17/07/2024
To sleep or not to sleep bit more like ….when to sleep and how long? Find out here gang!
Often times, we get this same old question. It’s one of those questions that I believe most parents already know the answer to, but they are almost afraid to confirm it as it involves some feelings of guilt haha.
That question is….. How many hours should their kid or kids sleep and what time should the littles get to bed. They are almost always sheepish when they bring up this subject and I think we all know why.
My answer here may differ from many Internet articles but it is entirely based on my observation of our kids at the daycare. The amount of sleep your child needs is a simple question actually. The recommended hours are between 10 to 12 hours a night. But the reasons why the parents are asking are never simple. Sometimes it is even heartbreaking.
Some parents work strange hours, other parents work very late hours and this translates to them not having much time with their kids. So when they finally get home the kids are already fast asleep.
They are many parents who do spoil their children and let them stay up, because putting their little ones to bed early is more aggravation that they do not need in their day. However, there are also those parents who are struggling with a question about the quality of life. The kind of life they want to have with their kids and the kind of life, their kids need in order to grow up healthy and develop good learning abilities. Having both parents working is now a fact of life as both incomes are now needed…so this issue is something both parents have to resolve and mitigate.
In the almost 2 decades where I have been teaching, it has become abundantly clear to me that a child who goes to sleep early and arrives at school early does exponentially better than a child who sleeps late and arrives late at the daycare. All the kids who arrive early and sleep early , are always and I mean ALWAYS the top performers.
Daycare is not just training for the little ones but in many ways it is also training for the adults whom may have led lifestyles that allow them to wake up late, work from home and never needing to leave home early in the a.m. to go to work. This in turn becomes an issue as the parents themselves struggle to get up in time to send them to the kindergarten or daycare in the proper class times.
When all of this is taken into account the answer is no longer easy but can be complicated. If you want to have more time with your kids, the answer simply is that you have to make that time by spending time with them within the healthy hours a kid should be awake.
Simply said, you need to find the window of time when you can spend quality time with your children and not deprive them of sleep. From the day we become parents the welfare of our children supersedes our own. As a parent you can make lifestyle changes or opt for a job that gives you more optimum hours so you have a better quality of life with your children. But keeping your child up late so that you can do stuff together though is actually quite irresponsible and detrimental to their growth and development. Please don’t do that.
It will impact their lives in the future as with the lack of sleep they cannot retain the learning they have done at school. Sleep deprivation causes a lot of effects which are negative, from mood swings to drowsy sleepy behaviour at school and being antisocial. It literally all starts with good sleep . When your day begins with a lack of sleep, we all already know how bad that day is going to go.
So to reiterate again, a child should sleep between 10 to 12 hours at night. We normally suggest that the kid climbs into bed by 8p.m. and no later than 9p.m. each night. They would wake up the next morning around 7a.m. ,have breakfast and haul over to the daycare or kindergarten by 8-830a.m. This game plan is so much win that I have seen students go from being weak academically to turning around and becoming some of the best students from doing just this one thing. Getting enough sleep.
So do yourself and your kid a favour. Both and if not all of you, mummies and daddies, big sisters and big brothers , the pet kitty and the pet doggy should all go to bed early and get in those solid hours of sleep. Your brain will thank you, your heart will thank you and you’ll feel that with enough sleep, your whole day starts like a ride going down hill instead of an uphill climb when you roll to work with barely 4 hours of sleep.
It’s never easy doing the right thing for ourselves, but amazingly once we become parents, we generally already know what the right thing to do is. Listen to that inner voice which has been echoed down to you from your own parents, your grandparents and your teachers. Sleep right sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite. Good luck mummies and daddies getting the little one to go to bed early ….How to do that if the sleeping late habit has already kicked in….is a whole other post which we will save for another day. If you got through this lengthy post, you just won yourself a merit badge parents. Keep up the good work and remember … they are so worth it 🌻❤️
