What to Do When Your Child Has Trouble Falling Asleep

Back-to-school time is a great time to make family lifestyle changes that include more sleep for everyone. You're correct to worry that lack of sleep may affect your child's ability to learn and grow. Millions of kids and their parents don't get enough sleep, with negative effects on memory, learning, physical growth, and psychological functioning.

To determine an appropriate bedtime, look at your morning schedule and subtract 10 hours from your child's wake-up time. While an 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. bedtime may seem impossible, you can get there.

Tips for Helping Your Child Get to Sleep Without Trouble

Here are some tips to help your child get to sleep faster for a full night's rest.

Make Sleep a Family Priority

It will be hard for him to wind down if there is a lot of adult activity going on lately. Adjust your family bedtime routine to lower the lights and start everyone's bedtime preparations earlier. You'll probably find that you function better with a bit earlier bedtime also.

Enlist Your Child's Help

Help him understand the importance of ten hours of sleep to grow a healthy mind and body. Make it a cooperative family effort.

Make the Change Gradually

For example, two weeks before school starts, change bedtime to 1 hour later than school night bedtime; then, after a week change it to 30 minutes later than school night bedtime. The night before the first day of school, begin the regular school night bedtime. This might not go perfectly, but it establishes your expectation and routine.

Make Environmental Changes

• Eliminate caffeine in your child's diet.
• Reset the body clock with lots of outdoor exercise early in the day. Most schools have morning recess and this helps the sleep cycle.
• Turn down the thermostat. A cool room helps us sleep better.
• Turn down the lights. Reducing exposure to light in the evening helps the body's natural sleep clock.
• Restrict nighttime TV. If your family has favorite evening TV programs, watch it together in the family room with the lights turned down low. Make a habit of turning the TV off when you can and avoid having a TV in the child's room. Also, don't let your child get on the computer before bedtime. The stimulation will delay his feeling of sleepiness.
• To deal with the morning stress, move some morning tasks to the evening. At the very least, make it a routine to lay out his clothes for the next day before bedtime.
• Tuck him in. Spend time in quiet conversation while he's settling into sleep in his bed. Read a story and just let him talk about what is on his mind. This quiet time with you will give him a chance to talk about things he might be ruminating on and quiet his thoughts for sleep.

When Your Child Should See a Doctor About Sleep Issues

Problems with the sleep-wake cycle may be related to a disorder such as ADHD or a mood disorder. Delayed sleep phase disorder may have a genetic component in a family of 'night owls.'

If your child continues to struggle with falling asleep after you make environmental changes, you should bring this to the attention of his pediatrician, and possibly consider seeing a specialist in childhood sleep disorders. Optimal levels of melatonin, a hormone released by the brain to induce sleep may not reach adequate peak levels . Supplementation is available from a trained healthcare practitioner. However, melatonin levels may also be negatively affected by prolonged computer screen time at night or week night school athletics.