Some tips to help your child fall asleep faster are creating a routine, avoiding excessive stimulation, creating a comfortable environment or even using aromatherapy with essential oils, for example.
The child’s bedtime must be defined individually and according to the needs of the child’s body and age, with some children having more difficulty falling asleep and others sleeping more easily.
These tips can help your child fall asleep faster, however, it is important to always consult a pediatrician to assess whether the child has any sleep disorders, such as apnea, for example.
11 tips for your child to sleep faster
Some tips to help your child fall asleep faster are:
1. Create a routine
Creating a routine is essential to signal to the child that it is time to sleep, as it helps to create positive sleep associations, making them sleep at the right time in a peaceful, relaxed way throughout the night.
This routine should be easy and simple to do every night and follow patterns such as:
- Put the child to sleep at the same time every night;
- Give a bath, offer dinner, and then brush your teeth;
- Sing a lullaby or tell a story;
- Have a reassuring conversation, in the case of older children.
Additionally, in the case of babies, you can have a relaxing massage, breastfeed in dim light or turn on white noise. See other tips for tips to get your baby to sleep through the night.
2. Define bedtime
Setting a bedtime is also essential to create a routine for the child, and the schedule must be individualized according to each child.
To know the best time for your child to sleep, you must first identify the child’s sleep signs, look more distant and still or be slower or quieter, for example.
It is at this time that you should take the child to the room and create a comfortable environment, to allow the child to sleep calmly and peacefully throughout the night.
3. Define at the time of agreement
Setting the wake-up time must be included in the daily routine, taking into account the time the child needs to sleep per night and the time set for the child to sleep, individually.
A child’s sleep needs vary according to age, such as:
- Children aged 3 to 5 years: 10 to 13 hours of sleep per night;
- Children aged 6 to 12: 9 to 12 hours of sleep per night;
- Children over 12 years old and teenagers up to 18 years old: 8 to 10 hours of sleep per night.
Therefore, to define the time to wake up the child, one must take into account the child’s bedtime routine, the number of hours of sleep per night by age, in addition to the child’s individual needs, which can vary from one child to another.
4. Create a comfortable bedroom environment
Creating a comfortable environment in the bedroom can also help your child sleep faster.
Some ways to create a comfortable environment are to reduce the light in the room, have curtains to reduce the light coming from the street and turn off bright lights throughout the house.
Furthermore, you must maintain a comfortable temperature in the room, neither too hot nor cold, and avoid external sounds and noises, and you can sound-insulate the windows so that there are fewer stimuli inside the room.
Another way to create a comfortable environment in the bedroom is to play relaxing music at a lower volume, to help the child relax and make it easier to sleep.
5. Avoid too many stimuli before bed
Avoiding too many stimuli before bed, such as TV, cell phones, video games or tablets, can help your child fall asleep faster.
This is because these devices emit blue light that interferes with the production of melatonin in the body, which is a hormone produced in response to darkness and its levels increase at night to prepare the body for sleep.
Therefore, it is recommended to avoid these stimuli for about 2 hours before bed, and maintain a calm and peaceful environment.
Furthermore, it is important that parents, when putting their child to sleep, avoid having their cell phone nearby or put it on silent so that the child is not distracted by the sounds or light from the parents’ cell phone.
6. Reduce stress
Reducing your child’s stress a few hours before bedtime can help them fall asleep faster.
This is because busy activities before bed can lead to an increased release of cortisol in the body, which is the stress hormone, and make the child more agitated, making it difficult to sleep.
Therefore, it is recommended to do relaxing activities with your child, such as drawing, listening to calming music or playing a puzzle, for example.
7. Help alleviate the child’s fears
For children who are afraid of ghosts or other nocturnal creatures, it is important to help alleviate the fear.
A good way to alleviate a child’s fear is to create an “anti-ghost solution”, for example, by putting some water in a spray bottle, and spraying it in the corners of the room before the child falls asleep, in order to provide security for sleeping. .
Additionally, for older children, you can talk to them about their fears and try to calm them down. However, this conversation should be avoided before bed, preferring to talk during the day.
8. Spending time with the child
Some children miss their parents and stay asleep because they want to spend more time with them.
What you can do, in this case, is dedicate some time just to pay attention to the child, even if it’s just 10 minutes a day.
During this time, it’s important to look her in the eye, tell her you love her and do something you like, like drawing, for example.
9. Don’t go to bed with a full belly
When a child has a very full tummy, they become more restless and don’t know how to express what they are feeling and this can make it difficult to sleep.
Before putting your child to bed to sleep, it is important to check that they are not hungry or have a full tummy.
One way to solve this problem is to give dinner about 2 hours before bedtime.
10. Teaching your child to fall asleep alone
Teaching your child to fall asleep alone is important because it is possible for the child to wake up during the night and go to their parents’ room.
A good tip is to stay in the room with the child for a while, while they calm down, making this a routine that should be followed for a few weeks.
Little by little, parents should move away, such as taking 3 steps away, and increase the steps until they can be leaning against the door of the child’s room.
After the child sleeps, parents can leave the room, quietly so that the child does not wake up. See how to teach your baby to sleep alone.
11. Do aromatherapy
Aromatherapy is also a good way to calm your child and help them fall asleep faster.
This way, you can put 1 or 2 drops of lavender essential oil or chamomile essential oil on the child’s pillow and give them a little passion fruit juice before going to sleep.
These oils have sedative and calming properties that help you relax and are useful for facilitating sleep.
When to go to the pediatrician
It is important to take your child to the pediatrician in the following situations:
- Constant nightmares;
- Snoring;
- Difficulty breathing through the nose when sleeping;
- I’m nervous;
- Noisy or noisy breathing when sleeping;
- Frequent awakening during sleep.
Therefore, the doctor must evaluate the child and identify the cause of the symptoms, which could be sleep apnea, for example, and thus indicate the most appropriate treatment.
In addition, you should also take your child to the pediatrician if they have attention or learning difficulties and low school performance, to identify the cause, whether it is related to poor sleep quality, little sleep or other causes.
Make an appointment with a pediatrician in the nearest region:
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