordingly, in the evening he is not ready to go to bed so early. What to do? It can be recommended to wake up the little sleepyhead if the daytime nap is prolonged. Or remove excess daytime sleep if it interferes with night sleep.
- The waking time before going to sleep at night is very long.
If the baby stays awake for too long, the baby becomes overtired and the body produces water, which has such an invigorating effect on the child that it can be compared to a cup of strong coffee. But under the influence of cortisol, the quality of sleep suffers because it is very poorly excreted from the body, and as a result, the mother observes frequent awakenings at night, early rises, and signs of lack of sleep. Our grandmothers called the effect of the stress hormone with the familiar and familiar word “overnight.” In such a situation, it is important to: monitor the child, avoid overtiredness, and when putting the baby to bed.
- Overexcitement before bed.
Stormy emotions from bright events, guests, new toys, of course, take the child away from the relaxed state that he needs before bed. Try to exclude such events before bedtime, let the baby receive a charge of positive emotions from the long-awaited toy in the morning. The child’s psyche is not yet so perfect, so adults help calm it down: in the evening, through quiet activities and games, gently move on to bed and sleep.
- Parents' lifestyle.
Adults do not like routine, often neglect their sleep, and therefore they themselves go to bed late and put their baby to bed late in the evening or late at night. If you are faced with the fact that your baby is sleeping very poorly, then it’s time to make sleep a priority for the whole family. A routine for a child is familiar, predictable, and therefore associated with safety. Help your child get used to the routine. Remember that first of all, through our example, we teach the child - take care of your sleep, go to bed early!
- The baby is waiting for mom or dad from work.
Sometimes it happens. Of course, communication with loved ones is an important factor in the harmonious development and formation of a healthy attachment between parent and child. Therefore, here you need to be flexible and consider options: invite your child to meet dad only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, say “good night” to dad via video Skype, or get up early in the morning to “talk” with loved ones!
What if my child falls asleep too late in the evening?
To solve the problem of going to bed too late, it is important to understand how suitable this regime is for the child?
If you are satisfied with how your baby sleeps at night and during the day. If the baby, even with the late regimen, gets his own, feels great and is quite active for his age, falls asleep and wakes up in a good mood, does not demonstrate, and the late regimen fits into your family concept - congratulations, you are doing well! No need to look for a problem where there is none!
But if you have to put a lot of effort and time into bed, sometimes even up to 2 hours... If you need to persuade the child, rock him to sleep, read 10 fairy tales, involve all the relatives... If you are exhausted and tired, you fall asleep on your own, and the baby is still fiddling with toys or jumps around the apartment. If, after being put to bed for two hours, he still falls asleep, but wakes up screaming several times in the middle of the night... If in the morning, in spite of everything, he wakes up too early or at lunchtime, throws tantrums all day, protests against daytime sleep, while physical activity and appetite have decreased became worse... Evening came and again he went to bed by midnight. If you recognize your situation in this description, know that you are not alone. And think about it, maybe it's time to try switching to early mode.
What is "early mode"?
When exactly should your baby sleep at 7:35 pm or 8:15 pm? In fact, the styling intervals indicated are quite wide in 1.5 hour increments, because our recommendations take into account age and individual characteristics. All children are different and each child is special, with its own rhythm of sleep and wakefulness. To build this rhythm comfortably for the baby, parents need to be attentive and patient, observe signs of readiness for sleep, find the golden “sleep window” and gradually switch to a new regime.
Ekaterina Rakitina
Dr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Klinikum, Germany
Reading time: 9 minutes
A A
Article last updated: 03/27/2019
Find out the cause, and if it can be eliminated, eliminate it! This is a recommendation that answers the question in one sentence. It covers almost the entire spectrum of problems that cause late falling asleep, and does not help parents in any way, although in essence it is absolutely true.
Of course, all people, including children, have their own biorhythms, a child may turn out to be an “owlet,” but even an “owlet” should go to bed no later than 10 p.m. If a child falls asleep by one in the morning, this is not normal.
Before answering the question of what to do if your child goes to bed late, you need to answer several equally important questions. For example, how old is the baby? What was the impetus for such a violation of the regime? What time do household members go to bed? What time did mommy go to bed while she was carrying her child?
