Parenting Advice: How To Get To Children To Sleep
Dr. Noel Swanson
Most adults have learned that they won't fall asleep until they are relaxed. Even though it sounds contradictory, learning to relax can take some work.
Feeling safe and sound is of the utmost importance. If children hear their parents arguing, if there are financial problems, trouble with neighbors or disagreements with friends, trouble at school, they experience tension and don't feel safe. Of course it's even worse if their parents abuse them. Any one or combination of these situations won't let your children relax and enjoy a good night's sleep.
When we get into bed it's time to forget about the day's business, shut out environmental distractions, and slow our heart rate and metabolism. As our bodies start to drift, so do our brains. During the day, brain waves might run at 14 Hertz (cycles per second) or more. When they start to slow down, they first go into an "alpha" rhythm (about 10 Hz), and then gradually go into the deep sleep rhythm, called "delta", about 4-7 Hz.
Setting up the environment in the right way can go a long way toward helping us relax. So will keeping to a regular routine. The body gets used to it and knows when it's time to slow down and get ready to sleep. Here are a few ideas:
Soak in a warm tub and drink some warm milk. The bath relaxes our bodies, allowing the metabolism to slow down. It doesn't have to stay active and generate heat. Muscles relax when they are warm. The warm milk contains Tryptophan. This is an amino acid which acts as a natural sedative. Stay away from caffeinated drinks like Coke, tea or coffee. Don't engage in activities which will wind you up or frustrate you. Keep the kids away from the frustrations of homework or the activity of the Gameboy.
A nice bedtime story is very calming. It focuses away from daily anxieties and provides special child-parent time. Feeling loved and valued lets the child feel more safe and secure. If you wish, you might play a taped story after you read to him. Pick a soothing story and turn out the lights so he can listen with his eyes closed.
Read your child a story at bedtime. Make sure that there isn't anything frightening in it. Besides having a calming effect, you are engaging in some special time together. Knowing that they are loved and cherished, tells children that their world is safe. When you're finished reading, turn on a recorded story that is peaceful and quiet. Turn off the lights and soon he'll be listening with closed eyes and drifting off.
Since we can't close our ears, relaxing music might help lessen the shock and disturbance of hearing sounds from our environment. Sudden noises and those not expected tend to wake us and cause stress. Some sounds we can't control are a barking dog at the neighbors, a fox or other creature howling, or even lorries passing the house. However, we can take some steps to modify our environment. Using heavy drapes or curtains, double glazed windows and closing doors can aid in keeping out some sounds.
If we want to introduce sounds to drown out the disturbing ones, we need to use care. Sounds known as white noise, come from fans and humidifiers. A soothing radio program can also help lessen the effects of the dogs and lorries. Because of the pitch and the beat of the sound we introduce, we can cause more stress than relaxation, if we don't know what we're doing. Remember that the higher frequencies give us energy while the lower ones help us relax. White noise and most radio music are high frequency. If your radio is a less expensive model, then the bass response is poor, making it worse. In general, popular music is played at a fast beat. The worst type for sleep is disco music. Most of us can't help somehow engaging with the music, by tapping or nodding to its beat. We refer to this as entertainment and tell ourselves that our bodies want to align with the rhythms of our universe. The problem is that our heart rates also align with the beat. If the music is up tempo our heart rate increases. To slow it down for sleep we need to play slow and calming music.
Our bodies are also greatly affected by light and colour. Supermarkets and football teams are well aware of this. The stores use blue/green tinted bulbs in their produce sections to make the vegetables appear greener and fresher. They use red tinged lights at the meat counters. They use these techniques subtly but effectively. They also are particular when designing product packaging, so that you will be stimulated to buy. They keep the lights bright and the "muzak" playing. They do this so you will feel happy and right at home, causing you to stay longer and spend more. Think about this in relation to some of the dingier shops, and you will understand their strategy. Sometimes football clubs will paint the home team changing rooms in red, to spur the players to action; and the visiting team's room blue, which is calming.
