EASY TRICKS TO MAKE YOUR CHILD FALL A SLEEP

Getting enough sleep is very important for adults and more so for the children. Sleeping not only gives children much needed rest but also facilitate their growth. But all parents know, that making children sleep can prove to be a tough job. Many children develop habit of sleeping late every night. This can make them irritated and can also make parents to loose their patience, specially after a tiring day.

Here are some easy and effective tricks to avoid these unwanted situations. Some of these tricks can be adopted as a habit for peaceful nights all year long. We have also included some tricks, which you can use on those exceptional nights when your child is crying or cranky and more determined not to sleep than usual, and you are on fire-fighting mode.

FIX BEDTIME 

It is always a good idea to fix a certain time when you will take your child go to bed on most of the days. This helps in making sleeping at for example, 9 PM a habit for them and they will tend to follow this habit until they are around 6-7 years old.

While fixing the bed time, it is advisable that you fix a diner time too. Dinner should finish at least one hour before the bed time. Many babies and toddlers tend to drink milk before sleeping. This is also good for the sleeping habit. This way, when a toddler drinks milk, he also gets the message that it is going to be time for bed soon. In case of up to two year old babies, make sure their stomach is not overfull while sleeping.

LIGHTING

Turning off regular lights is obviously necessary but also make sure that the sleeping room is not completely dark. Soft lighting helps children sleep comfortably whereas darkness can scare them and sleeping will be harder if they are scared. 

You can also show them the moon and the stars from their bedroom window (if possible). Even looking at cloudy night sky can help too. Your child can appreciate the stars better if regular lights in the room are turned off. 

STORIES

We all know that bed time stories can help children fall a sleep big time. But there is a catch! When you tell the story, you want the child to get really involved in it and start imagining about the characters and the plot of the story. After you are finished telling the story, you should stop speaking in a way that their imagination stays continued without a break. This is how you can make them sleep without much efforts.

Choose stories which are easy to imagine with a plot which they can relate to. You can refer stories posted on this blog under the title "STORIES FOR TODAY'S KIDS". Use softer voice than usual while telling bedtime stories

SINGING AND MUSIC

Playing soft instrumental music like flute, sitar, piano, saxophone etc. can help your child sleep faster. But make sure that you do not expose phone or computer screen to his eyes while sleeping. It is not only bad for their eyes but also makes sleep run away. You can also sing bedtime songs (lullaby). This works more on younger children of up to two years old.

MASSAGE

After a day of a lot of running and jumping around or a lot of crawling and physical activities, it is very common that your child has pain in one or more body parts. Kids many times don't tell this unless we specifically ask about it. In such case, massaging their legs with message oil or massaging their head with hair oil can be very relaxing for them.

DAY'S RECAP

Talk about your day with your child while lying on the bed. You can also ask what he or she did in the day. Communicate about next day activities too. This helps them to get lost in a stream memories or imaginations and makes them fall a sleep quickly.

CRANKY CHILD

This is when your skills are truly tested. Sometimes children get so tired that they go in a loop where they cannot sleep because they are cranky and they are cranky because they cannot sleep. Here, you cannot break this loop by simply asking or forcing them to sleep. You have to bring in a factor from outside of this loop.

When you identify that your child has gone into this loop, first of all stop doing anything else and give full attention to your child. Generally, this is the first thing they want when they are cranky. Now, divert their attention from sleeping problem and try to start playing or doing some other activity with them without even mentioning sleep. Check if they are thirsty because of all the noise they have been making.

Once you have their attention, slowly start doing something less physically demanding. It could be telling a story or just talking about what all happened today. Talk about something they generally like. Keep doing this until you see the child calmer than before. This could be your chance to make their bed and dim the lights. Keep talking or telling stories in the meanwhile.

To finally make them sleep, it is important that you make them get lost in their thoughts. You can do this by talking about a topic they like, by story telling or by introducing a new concept to them.  For example, Once I explained to my two year old Son, what spaceships are and how they are different from planes. I told him we can go to different cities using planes but by using spaceship, we can go to the moon and stars. I also described the sound it makes while take-off. My Son fell a sleep within five minutes of that! Next day, he was asking me to take him for a spaceship ride.

TRY IT

So guys, these were the tricks we thought useful. At the end every child is different and you may have to make some changes accordingly. We would also like to know if you have some tricks of your own. Feel free to write them in comments section. 

Have a good and relaxing bedtime!

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