The Gift of Sleep

Sleep is so important. From a medical perspective, it’s one of the most important health foundations for kids, and from a parent’s perspective it’s often one of the biggest headaches. Here, I address some of the most common questions parents have when it comes to helping their children sleep.

What is the best way for a parent to teach a brand new baby to sleep?

Brand new babies tend to sleep a lot, 16-18 hours a day, sometimes even more than that. But they often have a day-night reversal. They sleep a lot during the day and stay awake at night. One of the first things you want to do to help them fit into the family schedule and get quality sleep is to establish a rhythm where they sleep more at night and are awake more during the day. There are a few ways to do that.

During the day, frequently play with their feet.. When you play with a baby’s foot, it signals to them that it’s the day. At night, try to avoid touching their feet.

Another signal that’s really powerful is eye contact. Whenever you lock eyes with your baby, their heart rate goes up, they are a little bit more alert, and they get a surge of energy and delight. So during the day, when you’re playing with them and nursing, make eye contact. But at night, when you’re feeding, just cuddle close, rather than engaging with your eyes.

Room temperature is another signal. Throughout almost all of human history, the temperature was warmer during the day and cooler at night. Now, we tend to have similar temperatures night and day indoors, and many nurseries are kept pretty warm. Parents are afraid of babies getting cold, but they’ll actually sleep better if it’s a bit cooler at night, even up to seven degrees cooler. My advice would be to turn the thermostat down at night.

What is the best age to teach children to sleep on their own?

It’s best to start building healthy sleep habits from the beginning. And by 3 months old, many babies are able to have long sleep stretches on their own every night.

It’s usually easiest to teach babies to sleep on their own before they learn to pull themselves up in the crib, which often happens at 8 to 10 months old, or to wait until a few weeks after they have learned to walk. Here’s why. One of the most difficult times to sleep in all of childhood is right next to one of the biggest developmental milestones: learning to walk.

When kids are on the verge of learning to walk, which is often about 10 months, they’ll wake up in the night and they’re so excited about learning to walk that they’ll pull themselves up in the crib. Typically they learn to do this before they learn how to get back down. They get stuck standing, holding on to the side of the crib. This often happens at the peak age for separation anxiety. They’ll wonder where you are. They won’t be able to get themselves back down and they cry, and it’s tough— for everyone in the family.

Once kids have been walking for a few weeks, everything changes. Separation anxiety gives way to wanting to be more independent. And they tire themselves out from toddling about. When they do wake up, there is no urgency to stand up and see if this might be the day they can walk. That’s a really easy time to teach your child to sleep on their own if you haven’t. And in many cases, it’s the time to readdress sleep issues.

What about crying it out?

I know many people do use a crying it out method, and it can work well, but it’s not my favorite way. At least not to let them cry it out alone. If your child is in the stage where they are pulling themselves up, you might go in, gently unclench their tiny hands from the crib railing, and help them lay down again. Pat them and stay with them. Maybe sing a lullaby and be there with them even though they cry until they fall asleep. If you do that every night for three or four nights in a row, usually they will learn that they’re not going to be picked up, or get held or fed during the night and they will learn to settle back down when they wake up without you having to come in.

They do cry, but they know you’re there. They’re not afraid. They’re not alone. If you are going to let them cry it out, that’s my favorite way to do it.

What is a preferable time for putting children to bed?

It varies a lot throughout childhood and a lot from family to family. I love it when kids go to bed right after dinner, early in the evening. The important thing is to be consistent. The more consistent it is, the more likely they’ll get sleepy at that time. The sleep urge is powerful.

I do see parents keeping kids up later than ideal just because they don’t want to go through a bedtime battle. That’s one of the reasons that sleep routines and sleep rituals can be so powerful. Kids learn early on what are the cues that it’s time to fall asleep. A lot of that has to do with routine or a ritual.

A ritual involves doing the same things in the same order. So if you give them a bath, brush their teeth, and read two stories at the same time everyday, they learn to let go and let sleep overtake them by the end of that ritual.

Botanicals can be a powerful part of the ritual and the aromas of botanicals can signal when it’s time to go to sleep. I like using something like our Dreamy Hush Time roll-on oil from Bambini Furtuna. It can be a great sleep tool.

One thing I should mention is that things can become a ritual whether you intend them to or not. If you always rock your baby at bedtime, that becomes part of the ritual, or if you put them down in a particular setting. I’m a big fan of conscious rituals, deciding what you want the falling to sleep experience to be, like the ones mentioned above, and then keeping it as consistent as possible.

What about older children?

There is a lot that parents can’t control right now. Some children who were sleeping before our current Shelter in Place, have lost their normal routine. Some are anxious. I’m seeing a lot of families that are struggling right now. One thing that helps is focusing on your child’s circadian rhythm.

The circadian rhythm is an extremely important set of systems and signals within the body that rise and fall on a daily basis, but our circadian rhythms aren’t exactly 24 hours long. Historically, our bodies were in tune with environmental cues and were reset seasonally. by what we call Zeitgebers. These cues are a parent’s friends. They can help bring on a powerful melatonin surge at night to help your child sleep and vitamin D during the day.

The most powerful Zeitgeber is light. If you control one thing, it should be the light your baby is exposed to during the evening. That’s because we’re creatures like other mammals that have sleep cycles managed by the sun. For most of human history, the only light after the sun went down was soft yellowish light from candles and lanterns. Modern light bulbs typically have some blue light and electronic screens may have even more blue light. This wavelength can stop the melatonin from rising at night. Just cutting back on blue light at night is a powerful way to help melatonin surge and to get your child to sleep.

Why is sleep so important to a child’s development?

During the time we’re asleep, the brain does so many important things. One of them is to solidify memories from the day. It’s when what they’ve learned that day becomes part of their brain. Another is to prepare for the next day and we know that kids who are chronically sleep deprived can get all of the symptoms of ADHD. In fact, many kids who are diagnosed with ADHD, who have problems with focus and hyperactivity at school, really just have sleep deprivation. Simply getting better sleep can erase it. Even kids with real ADHD who need medication, may need smaller doses and have fewer symptoms if they get great sleep.