Why is it not possible to put a child to bed before midnight?
The child cannot sleep, possible reasons
- pregnant mother went to bed late;
- baby "owlet", parents go to bed late;
- there is no routine or it has been disrupted, incorrect associations with sleep have developed;
- not a comfortable environment for falling asleep;
- teeth are cutting, stomach hurts, etc.;
- overwork;
- insufficient physical and intellectual load of the baby.
This is all typical for problems with healthy children. For children with neurological or other pathologies, the situation needs to be considered separately.
During maternity leave, many expectant mothers “hanged out” on the Internet, chatted in the evenings with friends or mothers, did household chores, and, in other words, went to bed after midnight. And in every possible way they did not allow their unborn child to rest. Receive - sign.
A good obstetrician-gynecologist advises a pregnant woman not to overwork and go to bed early; some doctors even explain in detail why this should be done. But young women think that this is probably an exaggeration and that everything is not true. Are you sure? Starting from 3-6 months (some babies earlier, others later), the baby gradually tries to develop into a “night owl”, going to bed later and later. Is it possible to accustom a child to a more suitable regime? It is possible and necessary. You need to start doing this from the first days of the baby’s life and gradually form a normal sleep and wakefulness pattern.
If everyone in the household gets ready to go home by 9 p.m. (or later), start having dinner, actively communicating, and exultantly retelling the news, what can you expect from the child? Water and advice are given only to those who ask for it. The request was voiced, but in this case giving advice is most likely a waste of time. Because the entire rhythm and routine of family life needs to be changed. Adults are unlikely to do this.
Perhaps the child fell asleep normally and slept well. But guests came in the evening, the baby was overtired and fell asleep late. And the next day he again did not go to bed on time. Incorrect associations with sleep began to form. Three repetitions are enough for certain actions to become entrenched in the baby’s brain as a component of the system.
The need to maintain a strict daily routine
Perhaps the baby doesn’t even know what a routine is. Until three months, this did not have much influence on the baby’s behavior and was noticeable to the parents. But after the three-month mark, they suddenly noticed that the child had changed, matured, began to sleep differently, and simply did not want to go to bed at night at 20.00-21.00. It is believed that you need to start developing a daily routine from 1.5-3 months. But it is better to do this from the very first days the child appears in the house.
The baby should sleep comfortably, pleasantly and comfortably. This means that the air in the room should be clean, cool, and humidified. The room should be dark and there should be no extraneous sounds. The diaper should be dry, and the clothes should be loose, soft, not bunched up anywhere, and not chafe. Even an adult will not want to sleep wet and stuffy.
Children under 3 months are bothered by intestinal colic; after the 3-month mark, this problem gradually disappears, but as soon as you start complementary feeding, sporadic cases of flatulence may occur.Physiological restructuring of the child’s body
Teething is a separate topic for discussion. Some babies who cut their teeth one at a time go through this period with minimal losses, but most babies suffer quite a lot. This is especially worrying for children whose teeth are cutting several (more than two) at a time. Itching that turns into pain in several places at once can disrupt anyone's sleep.
Sleep patterns may be disrupted if the baby is too active in the evening and receives a lot of bright visual stimuli and emotions. He looks at new toys or games, guests come, or he plays with the TV on. The nervous system is overloaded, and the baby cannot calm down and get into a state that is close to sleep.
Very often you can hear that the mother-in-law came to visit, and then the child could not sleep for a long time. The point is not that it was the mother-in-law who came, it was just that it was a stranger who smells different, has an unfamiliar voice and is generally unfamiliar (unfamiliar) to the child. It’s not for nothing that they used to say that a newborn should not be shown to friends and even close people. This is not a superstition, but an understanding of how excess information is reflected in the baby’s nervous system.
Do not forget that in education too much and too little are equally unacceptable. Lack of physical activity and educational games leads to the fact that the baby is not tired enough by the time he goes to bed. He doesn't want to sleep yet.
How to fix the situation?
