More About Sleep

Clinical social workers Kristina and Heather revisit this topic of sleep with a strategy-filled and insightful conversation about why consistent sleep schedules are key for both kids and adults. They break down exactly how much sleep each age group needs—from the newborns who need 14-17 hours to the preschoolers getting 10-13 hours—and how natural light plays a big role in helping us all get the rest we need. Get ready for some practical (and easy!) tips on creating the perfect sleep environment, from cool, dark rooms to the magic of weighted blankets. Kristina and Heather also chat about how sticking to a bedtime routine can boost brain development and overall well-being, plus they share some super calming techniques like square breathing and bilateral tapping to help kids (and adults!) relax and sleep better. If you're looking for fun ways to improve sleep hygiene and make bedtime a breeze, this episode is for you!

Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood is recorded and edited by Dave Purnell and produced by Jen Plante Johnson for the ODC Network in Holland, Michigan.

The ODC Network is a non-profit organization that strives to advance outdoor education and conservation in West Michigan. 

Since 2000, The ODC Network has served over a million people through hands-on, outdoor learning experiences and conserved thousands of acres of native habitat through restoration and preservation projects.

The ODC Network’s vision is building a better community by connecting people, land and nature. To learn more and get involved go to: www.odcnetwork.org.

Transcript

Kristina  00:00

Today, we're revisiting a topic that's one of the biggest challenges parents face, sleep and bedtime routines for both kids and adults. If you haven't had a chance to listen to our first episode on sleep, we encourage you to check it out. There's a lot to unpack when it comes to this topic.

Heather  00:18

Sleep is so essential, but it's not always easy to come by. In this episode, we'll talk about how important consistent sleep schedules are. Kids have specific sleep needs depending on their age. For example, newborns need between 14 to 17 hours of sleep, while toddlers need 12 to 16 hours. As kids get older, their sleep needs change, and we're going to discuss all of this.

Kristina  00:45

We'll also talk more about the role nature plays in sleep. Exposure to natural light during the day and outdoor activities can really help regulate sleep patterns. It's amazing how much of an impact that can have.

Heather  00:59

We'll discuss some ideas and techniques for creating a restful environment at home, things like making the room cool, dark and calm and using weighted blankets, the power of deep breathing techniques, all things to help our kids and ourselves wind down. These strategies can make a world of difference when it comes to getting settled into bed and getting deep, quality sleep.

Kristina  01:23

The key here is consistency. Bedtime routines are so important for creating a sense of security and comfort. The more predictable the routine, the better the sleep.

Heather  01:35

That's right. So let's continue our conversation about sleep and share some great ideas that can help us all get the restful sleep we need. 

Heather  

Welcome to Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood.

Kristina

A podcast where we explore the struggles and challenges we all face as parents. We'll share ideas and offer tips and strategies for raising happy, healthy children. My name's Kristina Boersma

Heather

And I'm Heather Bouwman. Kristina and I are clinical social workers who've been working with families and children for a good long minute. We're Support Service Directors for the Early Childhood Network of ODC Network in Holland, Michigan. And we get to support parents and children as they navigate the tricky terrain of raising children and growing up in today's world.

Kristina

We're here to help unpack the hard stuff and connect with the joy of parenting. 

Heather

Are you ready? 

Kristina and Heather

Let's hit the trails.

Heather  

This project is made possible by the ODC Network, an amazing nonprofit organization based in Holland, Michigan, where we get to work supporting preschool aged students, their teachers and their parents.

Kristina  

The ODC Network is all about nurturing the community and the next generation through a wide variety of innovative nature-based initiatives.

Heather  

Please visit www. ODCNetwork.org to learn more about the ODC Network's mission and impact.

Kristina, today we're talking about sleep. 

Kristina  03:12

It's a biggie. 

Heather  03:13

It is a biggie. We get a lot of questions from parents routinely, about sleep? 

Kristina  03:18

Yeah, and not just their children's sleep, they are sleep as well. 

