Health
4 Ways To Help Children Sleep Better At Night
If you are wanting to get some good night’s sleep after a long day of tending to your children and managing the house, you should consider wearing your children out all day long to ensure you get an early night with undisturbed sleep. However, you can not always have your children running about and tiring themselves out each day. Despite the fact that tired children fall asleep faster and easier compared to relaxed children, you must consider other ways to get them to sleep at night. This is a necessity because children with poor sleeping habits are prone to have behavioral problems, low grades, and poor health.
Get Them Tired Or Simply Active?
There is a difference between getting children tired and getting them active during the day. Though it may seem that tired children will sleep earlier, longer and better at night, you must also consider the fact that children who get too much sleep at night might just have too much energy in the day time. As such, the only solution to this is that children must simply become active which is good for their health and help promote better sleeping patterns. Have your children engage in sports or any other physical activity that will get them moving.
How Poor Sleep Affects Children
Just like adults, children can be affected by poor sleep. Though the recommended sleeping hours for children is 8 ½ hours and more each night, there will be children who will be experiencing sleeping problems. When they lack sleep, their emotions are affected which prevents them from focusing on tasks. Children who are active in sports and are unable to sleep well will only end up performing poorly. Others can become sick easily or easily gain too much weight.
4 Ways To Get Them To Sleep Better
1. Have your children become active during the day just like how the little kids run around all day and then sleep soundly at night. They can engage in an hour’s worth of physical activity or sports to help decrease stress and relax them. Just make sure that they do not remain too active before bedtime because it can wake them up with the adrenaline rush.
2. Clear your children’s bedroom from electronics. Bedrooms are meant for sleep so try to discourage your children from bringing in gadgets in their rooms. If their bedrooms are well equipped with a computer, laptop, television, and the like, make sure that they shut everything down an hour or two before bedtime. Also, keep a strict curfew with their cell phones.
3. It will also help if you train your children to stick to a routine. You can have them start with a bedtime ritual such as taking a warm bath for a few minutes, drinking a warm cup of milk, listening to soft music, or reading a book a few minutes before bedtime. This will teach the body to recognize proper sleeping patterns each night.
4. Sometimes, the cause of poor sleeping habits is sleeping on a poor mattress. It can severely affect health and body posture. Usually, children who sleep in too hard or too soft spring mattresses experience trouble sleeping. If this is the case, you must consider purchasing new mattresses for your children before serious health problems are experienced.