Creating a peaceful bedtime

Great sleep and bedtime routines go together very well.  It has been demonstrated that a bedtime routine can initiate faster sleep onset, yield longer sleep durations and enhance parent child relating. A bedtime routine can act a bridge between awake and asleep and may be continually adjusted through the stages of development, until your child will take over their own bedtime rituals.  Here are some suggestions to help you to create a calm bedtime routine whenever you are ready.

It is never too early to begin to establish a bedtime process that helps to make the transition to sleep time.  As soon as your baby is smiling back at you, can be a good yardstick, but do not feel under too much pressure.  The early days can be challenging, with your baby’s bedtime generally coinciding with your own.  The idea here is that you help create a distinction between awake time and sleep time.  Go to the bedroom, introduce a few steps that begin to initiate sleep onset- change their clothes, the lighting and your tone. This is enough when your baby is very little.

By 4 months onwards it is possible that your baby’s bedtime is now earlier, they are more aware of their surroundings and their growing separateness to you.  If you have not already, then you can begin to can promote the end of the day in such a way that sleep is welcomed and not resisted.

A well timed bedtime tends to be calmer, meaning the practice occurs before your child becomes too tired to transition to sleep.  Many parents use a wake window at bedtime, however, it may be better now to have bedtime that acknowledges the proposed wake window, organizing the last nap to end by a certain time, so that bedtime can be at the same time each night. Moving bedtime around may undermine your child’s sleep.

A bath is not a pre-requisite as part of a bedtime routine, so it is more a personal decision about whether this is the right dynamic for your child and to acknowledge even if you have a bath, you will still need to provide wind-down, calming activities thereafter.

Bedtime routines tend to work better if they are centralised to the bedroom your child will sleep in.   Once you have decided what is the right time to begin bedtime, and after you have had your bath if doing one, and wash up, otherwise, then proceed to the bedroom, allocating  not less than 20 minutes and ideally not more than 30m to your sleep preparation. Bear in mind that inducing or getting your child to sleep, is not considered a bedtime routine either.

A typical bedtime routine comprises the following steps:

1. One parent to take the child to the bedroom
2. Dim the lights, close the curtains.
3. Change your baby’s nappy, clothes and put into their sleeping bag if you are using one.
4. Then pick 1-3 activities to connect and engage with each other with plenty of physical and eye contact:

• Massage
• Read a story from a book
• Sing to your child
• Do stacking cups
• Play with a shape sorter,
• Figure out a wooden puzzle
• Tell them about your day, ask them about theirs

• When you have completed this exercise, then it is lights out and sleep time.
• Let’s take the bedtime routine apart to understand the reasons behind the recommendations:
• One parent to provide the bedtime routine is to avoid over-stimulation that 2 adults may stimulate.
• Having the bedtime routine in the bedroom, means that the ritual is logical and linear in one space, so you do not break the spell of winding down by moving locations.
• Doing so in the bedroom that your child sleeps in creates feelings of safety, together with good associations with the room they are sleeping in.
• Having the environment dimly lit promotes the sleep hormone melatonin.
• Getting them into their sleep clothes as part of the bedtime routine further creates the distinction between wake and sleep and proposes, “this is my costume for sleep”.
• Reading with your child is a calming practice for many and has developmental benefits outside of sleep as well.
• Having lots of physical and eye contact promotes belonging, connections and loving relating.
• Baby massage has proven to help children fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer
• Doing alternate activities to book reading encourages “between you” engagement, promoting eye contact, dialogue, further reinforcing the message, I see you, I hear you, I love you. You belong.
• If we focus the lens of the bedtime routine on relationship, engagement and connection, then we are promoting a loving setting and a security to go to sleep with ease.