Helping your child sleep better
For the French version, click here.
Between the ages of 2 and 6, your child's sleep needs will change but are still important. Children aged 3 need 12 to 13 hours of sleep per day. 6-year-olds need 10 to 11 hours of sleep per day. A good indicator of whether your child is getting enough sleep at the right time is how easy it is to wake up in the morning: your child should wake up without difficulty when it's time to go to school. If not, his schedule should be reviewed.
What's the purpose of sleeping? Why is it so important for my child?
Sleeping well has important consequences on everyday health:
Sleep is essential for the child's brain development.
It regulates the production of several hormones: growth hormone, but also cortisol and insulin, the appetite hormones. Children who don't get enough sleep snack more and are hungrier.
It consolidates the information memorized during waking time and facilitates recent learning. A person who falls asleep on a task that has just been learned, improves memorization by 30%.
It is associated with a better immune response with probable consequences on susceptibility to infections.
How can you help him/Her sleep well and get a good quality sleep?
If a child needs a good night's rest, and most often naps as well, he doesn't always want to go to bed and doesn't let himself fall asleep easily. Here are a few tips to help them get the amount of sleep they need:
Regularity is a key factor for quality sleep. Regular bedtime and wake-up times from one day to the next during the week, with very little (if any!) time lag on weekends and holidays.
Get out, get moving. Going out and exposure to natural light promotes sleep because it tells the body's biological clock what's happening during the day. On the contrary, avoid exposure to screens in the hours before bedtime. The use of televisions, tablets and telephones is associated with difficulty falling asleep, waking up at night and poor quality sleep.
Rituals are all habits that are repeated every night at bedtime, always in the same order. They reassure the child at this particular moment in the transition from waking to sleeping, which is also a time of separation from the parents. It can be a scary time. A little story, a cuddle, a song or a music box, but also reassuring objects such as a cuddly toy or his favourite teddy bear, are the necessary steps to prepare the child for sleep. This moment must be calm and reassuring.
Teach your child to fall asleep alone. This is fundamental learning for his nights (and for yours) because a child who cannot fall asleep alone does not know how to go back to sleep alone in case of little night-time awakenings.
If your child has difficulty sleeping, don't hesitate to discuss this with your child's doctor. You can also consult these articles (in French) available on the ameli.fr website:
Paula Buswell