Analysis of the cause of a child’s sleep pattern failure
Analyze what served as the starting point for changing the child’s routine. If it’s a too hot room or an uncomfortable sleepover at night, you just need to prevent this from happening. Start creating a daily routine. Try to go outside with your baby at the same time, eat, play, and swim, too. If the baby gets used to the order of actions: they played, listened to a fairy tale, took a swim, went to bed. Then, after leaving the bath, he will begin to yawn, his body will prepare for sleep.
But at one point this mechanism may not work. For example, after a child’s illness, when he slept poorly at night, I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time, I slept in my mother’s arms. Well, in this case, we will have to form a regime again. Holidays, when mom also wants to stay at the table, or she needs to cook something tasty, can also “break” the regime. You need to ensure that these changes are as minimal as possible.
We strictly monitor the child’s diet
If your baby has a tummy ache after 3 months, a nursing mother should think about her diet. Perhaps some of your dishes didn’t suit your child. On the Internet you can find a lot of advice on what to eat for a mother during lactation. Some people advise eating everything except outright fast food by three months. Spare your baby’s intestines, don’t eat legumes, introduce them into your diet later, indulge in confectionery, cream cake is great, but not for your baby.
Perhaps you don’t eat “everything”, watch your diet, and the baby, who by age should have gotten rid of colic, still “complains” about his tummy and sleeps poorly. Pay attention to which food has a negative effect and don't eat it yet. What to do if your diet is very strict, but problems persist? Contact your pediatrician; you may need to check the child’s intestinal microflora. Breastfed children rarely suffer from dysbiosis if they or their mother have not been prescribed antibiotics, but it is still worth checking.
Don't let your child get tired
If a child is overtired and has trouble falling asleep, he will sleep longer than usual, try to compensate for the lack of sleep with a nap, and again try to play until midnight. This cannot be allowed. In the morning, wake up your baby at a time close to usual. Let him play for a couple of hours. You need to wake up correctly, in the shallow sleep phase. Then a touch or noise in the kitchen will be enough to wake him up.
And in the evening go to bed at the set time. If the child does not immediately fall asleep, there is no need to pick him up again, play, or take him into the common room to communicate with the family. Give him the opportunity to calm down and fall asleep, you can sing a lullaby or just talk. If you can’t immediately move the time to fall asleep to the desired numbers, do it gradually. Put your baby to bed 5-10 minutes earlier every day. This will take time, but will make the procedure painless.
It is imperative to ensure that the child receives adequate exercise for the body and mind. A child, even a newborn, requires attention not only in terms of satisfying his natural needs (fed, washed, swaddled), you need to talk to him, do exercises, and when he gets older (from 3 months) play, constantly complicating the games.
This is not the only reason why it is so important for a child to go to bed on time. In childhood, the body grows by leaps and bounds. This applies not only to physical but also psychological growth. In the first years of life, the baby absorbs a huge amount of information and acquires new skills at a speed inaccessible to adults.
And this happens thanks to growth hormone, which is produced in the body 2-3 hours after falling asleep and acts mainly at night.
The best time to produce this hormone is midnight. Thus, if a child goes to bed later than 9 pm, the production of the hormone is disrupted in his body and the amount of time during which the hormone simply does not have time to perform its function decreases.
This can lead to a decrease in the child’s physical activity or, conversely, to hyperactivity, because psychological stability is impaired. Also, falling asleep late has a negative impact on the development of a child’s intelligence. Therefore, at night, the growing body must rest, and the whole family should do this together with the child!
10 RULES OF “GOLDEN CHILDREN’S SLEEP”
1. Set your priorities
A child should not sleep at the cost of mom and dad's insomnia. “Golden Children's Dream” is a healthy and sweet dream for all family members!
2. Decide on your sleep schedule
The family's sleep schedule is formed depending on when it is convenient for not only the child, but the whole family to sleep. After all, what a child needs most is sleepy, healthy parents. Determine, together with your significant other, when the lights out in your family, and strictly adhere to your decision!
3. Decide where to sleep and with whom
Of course, the question “Should the child sleep with his parents or separately?” purely individual. But it is best if the child sleeps in his own crib and preferably in his own room. And mom and dad will sleep under the same blanket. When mom and dad sleep under the same blanket, this is the key to happiness and long-term well-being of all family members!
