It will come as no surprise to you that I am a huge advocate for sleep for both parents and children. Where possible I want them to get their required amount of sleep each night or certainly be mindful of late nights and early mornings because without realising it, we can cause our children to become overtired. Believe it or not overtiredness is often the culprit behind sleep difficulties. An overtired child will struggle to settle to sleep, will wake more often in the night and even wake earlier than their well-rested peers. Once overtiredness sets in it can be a struggle to undo as the overtiredness can keep itself going with early rising meaning children continue to be under their nightly sleep quota.
When children become super overtired, they behave in a way that would make you believe that they aren’t tired at all. Some children appear to be wired even at 9pm or even 10pm at night and this can be misleading. These children are very overtired and need a much earlier bedtime. Even at six years old children still require at least 10hrs of sleep every night and at that age my children still needed more like 11 or even 11.5hrs overnight! This is where the school holidays can lead us to become unstuck. We want to be fun parents and allow some later nights but just be aware of the negative affects that this can have, particularly on their mental health.
When we restrict our sleep what we do is stop ourselves from having so much REM sleep or dream sleep as this sleep happens more towards the end of the night. REM sleep is a very important part of our sleep, and it is in this phase of sleep that our bodies and brains perform a natural detox on a nightly basis. Restricting our sleep means this process cannot be performed in the same way and as you can imagine this starts to have a negative effect on us.
So, what can we do to avoid this? Firstly, have a good bedtime routine and give your child plenty of time to wind down if you have had a busy day. Try to avoid screen time too close to bedtime too as the blue light from screens can suppress their melatonin production which is their sleepy hormone. Melatonin is high around 7-7.30pm so we want them to be in their rooms around this time to be able to make the most of this. When this is missed their body can sometimes produce a stress hormone called cortisol as it believes that they need to stay awake and not drift off to sleep. Their body gets flooded with adrenaline and then it is really hard for them to settle to sleep and is why they appear wired so late in the evening.
Late nights can still be enjoyed over the summer, but it is being realistic about how many late nights you allow before you also give them an opportunity to make up some sleep. Afterall when children are well rested, they will really be able to enjoy their days out with you and transitioning back to your normal routine come September won’t feel so difficult.
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