Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber;
Thou hast no figures, nor no fantasies,
Which busy care draws in the brains of men;
Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.
Thou hast no figures, nor no fantasies,
Which busy care draws in the brains of men;
Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.
Sleep...we all do it, none of us get enough of it, and as parents we obsess about it at various points of our child's life. A parent of a newborn is thrilled with the little milestones...a 2 hour stretch of sleep at night...a nap that coincides with a much-needed shower for mom. We all remember when our baby slept through the night for the first time. I thought that I would be well rested when that day came, but I was not. Instead of reveling in the quiet slumber of my baby and catching some solid zzz's myself, I would anxiously drift in and out of sleep all night, believing at any moment, she would wake. With the preschool years come new sleep issues...they need the nap and we need them to take the nap, but by nightfall, they are not tired because of that nap. Also, the monsters under the bed, extra drinks and then visits to the potty are diversional tactics that all 4-year-olds master. It is all over when they figure out that asking for extra hugs and kisses actually get a reaction from mom and dad. They eventually grow out of that and one day wake up as a teenager. However, I will leave this topic to a future post as there is so much to say about the vampire-like sleep habits of adolescents. Today, I am focused on my school-aged children and their sleep hygiene (a term I haven't used since grad school). According to the research, many school-aged children average 1-2 hours less sleep each night than they require for expected growth and development. This can lead to inattention, poor performance in school and athletics, and cranky kids with crankier parents.
School starts in two days for my children. During the summer, school-year bedtime habits fall by the wayside and are replaced by late nights and late mornings. We will have a brutal wake-up call as my daughter catches her bus at 7:25 AM., over an hour earlier than previous years. Every August, we have this same conversation about two weeks before school starts, and it goes something like this..."Tonight, let's put the kids to bed 15 minutes earlier than last night and wake them up earlier, and do this each night until they are back to the usual school-year bedtime." However, it never happens. Somehow it just does not seem right to force them to go to bed when the sun still shines and other kids are outside playing. I did give the earlier bedtime a go last night, but ten minutes later I heard "I can't fall asleep" uttered by my son. I do take comfort in the fact that my friends and their kids are in the same sinking ship as we are, just like when we had sleepless nights with our newborns. Now that it is Tminus48 hours until school, I guess my kids will have to get by on the first-day-of-school rush and hope is lasts until the weekend, and we grown-ups will rely on our friend, Caffeine, a little more than usual over the next few weeks. Tonight, I will try our bedtime plan again, and when I hear "I can't fall asleep!", perhaps I will read them some Shakespeare.
School starts in two days for my children. During the summer, school-year bedtime habits fall by the wayside and are replaced by late nights and late mornings. We will have a brutal wake-up call as my daughter catches her bus at 7:25 AM., over an hour earlier than previous years. Every August, we have this same conversation about two weeks before school starts, and it goes something like this..."Tonight, let's put the kids to bed 15 minutes earlier than last night and wake them up earlier, and do this each night until they are back to the usual school-year bedtime." However, it never happens. Somehow it just does not seem right to force them to go to bed when the sun still shines and other kids are outside playing. I did give the earlier bedtime a go last night, but ten minutes later I heard "I can't fall asleep" uttered by my son. I do take comfort in the fact that my friends and their kids are in the same sinking ship as we are, just like when we had sleepless nights with our newborns. Now that it is Tminus48 hours until school, I guess my kids will have to get by on the first-day-of-school rush and hope is lasts until the weekend, and we grown-ups will rely on our friend, Caffeine, a little more than usual over the next few weeks. Tonight, I will try our bedtime plan again, and when I hear "I can't fall asleep!", perhaps I will read them some Shakespeare.
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