Body
Improve your family's health with restful sleep: 4 Tips for parents and children to sleep well.
Restful sleep is one of the most beneficial ways we as parents and our children grow, repair
and reset for the next day, tackling the wonderful and, at times, challenging world.
It’s easy to say “sleep is essential for your health,” but when families face many daily tasks, juggling work, life, family, social commitments and multiple children, it can be one of the first places to fall short in our lives.
Sleep deprivation is something many families will likely experience at some point. If you or your child are feeling a lack of sleep and are regularly sleep-deprived, you will notice the quality of your sleep decreasing and the impact on your physical and mental health.
The essential health benefits of sleep include:
- Increased ability to manage and reduce stress.
- The processing of short-term memories into long-term ones and improving memory.
- An increase in focus and concentration, effectively taking in more information
required for learning. - Immune systems strengthen with the growth and repair of body tissues and hormone
regulation. - Supports the vital function of bodily organs to thrive.
- Improved mental health to make good decisions, plus many more health
advantages.
It’s easy to see WHY sleep is essential to our health as families. But catching up on sleep can feel challenging and overwhelming for busy families. It’s normal to see your little one’s sleep interrupted and fluctuate when meeting milestones, during sickness, and many other factors surrounding your little one’s sleep change. During these bumps and hiccups, we, as parents, tend to also run on less sleep, which makes it hard to feel at our best and for our children to get the rest they need.
Improving your family’s sleep and prioritising health takes time and effort; there is no quick fix. But a few simple changes that suit your family dynamics will help you to start seeing great improvements. The important place to begin when improving sleep and making changes is to look at your daily routine for yourself and your child.
Here are four things you can do to improve your family’s sleep routine to support health and get drift off into quality sleep:
- Be consistent with a bedtime wind-down routine.
Our bodies have an internal clock that functions at its best when we get up around the same time each day and wind down for sleep – getting ready to drift off into snooze land again
around the same time each day.For children, winding down 30 minutes before bed helps their internal body clock respond and adjust from wakefulness into sleepy time. For adults, a 60-minute wind down will help turn the brain chatter down, relax and prepare for bed.
- Create a routine that works for your family.
Children love to play right before bedtime. Sounds counterintuitive; however, some children need to burn out that last bit of energy for the day before winding down. If this is the case in your household, lean into it. Embrace an evening routine that feels right to your family dynamic. Think Baths, reading, cuddles, singing and other rituals you want to add.For parents, you might expand on this and turn off digital devices, journal, or write out to-do lists for the following day, clearing the mind.
- Influence melatonin production naturally with light.
Melatonin is a hormone we produce naturally in the dark. It’s all about the onset of drifting off to sleep. You can help this process by going outside and absorbing vitamin D in the late
afternoon, being sun safe for around 20 minutes.The wonderful thing about Vitamin D is it converts into serotonin, and serotonin converts into melatonin in the dark, which will help drifting off to sleep.
- Manage how you respond to overnight wakes.
For parents, if you wake up overnight and are unable to fall back to sleep, try to relax your mind and quiet down any unhelpful thoughts instead of reaching for your phone for some
scrolling time.It can be normal to see night wakes in our children, especially during development times. If you struggle to navigate these wakes, reaching out for support will help, giving you
strategies to support your child overnight. The essential factor when finding the right kind of sleep support is trusting your gut and doing your research.
Final thoughts
Restful sleep plays an essential role in our health and well-being. If you’re concerned about the sleep or health of your child or yourself, I encourage you to seek advice from your trusted GP. You are making the next step forward, prioritising sleep and your family’s health.
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