5 Tips to Encourage your Children to Sleep on Time.

It's eleven o'clock before midnight, and the light in your teen's room is still on. He hasn't slept yet... Tomorrow is a normal school day. And if you do a quick math, if your child sleeps now, he'll get less than 6.5 hours of sleep, before he wakes up and is ready to go to school.

Of course, this number of hours of sleep is not enough, but what to do? This reality raises parents' anxiety and feelings of frustration, and causes daily battles, for their inability to convince their children that sleep is necessary and unavoidable.

Michele Eckard, writer, researcher and parent coach on how to deal with their children, said that in my 15 years of working with teens, and through my own experience as a mother, I witnessed and was involved in many battles firsthand, which prompted me to ask: "Why do adults waste so much of their lives?" Emotional feelings in order for their children to sleep”?

"Sleep is one of the first indicators of whether or not a parent is working with their child," said Kristen Daley, who serves as chair of the National Clinical Practice Committee of the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine.

Comparison may be the reason for our downfall

Over the past 20 years, Deeley explained, sleep has become a major emotional concern for families, adding, "Besides all of us wanting to sleep, there are comparisons (from one family to another)" that often make us fall short.

Not only do parents put their children to bed, they hope they are doing it right. Then they rush to family lifestyle pages on Instagram, Facebook and mothers' blogs, searching for a series of cheerful tips or peaceful photos of fresh-faced, loving-looking children sleeping with their parents.

"Sleep is one area of ​​health and medicine that has been deeply politicized," Dili said, as it is divided between attachment-based family education and a strict sleep program.

This feeling does not leave us even when our children start sleeping through the night. Battles over bedtime and parental insecurity may be delayed for a short time until children reach their teens.

Back to the family fights again

And a tired mother usually says, "I know she'd do better if only she slept more." For her part, the teenage yearning for her freedom answers: "This is another part of my life that you want to control too."

Scenes like this are taking place in the Deli private clinic, as the adolescent sleep expert advises, saying: “Do not fight something you cannot control,” explaining that you cannot change the body’s biological clock, which may witness a shift when children reach adolescence, and change them into lovers To sleep with two lovers for the night, pointing out that in return, you can create the appropriate atmosphere for sleep that will help you succeed in this.

What can parents control?

The most sleep-inducing factor for your baby may come as a surprise to you. In addition to heavy sheets, blackout curtains, limited access to electronic devices, or room temperature monitoring, all of which can help improve sleep, implementing healthy sleep habits at home by prioritizing and sticking to a set bedtime is what matters. The only one that has it has the greatest effect on a young child, according to a 2016 study.

This means that if you maintain a set bedtime and environment, your baby is more likely to sleep well. In addition to rejuvenating energy and improving mood, Daily said, "Sleeping during the night hours produces the greatest amount of human hormone growth."

Techniques to help promote sleep and make it a priority

Determining bedtime can be difficult. And kids who come home late, sometimes after dinner time, need to eat their food and do their homework. This may reflect negatively in terms of the application of sleep requirements. Appreciating the importance of sleep as a parent often means making difficult decisions, especially when you think that sports, theater and family time are also important.

What matters is not only setting a bedtime, but setting a time to wake up in the morning, being in the sun and eating delicious food; These are all signals to the brain to warn that the time for activity has begun, even if the start of school classes does not match your teenage child's new biological clock.

These are natural methods that help our bodies regulate their timing. Of course, it is known that electronic devices in the room delay the sleep time of adolescents in an unhealthy manner.

Daily noted that watching TV before bedtime is not harmful for teens, while the light emission from a device 18 inches or smaller affects a teen's ability to sleep.

Parents should take care of themselves

This is another thing you can control: your mood, your health, your comfort. These are important factors that play an important role in your relationship with your children, leading to a healthy sleep. So prioritize your sleep, and your children will follow.