4. Don’t be afraid to wake up the sleepyhead
If your baby sleeps for a long time during the day and then can’t fall asleep at night, don’t let him sleep during the day - wake up the sleepyhead!
5. Optimize feeding
If your child feels sleepy after eating, make sure that the last evening feeding is the most nourishing and dense.
6. Busy day
Let every day of your child be rich both physically and emotionally, but without excesses, but harmoniously.
7. Think about the air in your bedroom.
The optimal temperature in the room should be 18–21 °C, and the humidity should be 50–70%. The solution to this issue is the dad's task.
8. Take advantage of swimming opportunities
A cool bath before bed - what could be better!
9. Bed preparation
A smooth, dense and hard mattress, natural bed linen, and if your baby is under three years old, you can do without a pillow.
10. Make sure you have a quality diaper
For little ones, a high-quality diaper is very important; you shouldn’t skimp on it!
Find out even more useful information about healthy sleep for the whole family from the recommendations of Dr. Komarovsky.
You can cope with any problem, you just have to want it. Healthy sleep for a child is the key to happiness and a good microclimate in the family!
- Set your priorities
A child should not sleep at the cost of mom and dad's insomnia. “Golden Children's Dream” is a healthy and sweet dream for all family members! - Decide on your sleep schedule
The family's sleep schedule is formed depending on when it is convenient for not only the child, but the whole family to sleep. After all, what a child needs most is sleepy, healthy parents. Determine, together with your significant other, when the lights out in your family, and strictly adhere to your decision! - Decide where to sleep and with whom
Of course, the question “Should the child sleep with his parents or separately?” purely individual. But it is best if the child sleeps in his own crib and preferably in his own room. And mom and dad will sleep under the same blanket. When mom and dad sleep under the same blanket, this is the key to happiness and long-term well-being of all family members! - Don't be afraid to wake up the sleepyhead
If your baby sleeps for a long time during the day and then can’t fall asleep at night, don’t let him sleep during the day - wake up the sleepyhead! - Optimize feeding
If your child feels sleepy after eating, make sure that the last evening feeding is the most nourishing and dense. - Busy day
Let every day of your child be rich both physically and emotionally, but without excesses, but harmoniously. - Think about the air in the bedroom
The optimal temperature in the room should be 18–21 °C, and the humidity should be 50–70%. The solution to this issue is the dad's task. - Take advantage of swimming opportunities
A cool bath before bed - what could be better! - Bed preparation
A smooth, dense and hard mattress, natural bed linen, and if your baby is under three years old, you can do without a pillow. - Take care of a quality diaper
For little ones, a high-quality diaper is very important; you shouldn’t skimp on it!
Sleep is a physiological need of any person. What can we say about a child, for whom sleep is extremely beneficial. But often from poor children's sleep the whole family suffers.
What time do children go to bed?
The problem is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to put the child to bed at the appropriate time. Children practically never part with smartphones, tablets and computers, captivated by the endless world of entertainment. The flickering of these devices sends a signal to the brain that it is not time to sleep yet, and the baby remains awake instead of falling asleep and gaining strength for the next day.
Scientific research clearly shows that children who sleep late become irritable and restless, have difficulty concentrating, have learning difficulties and nervous instability.
This is not the only reason why it is so important for a child to go to bed on time. In childhood, the body grows by leaps and bounds. This applies not only to physical but also psychological growth. In the first years of life, the baby absorbs a huge amount of information and acquires new skills at a speed inaccessible to adults. And this happens thanks to growth hormone, which is produced in the body 2-3 hours after falling asleep and acts mainly at night.
The best time to produce this hormone is midnight. Thus, if a child goes to bed later than 9 pm, the production of the hormone is disrupted in his body and the amount of time during which the hormone simply does not have time to perform its function decreases.
This can lead to a decrease in the child’s physical activity or, conversely, to hyperactivity, because psychological stability is impaired. Also, falling asleep late has a negative impact on the development of a child’s intelligence. Therefore, at night, the growing body must rest, and the whole family should do this together with the child!
10 RULES OF “GOLDEN CHILDREN’S SLEEP”
