How To Put A Kid To Sleep FAST

Successfully encouraging your child to go to sleep is a challenge that virtually all parents face at some point.

We often find ourselves Googling: How to get a kid to sleep, fast?! 

As well as the short term crankiness that sleep deprivation can cause, lack of sleep can hamper your child’s cognitive function throughout the day and prevent them from achieving their full potential. 

Fortunately, however, instilling positive behaviours and a growth mindset in children can be both simple and fun if you follow a few simple rules:  

1. Set specific times for going to bed and waking up

School-age children require between nine and eleven hours of sleep every night. To facilitate this, it is important that you get to know your child’s individual body clock and rhythms. 

If you put a natural night owl to bed too early, for example, they won’t usually won’t fall asleep until their body decides that it is time to switch off.

Early risers, meanwhile, will still be happy to get up early if you put them to bed a little later. Although finding your child’s optimum routine may take a degree of trial and error, your child will be able to drop off and wake up easily once you have discovered it.  

2. Try to avoid lie-ins

Although it may be tempting to allow your child to sleep in on holidays or weekends, it can negatively disrupt their body clocks and undo all of the hard work you have done to achieve a routine that works.  

3. Turn off devices early in the evening

The light emitted by devices such as televisions, mobile phones, or laptops has been shown to interfere with a hormone known as melatonin, which is necessary for a good night’s rest. In this way, shutting screens off early will allow children’s bodies to generate enough melatonin to make them sleepy and ready for bed. 

What’s more, these activities can be replaced by activities such as reading that will help children develop analytical and creative faculties.  

4. Avoid creating a stressful environment

Keeping your child calm and collected by encouraging peaceful activities and dimming the lights will help them feel sleepy and ready for bed.

Stress is the enemy of sleep, so it is a good idea to do everything you can to avoid it.