Heather  03:22

Yes, and what tends to happen is, if someone in the home, and it might be multiple someone's in the home, isn't sleeping, it throws everything off. It's one of our basics, right? That we say to go back, to go back and look, how are we sleeping? How much time is it taking to go to sleep? How long of a stretch are we getting? Are children getting?

Kristina  03:45

And it's easy to not make that a priority, because I think a lot of us don't even know what's actually happening during sleep. And I think that's important to understand what's actually taking place inside our bodies and our brains and why sleep is so important.

Heather  04:02

And I think we're learning so much more because so many people in our culture and society really struggle with sleep, even as grown ups, tremendous sleep disorders. So I feel like we're learning more and more and more about the importance of sleep. Maybe it's just because I'm getting older and I'm aware of how much sleep I really should be getting, and I'm trying to do a better job of getting that sleep myself. But raising kids and making sleep a priority really has a tremendous impact on the functioning of our family. And parents feel that, and that's when they come to us when that gets all wonky and things are getting thrown off and kids are getting crabby or behavior has changed, that's when we tend to hear from parents.

Kristina  04:50

Yeah. Like, I've struggled with insomnia through my life at different times, it's been worse than others, but it's so tempting to just say, you. Can you just give me a pill? Just give me a pill to knock me out at night, or, Oh, if I have a cocktail before I go to bed, then I fall asleep better. The quality of my sleep is terrible. But it's that quest for sleep that we often go kind of traveling down pathways that we maybe didn't need to because we aren't doing some of the other things that we could do to set ourselves up better for sleep.

Heather  05:24

Yep, and that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're going to talk about what happens in our brain when we sleep. Why is it so important? And we're gonna talk about different ways that we can improve our sleep, yep, other than the pill or the cocktail. Like, what are some things we can do to actually improve our ability to get good quality rest. So let's dive in. Why is sleep so important? What happens in our brain? Yeah, so cortisol levels are a thing. It's a brain chemical. It increases throughout our day. It's typically the highest when we wake up in the morning, because it builds overnight. But as we go through our day, it levels out, and then as hopefully we're going to sleep, our cortisol levels, which is kind of called the stress hormone, right, is at its lowest. We want it to be the lowest in our brains when we're heading off to sleep, for obvious reasons, we're going to rest better, and then, as we rest that cortisol will begin to ramp up and prepare us for Wake up, because we have to get up and face our day. So that's the chemistry that's happening in the brain. And what happens when we sleep is it really kind of cleanses itself, like the brain kind of takes out the trash of the day, yeah, like it works to clean itself out. It rids us of, kind of the stress and the gunk, and we truly rest, and then we can wake up refreshed. Hopefully.

Kristina  06:57

 I think too, that it's our brains are kind of tidying up the filing system while we are resting. It's getting rid of the information that's irrelevant, right? And then it's putting things where they need to go. So it really is like the cleaning crew, the housekeeping crew, just came in and cleaned up your office, and now it's sunny and tiny day. 

Heather  07:17

Yeah, it's all neat and tidy. Yep, everything all in its place, right? And with littles, little children, they are growing at a tremendous rate. There's no other time in life for brain development, zero to five that you have greater brain development, right? It's huge. It requires a lot of rest, quality, rest, which, when we talked about sleep before you were stressed out about that, because you knew your child was growing and she needed rest and she wasn't getting what she needed to grow a good brain, to grow her body.

Kristina  07:54

And I hadn't even really realized how triggering that was, still for me. It really activates me when I think about when we had so little sleep in my home, so much interrupted rest. You know, I talk about those as being kind of the dark years, and they were also incredibly joyful years. But when I think about sleep, it was a struggle. It was a struggle.

Heather  08:22

It is for so many of us. I remember wasn't one of my finer parenting moments, but with every child, I have three, and we have dogs, and so now I find myself mostly getting up. The children are all fine, but the dog is, you know, pawing at the door. And I'm like, Oh, you've got to be kidding me, you're killing mehere dog, yep, and that's a 2am wake up, which I'm just not accustomed to anymore. But one time when Luke was little, he came up in the night, which we all know, right? Kids can be night walkers. They get up. They need us. They want a connection. They want just to be with us and be soothed by us. And Lukecame up one time and said, Mom, I had a scary dream. And I said, Luke, this had been a habit that he had been in for quite a few nights in a row. I said, if you come up again and wake me up, you're going to have a scary reality, which I think my husband was like, whoop, oh, yep. Mom needs a rest. Okay.

