Problems Getting Pre-school Age Children to Bed/Sleep
Getting Pre-school Age Children to Bed – Broadly speaking, it’s often the age range 3-6 where many children start becoming difficult to handle at bedtime.
Many parents with children at a childcare centre will have some fairly exhausting experiences in this domain!
Why children don’t want to go to bed/sleep
There is no single explanation for this but both studies and millennia of practical experience of children to bed have shown problems can arise for four main reasons:
the child has some form of fear of being alone. This might sometimes be a fear of the dark (or subdued lighting) when alone or simply nightmares. It might also be that children become used to being close to parents or care providers for much of the day and suddenly being expected to be alone is just stressful – with the ‘bedtime’ part being irrelevant. This experience is linked to a child being ‘clingy’ to parents when out and about. Unsuspected stresses can also be a factor in unsettling a child at
- bedtime;
- their surroundings aren’t comfortable and sleep-inducing. Examples might include too much external noise, bright lights, temperatures that they’re not happy with and so on;
- perhaps the child is slightly unwell. Tummy aches, tickly coughs, and being overfull or alternatively peckish, are all examples;
- the child just isn’t tired. It can be difficult for anyone to go to bed and sleep easily if they’re not tired. A variation on this theme arises when just too much else is going on that bedtime will exclude the child from participating in – including other siblings playing games, interesting visitors, TV they want to watch etc.
What parents can do
The first thing is to ask the children to bed. Even from very young ages, many children can analyse why they don’t want to go to bed and will share that if asked. Depending upon the reason, you may be able to discuss things with them and make some compromises or adjustments to your bedtime routines.
Inevitably, some children may not understand their reluctance or give reasons that parents can’t compromise on. A good example of the latter is a child who decides that if their older sibling hasn’t gone to bed then nor should they need to!
However, calm discussion of the problems and the need for sleep rest are often a key factor in reducing such stresses.
Practical routine – Getting Pre-school Age Children to Bed
Several other steps may well help the problem or avoid it altogether:
- reduce the cutoff between bedtime and parental withdrawal. That means staying some minutes in the bedroom with your children to bed, reading stories or talking about the day before leaving the room and reducing lighting;
- use heavier curtains, particularly in summer with bright evenings. They reduce light intrusion and also to some extent, external noises;
- have a quiet 30 minutes before putting the child to bed. That means no TV, screen games or chasing around. Get them to read a book or just sit and talk to you. It helps them to calm down before bedtime;
- ask older siblings to be sensible with external noise, though opting for silence may be counter-productive. Children may sleep more easily when there are at least some familiar background noises from their family around the house;
- their room should be comfortable and not too hot/stuffy;
- avoid sugar-hit snacks in the runup to sleep time;
- try to keep yourself calm. Unfortunately, children in this age range tend to be going to bed at an hour when a lot is going on in the home. Partners perhaps returning from work, main family meals being eaten, multiple other pressures of housework and other children, parental exhaustion after a busy work day etc. This ‘busy time stress’ can easily communicate itself to a young child being prepared for bed. If humanly possible, try to make everything look relaxed and routine.
Patience is needed
In the final analysis, there is no universal solution to this age-old problem of children to bed. Each family will find its own way through it!
