How To Help Kids Sleep

There are all sorts of fancy solutions out there to help kids sleep from strict bedtime routines to pricey night lights and even melatonin supplements. But the best ways to help kids sleep are surprisingly simple. They are the natural habits that we lost or corrupted over the last century or so.

So I have for you here the 7 of the most powerful natural ways to help your kids sleep at bedtime and keep them asleep.

Slash Sugar

Sugar suppresses sleep, it is that simple. It delays the rise in the sleep hormone melatonin so there is no way kids will be sleepy at bedtime if they've stuffed themselves with sugar in the late afternoon and early evening.

Sugar in the evening also triggers more insulin than early in the day. This insulin spike causes blood sugar to crash later in the evening and that crash triggers adrenalin, cortisol, the urge to urinate and sudden thirst.

All of these are are a guaranteed recipe for a totally wired little person bouncing around their room at 9 or 10 or later, busting for the loo and wanting a drink.

So one of the best ways to help kids sleep is to slash sugar overall and avoid sugar totally for two hours before bedtime.

Daylight First Thing

Daylight on our eyes first thing in the morning sets our body clock. In babies and toddlers this is quite complicated but once kids have dropped naps it is simple. Light on kids' eyes tells the body to start producing melatonin in 10-12 hours time.

So if we want kids sleepy at 7.30pm they need to be outdoors by 8 so melatonin will be triggered a few hours before bedtime.

Daylight Breaks

Now we've seen kids need that daylight wake up call to help them be sleepy at bedtime but light first thing is not enough to keep them asleep all night long.

Kids need time outdoors at regular intervals throughout the day. At minimum they should be out mid-morning, lunch time and mid-afternoon. These daylight breaks stimulate strong waves of cortisol, adrenalin and serotonin which give kids day time energy.

Without those strong waves of energy melatonin can trickle out during the day making kids lethargic. Daytime lethargy weakens the sleep signal at bedtime so kids are grumpy rather than sleepy and that weak melatonin signal is not strong enough to keep kids in rhythmic deep sleep throughout the night.

So if you want to stop those 2am visits from wide awake kids, create opportunities for your children to play outdoors as much as possible.

Big Meal At Lunch

OK we've just seen how kids' body clocks depend on daylight but we do have another timekeeper in our bodies who can meddle and make mischief with our body clock and that's our gut.

If kids eat their main meal in the evening their gut will wake up a whole load of body processes that melatonin is trying to send off to sleep. The result is kids who aren't sleepy at bedtime and disrupted digestion that wakes them in the night.

So whenever possible serve kids their big meal at lunchtime and their last meal 2 hours before bedtime.

Big Energy Busters

A big reason kids struggle to fall asleep and stay asleep these days is simply that they have too much energy left at the end of the day.

We need to build big easy energy burners back into children's everyday routine :

• Walk, scoot or cycle to school
• Hit the playground after school
• Get them playing outdoors with neighbourhood kids whether football or classic kids games like :
  • Tag in all its many variations
  • Stuck In The Mud
  • Red Rover
  • Marco Polo
  • Tinkernelly
• Backyard trampoline
• Backyard swingball
• Backyard soccer net

We should stop kidding ourselves that there is any chance of our kids sleeping well if they have been sitting around all day looking at screens.

More B6

Vitamin B6 is critical for helping kids to sleep because it is needed to make serotonin, the happy hormone which is in turn used to make melatonin, our sleep hormone. If kids don't have enough B6 in their diet, they will be miserable and struggle to sleep!

The easiest ways to ensure kids have enough B6 in their daily diet are :

1. Red meat
2. Chicken
3. Oily fish
4. Topped up with e.g. jacket potatoes (they need to eat the skin), bananas, chickpeas.

We don't store vitamin B6 so kids do need it daily. Simple red meat like chuck steak or ground beef can be a good source these days as so much chicken is mass farmed and has a poorer nutritional profile.

More Magnesium

You may well have heard that magnesium can help kids sleep but might not have realised just how critical it is. If our kids are magnesium deficient B6 doesn't work properly and melatonin :

1. Doesn't switch on & off reliably
2. Dribbles out weakly
3. Drops off in the middle of the night.

So kids with low magnesium won't feel sleepy at bedtime, will struggle to drop off and will often wake up in the middle of the night.

That isn't a cue to rush out for magnesium supplements but kids do need plenty of magnesium rich food in their diet every day from a good mix of :

• Milk & yoghurt
• Cooked leafy greens
• Overnight soaked oats
• Proper sourdough bread
• Small fish
• Pulses e.g. black beans, chickpeas, lentils.

You will see big numbers quoted for the amount of magnesium in leafy greens and pulses but we don't actually digest most of it, so don't just rely on green veg.

These simple natural habits truly will help you say goodbye to those nightly bedtime battles and transform your child's sleep. Let me know how you get on.

For more simple advice check out my other parenting posts and follow me on Pinterest.