Kristina  09:19

Empathy is gone. That's right, all gone.

Heather  09:24

So we need to talk about how sleep impacts all of us, and when we're not getting enough, we're not our best selves. And how do we get our children the rest that they need? How do we get ourselves the rest that we need to grow good brains, to have the physical growth that kids need to be supported in, yeah, because there's a lot developmentally happening in their brains, in their bodies, socially, emotionally, they have a lot going on simultaneously. 

Kristina  09:52

I know we all get the charts from our pediatricians, right about how much sleep children need child? And. We all receive that, or at least most of us receive that. But I don't know why it doesn't really sink in to really look at that and think, how is the sleep that my child is getting? How does that line up with how much sleep the Centers for Disease Control say they should be getting right? Because we have this culture where a vast amount of people are walking around sleep deprived, and nobody is their best self when they are not getting adequate sleep. So having an understanding of what that adequate sleep looks like, and there is certainly variety among people, and as an adult, I'm my best when I get nine hours of sleep. 10 hours even better. Whoa, baby. I need a lot of sleep. Other adults don't need quite as much sleep, and that's lovely, but I want to talk about children, right?

Heather  10:55

We'll drop that chart in the show notes so  that's there for you to see. You'll be able to click on a link that's there, but tell us how much sleep? Oh, man, kids like three to six years old. Yeah, yeah. 

Kristina  11:06

So I'm gonna start even younger. So those infant newborns through the first three months of their life, need between 14 and 17 hours of sleep each day that includes naps, but that first three months of life, they should mostly be sleeping, sleep. That's right. That's perfectly fine, and that's what their bodies are needing in those first three months. When you move on from those first three months up through the first year of life, we're talking about between 12 and 16 hours of sleep, including naps, is what your child'sbody and brain needs. That's a lot of sleep. Between one and two years of age, children need between 11 and 14 hours of sleep, and this is when, you know, two and three years old, we start really talking about a bedtime. And so we need to be aware as parents when we're thinking of what time we want to transition to sleep and then the child to be in bed, in comparison to when they need to get up because the family needs to start the day, or they need to get to childcare, or they are heading in to, you know, whatever activity for the day. We really need to look at that and do the math and figure out, then, whendoes my child need to be going to sleep. Those preschool years, three to five children still need 10 to 13 hours of sleep. 

Heather  12:40

Think that's gonna shock a lot of people. Thirteen's a big number, right?

Kristina  12:44

If your child's not napping anymore, right? Because we can talk about that too, the transition away fromnaps. But if they're not napping anymore, and they need to be up and ready to go for their day at 730 in the morning, we're talking they're going to bed between 6:30 and seven. 6:30 and seven, lots of our families like that's when we eat dinner, and then we have after dinner. And so the child's not getting bed until eight. Eight seems like a very reasonable time for a four or five year old to go to bed, not if they have to get up at 7:30 in the morning. So like I said, it gets given out by the pediatrician. You have this information. We all have this information as parents, right? It's in my hands, and yet, not doing the math made me think, like, actually, I mean, like, who makes their kid go to bed at 7:30?

Kristina  12:45

Well, me. I mean, not anymore, but used to,

Kristina  13:24

Right. So when we move on to six to 12 year olds, nine to 12 hours, still a half of the day, holy moly, and that's through elementary school, and when you think about sports activities and what time their practices end, and what time they need to be up for games on the weekend and everything else.

Heather  14:04

Yeah, and that our society really isn't built around supporting that. No, it was always shocked that, you know, my little littles would have T ball games that started so late, like seven, 7:30. It's like, oh, it's like, 

Kristina  14:17

They should be in bed. I know it is pretty calm to your cultural but it's something to really think about. Again, if you're fortunate enough to co parent, to think through what priority level is sleep in our family, what will we need to say no to in order to get that much rest? Those are not easy decisions. 

