Sleep is important for all, as the saying goes (sleep Sultan), when we sleep, we get the comfort and energy for the day, sleep for children, more important, because it is beneficial to the health and welfare of the child, and the body produces hormones that stimulate growth of the night.
Says Ms. Andrea Grace, sleep expert and author of Teach your child to sleep, that child grow up, during sleep, mentally and physically both."
And insomnia or lack of sleep one of the most common problems in young children between the ages of 1-2 or 3-4 years.
Perhaps the child will find it difficult to sleep, or wake up during the night, according to the Royal College of Mental Health, the problems of sleep when most of the children do not occur only occasionally, usually not serious and disappear over time, but if you took a long time, then parents need to take the problem seriously because it can be annoying and can affect a child's learning and behavior.
Nocturnal awakenings
Known experts, who work with parents and children, night waking, when it is repeated five nights or more per week for more than three months, accompanied by one of these symptoms:
- Waking up three or more times per night.
- Staying more than 20 minutes after waking up.
- The child goes to his parents room to sleep with them.
Causes of sleep difficulties
The sleep difficulties define taking more than 20 minutes to sleep in five nights or more per week for two months or more, is not known what causes sleep problems in children, but the reasons that you might be related to the difficulty sleeping:
- Learn some of the children sleep patterns that could be behind some of the sleep problems, such as not sleeping child only attend a television with his parents in the living room.
- Rapid eye movement in young children more than adults, so it is likely that the child will find it difficult to return to sleep after waking up.
- Some children have trouble sleeping at their clock imbalance in the biological functions of this time is to regulate the times of sleep the body feels sleepy at night or when dark, and the alternative of life and activity during the day, and sometimes confused at the timing of when you travel from time zone to another or because of disease.
There are some factors that make your child more vulnerable to sleep problems, including:
- That have suffered from colic when the child was a baby.
- To be the child's difficulty mood (for example, irritable, moody, or stubbornness).
- Sleep problems are usually more severe when they occur in children who have the difficulty in learning or physical disability, such as epilepsy, autism or attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity.
How to understand sleep?
Research suggests that human spend a third of his life sleeping, lack of sleep may lead to serious consequences, because sleep is essential for brain development and growth of the body, and if parents understand the pattern of sleep and they can help their children develop healthy sleep habits and a positive attitude it.
Know the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, natural sleep as follow:
- Has a cycle of stages that include deep sleep and light.
- During the quiet phase of sleep, breathing deeply and the child on a regular basis and lay motionless, can be light or deep sleep.
- During the active stage of sleep, the child is not breathing regularly and show rapid eye movements under closed eyelids, a form of light sleep and could wake the child easily.
- From sessions of sleep and active region between 30-50 minutes in children and 90 minutes in adults.
- Usually occurs when a short period of waking the completion of each session.
- 80 sleep in the early time of the night sleep be quiet.
- 80 hours of sleep in the morning is an active sleep (the time when dreams occur)
Recognize signs of fatigue in children
Sometimes if the child turns suddenly to become irritable, hyperactive or too demanding, and show these indicators that your child is starting to feel tired.
And shows children being tired through changes in their behavior, and if it can detect and parents know when their child feel tired through these signs, they can reduce insomnia and help in falling asleep before turning his hard to strain.
Some of the signs of fatigue of the child includes the following:
• confusion
• many parents stick
• irritability, jittering
• crying
• claim the attention of the Standing
• demands in the diet of many
What can you do?
Secret key to ensure a better night's sleep for your child is that is to change the habits associated with sleep and allow your child to develop the capacity of sleep for the unit, and remember to change the pattern of sleep for your child is a challenge and tiring task.
As such, try to take care of yourself during this period of change, with a little patience you'll get a routine sleeping arrangement meets the needs of your child and family needs at the same time.
Some secrets of quiet nights .. Sleep
- Put to sleep routine since the first weeks of your child, will help your child's bedtime routine to feel drowsy and sleep quietly.
- Most development experts, including children, Dr Tanya Byron, suggest a routine such as bath, milk, cleaning teeth, and tell the story and then sleep.
- Do not do is to feed your baby to sleep, wakes up every time the child will expects similar treatment.
- Try to Break is gradually milk before bedtime by reading a story or sing a song after drinking milk until the milk is not linked to sleep.
- Put your baby to bed awake, this way the child begins to learn hypnosis itself and rely on himself to sleep.
- Do not worry about waking up at night, most of the children wake up several times a night.
- Let your baby naps during the day, children need to nap nap so as not to be jaded at the time of sleep, naps can be during the morning or afternoon.
- Kept the child in bed to sleep Do not try to bring him to Your Bed if taken a long time to sleep, it would make him get used to the habit of sleeping in a room sleeping.
- Take a rest after your baby sleep, you must take care of your health and your convenience.
- Make bedtime luck to you, when your baby sleep in a feel safe and happy, you will wake up in a different mood.
- Being quiet but firm, talk with your child calmly and a low voice, when he asks him to return to his room and go to sleep.
- Catalytic your child, by rewarding positive behavior such as going to sleep in a timely and hypnosis itself.
