Originally published at: Six key steps for getting kids to sleep | Boing Boing
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I knew a guy, who in his 20’s discovered that he had an older sister that social services took away from his parents. They were giving the little girl vodka to make her sleep. Not recommended.
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Interesting that what’s supposed to work for kids is pretty much the same stuff that’s sposed to work for adults.
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Relaxing bath, you say? Last time I had to put Technical Granddaughter to bed (who is exuberantly five) there was bath time first. I was drenched from head to toe and forced to have a long discussion about man-eating sharks…
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It used to be pretty common to give babies a couple of drops brandy to make them sleep/numb tooth pain. Did a quick search, and it looks like it’s still unfortunately being used as a home remedy.
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Related to the “avoid use of electronics” one: reducing light as much as possible in the hour or so before bed makes a big difference for my family. I was resistant to this at first but my wife pushed hard for a dark house, and the kids really do fall asleep much faster than they used to. We use a lot of candles and oil lamps for illumination these days. As for the TV, I had to make a few alterations…
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Yep. I discovered a trick years ago with the older Peas twins. On nights where they’re resistant to even going in the bedroom, I simply go into each room and turn off the lights while leaving a dim light like a lamp on in their bedroom. Eventually the whole house is dark except their bedroom and they gravitate toward it like moths to a flame. This actually hits on another major factor: reducing stress and anxiety before bedtime. Fighting them into bed usually just keeps them up for hours
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Neurodivergent parents cackle in the background.
Kid has autism, I have adhd and possibly autism. We watch TV right up til we go to sleep then we take melatonin. We do find that some TV shows are more calming than others. How its made or How the universe works are good for bedtime. Anything with a good amount of lore than needs discussing (Star Trek, Transformers) is not.
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Apparently hiding under their bed or in their closet and jumping out to surprise them does not help, but it is fun anyway.
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I remember watching some old sci-fi show (Lost in Space maybe?) where the mom was able to put the kids to sleep instantly with some kind of electronic device. I can only imagine how many parents would buy such a gizmo if available.
“Set phasers to ‘quiet time!’”
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I think it’s pronounced Tazer
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We’re finding that afternoon naps for my 4yo have a marked negative impact on bedtime. He doesn’t need the naps so much now but I sure do miss them!
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Agreed. And I was the one to handle the scary monster stuff. “Dad, what if there is a zombie apocalypse?!?” “Don’t worry, we have lots of rednecks around here. They like shooting stuff. And what are zombies made of? Meat! Dogs, cats, raccoons, bacteria, etc love to eat meat.”
Then came the “what if something tries to get us?” So I brought back a pair of guard lion statues from China. Normally a mother and father lion. But due to some mix up in packaging, we ended up with 2 males. No problem. Ours are 2 gay dad lions. One guards the closet, the other the bedroom door.
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Not all of them. The list here plus a weighted blanket and melatonin as you suggested was reasonably close to what eventually worked for my ASD kid. Routine is almost always the name of the game for him.
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It was SUCH a hard adjustment when Kiddo aged out of naps. For me. Kiddo was all in and hadn’t looked back.
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My problem is that at least 25% of the time he really does still need a nap but then it blows up his ability to get to sleep.
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My oldest turned “I can’t sleep” into a nightly routine of coming out every ten minutes for an hour to tell us she couldn’t sleep. We eventually came up with the Four Steps To Sleep. If she came out saying she couldn’t sleep, I’d ask her if she’d done each of the 4 steps, in turn. Usually it came down to not doing the last one. Since she knew what was going to happen when she came out, she pretty quickly learned not to. So far, she’s never once not fallen asleep eventually. The four steps are:
- Lie down
- Close your eyes
- Be quiet
- Wait until you fall asleep
“Did you lie down?”
“Yes”
“Did you close your eyes?”
“Yes”
“Were you quiet?”
“Yes”
“Did you wait until you fell asleep?”
“… No…”
“Whelp, there’s the problem. Go try again.”
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