Heather  14:37

It goes right back to your foundations. 

Kristina  14:40

So I'm just gonna finish out 13 to 18. So those teenage years, that's my daughter's right in the midst of that eight to 10 hours of sleep, Those teenagers start staying up late.

Heather  14:54

They do. And many of them are on the bus by 6:15am they sure are, because they're in school by, you know, 7:15, 7:20.

Kristina  15:01

Yep. So on average in the United States, 37% of children, four months to five years old, not getting adequate sleep. 37%. I don't know the percentage for adults, but it's got to be sky high. We don't, many of us, have a lifestyle that allows us to get that much rest. And what you need to know when you don't have adequate sleep is you are not functioning at your best, nor are your children, right? We use sleep deprivation as a method of torture, right? I mean, we don't, but it is used.

Heather  15:39

I was gonna say say we do?

Kristina  15:42

When I get reall mad at my husband, I don't let him sleep. No, that's not true, but it's a method of torture. We need our sleep, and in fact, some level of insanity ensues as we are deprived our sleep.  So the biggest interrupter of sleep for those young kids is intense stages of development. When our children are developing, and they are developing at such a rapid rate during those first five years of life, it creates a chaos in their bodies and their brains.

Heather  16:20

Well, we've talked about there are times developmentally where it feels like all of the pieces fit, yeah, and it's smooth sailing, but those are the in betweens, and you really need to savor those moments, because you know the storm is coming, and it does feel chaotic to them and stormy when they make these big developmental leaps because they're growing. And when we think about us as adults, when we really have to stretch and grow out of our comfort zone, doesn't always feel so great to us either. You can feel pretty unsettling. Yeah, absolutely. And it's the same for kids, yeah.

Kristina  16:55

And we can look at our children and think, who are you? I don't even know you right now. Is this who you're going to be, and many times that's because they're in the midst of this really tremendous time of development, which is very disruptive to sleep. So here's something that we need to remember as parents, returning to our routines, maintaining consistency in our routines, and establishing that stabilityat home during the midst of those chaotic times for our children really teaches them that even as they get older and they experience chaos in their lives, there is still room for rest, and rest is still very important.

Heather  17:41

And that's really building their ability to develop resilience and to go back to what we all need, right when we bring them back to predictability and routines, and there's great comfort in that, and also just being alongside them, I've got you.

Kristina  17:59

Yep. So the training that we're doing around sleep and schedules and being able to come into that time of rest, even if life feels chaotic, prepares them for their future. 

Heather  18:12

We've talked before about how sleep is a skill, and this is what we're talking about, like it's teaching them specifically how to be able to prepare themselves for rest and make time for it, because so many of us just don't.

Kristina  18:29

So there are lots of great and important things that we're going to talk about that you can do to help improve your sleep, but primarily outside of a consistent schedule, and a consistent routine is getting out in nature us as adults and our children.

Heather  18:48

Absolutely and this is our world, our work world, our preschool world, where we work at a nature based preschool, the kids are outside the vast majority of their day, and they are indoors, very little, if at all, if at all, depending on, you know, weather and thunder and lightning and those types of things, inclement weather. But really, they're out and they're in it. And this is very much how my children were raised as well. We were just outside. We have property. We could do that. It's how I was raised in the country, like we again were on property. My grandfather had a farm, and so it was how I grew up, just being outside, locked out. Basically, we talk about the 80s kids, yeah, we're locked out by their parents. We were truly we were. It was like, go outside-

Kristina  19:41

Come home at dinner. And somebody will feed you lunch along the way.

