Sleep distractions

There’s no hard and fast rule about how many hours of sleep children need but there’s no doubting that they need plenty, especially in the early years. NHS guidelines exist to give parents an idea of what they should be aiming for but there are so many factors that can make these difficult to achieve.

Sleep Distractions

Among the things that can prevent children from getting their full sleep quota are noise, heat, cold, light, the feeling that they are missing out and many other distractions I’m sure. The good news is that little ones can usually be trained to sleep despite these outside influences or we can control the environment they sleep in to ensure that it promotes sleep. For example, we can install blackout blinds in an effort to ensure that bedrooms are fully dark so that light mornings don’t mean a prematurely early start. Though black out blinds alone are often not the Holy Grail – see my previous post.

Kids also get used to sleeping through noise, especially if they’ve had to drop off despite noisy surroundings (read older siblings!) from an early age. Although, I had to think on my feet recently when my son called for me at 5am asking why the seagulls were awake and he was still in bed.

Of course, that said, some children just won’t play ball whatever we do.