4 Gentle and Effective Tools to Help Your Child Calm Down and Fall Asleep With Ease
A MINDFUL SLEEP GUIDE FOR TODDLERS AND PRESCHOOLERS
4 Gentle and Effective Tools to Help Your Child Fall Asleep
SIGNAL SLEEP TIME
ELIMINATE SCREEN TIME 60 MINUTES BEFORE BED
FIND FUN WAYS TO CALM DOWN BEFORE YOU PUT YOUR CHILD IN BED
According to sleep studies these tools are game changers.
PLAY MEDITATIVE TRACKS WHILE YOUR CHILD IS IN BED
Signal Sleep Time Choose a sound that you play to your child to signify that it is time to prepare for sleep. Choose one sound to signify it is time to nap/rest and a different sound that means it is time to got to bed. This can be the sound of an alarm or gong sounds, it can be short or it can be a long. It can be anything as long as it is consistently used to signify sleep time. Once played, continue with your sleep routine. You can find these sounds in the Mindful Bambini app.
Why? Leveraging Pavlov's Theory of Classical Conditioning we can help children to get into a sleep ready state: Neutral stimulus: a unique sound + Non-neutral stimulus: the experience of resting/taking time out immediately following the sound (reproduced continuously) = A faster transition from play to a calm state
Check out our sleep signals on the Mindful Bambini app
Eliminate Screen Time 60 Minutes Before Bed Screen time allows busy parents to get stuff done. As parents we know certain digital content is empty calories however App's and TV shows for kids can be very educational and advance early learning and development.
Why the 60 minutes? Screen's inhibit the production of the sleep hormone, melatonin. Melatonin helps regulate and promote sleep and a lack of melatonin can result in your child taking longer to fall asleep. Something that does promote production of melatonin is activity that uses hand and motor skill coordination. How can you replace screen time with hand and motor skill coordination?
Find Fun & Mindful Ways to Calm Down Studies have linked teaching At some point during your sleep time routine, preferably as early into it as possible, you'll want to meditation to children with the following life-time benefits: start teaching your child HOW to feel more calm. At first this may seem like a challenging feat. That's only because it's new. We've all done bath time, reading and for some even tried sleepy music. How can you teach your child HOW to calm down? Through simple and fun mindfulness tools as well as basic meditation skills. You can teach your child to take a shorter breathe in and a longer breathe out, to practice breathing using a pin wheel or even a bubble blower. You'll not only help your child calm down before going to bed, which will help you both in the short-term. You'll also be setting your child up with skills for life.
Play Meditative Tracks While Your Child is Lying Down Falling Asleep For adults who want to learn how to meditate, to reap the Download the app to listen benefits of being in hypnagogia, the state between sleep and to our magical sleep time wakefulness, listening to meditations in bed, is not meditation series recommended. Why? Because it is way too easy to fall asleep. When it comes to kids however that's exactly the goal. The best thing about this part of the sleep time routine is that it is completely passive. There is no effort required. Just press "play" and leave the tracks playing. Mindful Bambini guided meditations are designed specifically with toddlers and preschoolers in mind. The app (available on App Store and Google Play) essentially works as an offline media player by night. Each dream time adventure will not only send your child gently to sleep, but teaches skills for life including: resilience, confidence, social responsibility, calm, kindness, gratitude, creativity, focus, and choice.
BONUS: Routine is everything Kids love consistency and routines. They also respond really well to them. If they don't at the start, it's only a matter of days before they do.
Tips:
Involve your your child in setting up a new routine. Make it fun. Calm doesn't have to mean boring. Check out "Teaching Calm for Sleep" on our website for more info. Assess what you are currently doing, what works and what doesn't. For example, is bath time really calming? If it's not, perhaps try cutting it out.
A Mindful Bambini Example: *Please note Mindful Bambini doesn't support one-way or the highway approaches. We encourage you to get creative and find a sleep approach that work's for your family.
Give warning to your child, that bedtime is about to start in 5 minutes Sleep signal Bath time (+pj's, teeth) Mindful time Reading Bed (listening to meditations for kids in bed)
Thank You Thank you for taking the time to read this. This guide is dedicated to all the precious little people out there.
We want to help you implement this so that your child can thrive by getting more sleep and so that you can get more of your time back. If you have a question, or just want to say hi, please feel free to reach out: hello@mindfulbambini.com
Download the app to listen to our magical sleep time meditation series
Research Links Martin J, Hiscock H, Hardy P, et al. Adverse associations of infant and child sleep problems and parent health: an Australian population study. Pediatrics 2007; 119: 947-955. Blunden S, Lushington K, Lorenzen B, et al. Are sleep problems under-recognised in general practice? Arch Dis Child 2004; 89: 708-712. Schreck KA, Richdale AL. Knowledge of childhood sleep: a possible variable in under or misdiagnosis of childhood sleep problems. J Sleep Res 2011; 20: 589-597. Galland BC, Taylor BJ, Elder DE, et al. Normal sleep patterns in infants and children: a systematic review of observational studies. Sleep Med Rev 2012; 16: 213-222.