We've learned how sensitive we are to frequencies, rhythms and sounds. Our bodies also react to colour and light. Supermarkets use this to their advantage by lighting the vegetable sections with blue/ green tinged bulbs. The vegetables appear greener and fresher. Note the use of red tinted lights at the meat counter. It's a subtle but effective technique. Packaging is also carefully planned as to colour and design, with the motive of making it appealing enough to buy. The rest of the store is brightly lit and has music playing. Do you feel comfortable and happy? This is the goal, so if you feel these things they have been successful. The more time you spend in this environment, the more money you will spend. Think about some dark and dreary shops that you've seen. You didn't feel so enthusiastic did you? Using the same principles, football clubs paint the changing rooms in psychologically chosen colours. The home team changes in a red room to arouse them into action, while the away team has a blue room to relax and quiet them into lethargy.
Think about the colour spectrum. Blue is meant for us to feel serene, green harmonious and peaceful, while pink signals warmth and feeling cozy. These quiet colours are perfect for bedrooms. Be careful with the blues and greens however, as they can also feel cold. Using yellows, reds and other lively colours in a bedroom, isn't a good idea. Even though the effects are subtle, they may get our blood flowing and keep us from sleep. These effects are usually subconscious but that doesn't make them any less real.
There is one other feature of natural flames that makes it so relaxing - it flickers. Typically, in fact, if flickers at a rate of about 6-7 Hz. The brain tends to entrain to this frequency, which produces the very relaxed state of "theta wave" activity.
Of course it may not be safe to have a candle, oil lamp or open fire in your child's bedroom! So how can we get around this? One option is to use the electrical bulbs that simulate a flickering flame. The other is to use speciality lamps such as fibre optic lamps that produce a low level of light, that gradually changes from one colour to another. They may not flicker at 7 Hz, but the slow and gentle changes are themselves relaxing, as are the colour changes, provided they are not too bright. Other children prefer to simply have a dark room with no lights on. Certainly it pays to have thick curtains that screen out the late night and early morning light of the summer sun.
Since it's pretty unlikely that a parent would wish to put candles or oil lamps in a child's room, there are other options to consider. You can find fiber optic lamps that are very relaxing, even if they don't flicker as low as 7 Hz. They do, however, change colour slowly and the level of light is very low. The changing colours and soft light are so calming that they should be very helpful in getting your child off to sleep. Also available are lights that flicker so as to resemble a small flame. There are some children who prefer to sleep in a totally darkened room. If this is the case in your family, consider the heavy curtains that block twilight and early morning sun.
Humidity and fresh air. In the winters we tend to have the windows closed, and the heating on. The closed window cuts out the outside noises, but also cuts out the fresh air. Furthermore, the heating dries out the air, which in turn dries out our nasal passages. Stuffy air and uncomfortable noses are a common cause of poor sleep and wakening in the late parts of the night. Opening the window a crack may help.
The humidity can be improved in three ways. One is to simply turn the heating down, and compensate with more blankets ( which may help the child to "feel grounded"). The other is to add some moisture to the air. This can be down with a humidifier (which may also produce some background white noise), or simply by draping a wet flannel over the radiator. Put a couple of drops of essential oil in the water or on the flannel, and you will also provide a gentle aroma in the room.
Most people awaken or come close to it, several times throughout the night. The hard part can be falling back to sleep. If you are using the above ideas, they will help. It's also important not to reinforce a pattern of behaviour, so if your child wakes up don't give him attention. Babies and young children might cry or make other noises, but try to just wait them out. Usually they will go back to sleep on their own. If you usually rush in to them, it will take them time to adjust to being ignored. Soon the period of wakefulness will shorten.
Most of us wake up during the night at least once and more likely two or three times. Even when we are not fully awake, too often we are unable to fall back to sleep. Some of the things mentioned above will help in that department, but there are other things to consider. Don't give your child a lot of extra attention when she wakes up in the middle of the night. This will only reinforce the behaviour until it becomes a habit. The younger the child the more likely she is to cry or make some type of sound. Try to avoid running in to soothe her. For one thing it will cause her to come more fully awake and for another it will reinforce the waking pattern. Usually if you can just let children be, they will fall back to sleep. It probably won't happen right away because they will be waiting for you to come rushing in. If you can tough it out, they will start going back to sleep sooner. There are so many possibilities for helping children to sleep that you can probably come up with some other good ideas.
I wish you peaceful nights and happy dreams.
For more articles full of http://www.good-child-guide.com/expert-parenting-tips) parenting advice by Dr. Noel Swanson, go to his http://www.good-child-guide.com/ parenting advice website and get his free newsletter.
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