Heather  19:45

Yeah, absolutely, it was just the norm. And what we know about being outside is, for one thing, the light right, which, as we're recording this, we're entering into our season of darkness here in Michigan. Yeah, and it is really dark earlier. I think it's like 5:20 now our sun sets, and being out in the light, it impacts so much our physical health, our mental health. I know when the sun comes out, like it did yesterday, I immediately am drawn to be out and to be into the sun. And you know, in Michigan, we just have to point our faces to it in the winter season. But that light, that natural daylight, helps with our internal circadian rhythm, yeah. And because nature itself has a rhythm, it absolutely does, and it has such a beautiful pace and rhythm that we can align with. And children do that naturally, which is so fun to watch in the work that we do. But adults move away from that, I think about like temperament, right? But all of a sudden, all of our nurture and how we live and growing up in the pace kicks in, and then all of a sudden, we're not as in tune with our senses, and we're not as aware of what's happening around us. We're just kind of in our place, and we're doing our thing and we're we're moving at our pace.

Kristina  21:12

Yeah, for sure, I'm just thinking like, what did we do before electricity? Well, you had oil lamps and, you know, fires and things like that, but we could be much more in tune with the rhythm of the day now, boy, you can light up my house, yep, all hours, much the chagrin of my husband, but I like all the lights on, and we do try to also conserve electricity, but I can work into the wee hours of the morning and Have no idea that time has passed so quickly.

Heather  21:41

Exposure, particularly for all of us, but children in particular, to morning light really helps set their body internal clock for an earlier night's sleep. Yeah, I think that's a really important thing for parents to know. Get those kids outside early in the day with that bright light, let them run it off. And it doesn't have to be that you have a ton of space, or that you're doing something super intentional, just being out, being in it, listening. Kids will notice what's around them, because they engage their senses so much more readily, absolutely we do. So they see things that we don't, they hear things that we don't, that we just filter out because of our adult brains. So just being present in nature and out in that light will set your kids up for an earlier bedtime. And I think if parents knew that, they'd be like everybody back outside.

Kristina  22:42

And you think, you know, at our preschools, the children start the day with at least an hour of play outside. So we've talked before about how important that free play time is. It's just as important that it'soutside so that they're getting the added benefit of being in nature, and that free play.

Heather  23:00

Well, and because there's so much stress reduction that happens in nature. So if we have kids that are maybe really sensory in nature, and they're sensory seeking, or we have kids that have focus or attention issues and maybe run on a motor, being outside just helps calm all of that again, for all of the reasons that we said, it's the sight of the trees and the movement with the wind, it's hearing the birds. It just alleviates our stress, when you think about like sleep machine or things that we use to reduce our stress. It could be an app. It's always nature sounds. It is it's water, it's wind, it's birds, crickets...

Kristina  23:50

Crashing waves.  A rainstorm, a thunderstorm.

Heather  23:53

They're all nature sounds for a reason. And we can take advantage of those things, and they're helpful. But the always better thing to do is to go out and be in it wherever you are. 

Kristina  24:06

Yes. Hey, listeners, we're so grateful to be part of your village. If these conversations and episodes have been impactful to you, we deeply appreciate your support to continue doing the work we love so much for such an amazing nonprofit organization, please visit www.GearUp-podcast.com to make a tax deductible contribution. Thank you.

Heather  24:34

Physical activity is another thing that will help improve sleep for our kids, for ourselve. I'm a night walker. I love walking in the evening. I've always enjoyed walking, but I've really come to love walking at night with a flashlight when it's dark, partly because I find I sleep better just something about that fresh air, especially. Cold right now. I can look up. It's very dark. I love looking at the stars. I've always been a star gazer. Something happens physically, and I think even mentally in me when I'm out in nature, and it's, you know, seven, 7:30, 8 o'clock at night, and then I go home and shower and go to bed and Ooh, good rest. Same thing for our kids. When our kids get outside, though, they tend to be more playful thanI am at almost 50 years old. So they're running, they're climbing, they're jumping. These are things better done, obviously in the morning, because, as you talked about, you want to have the rhythm of your bedtime. These are not big movement things we want to do before bed, right? It's not going to serve us well. It's going to ramp them up. So those types of activities are better earlier in the day, but letting them get that energy expenditure out and just riding bikes, whatever it might be, riding a scooter,playing with friends. Kids get way more physical outdoors than they do indoors. And if they're getting physical indoors, get them outdoors well.

Kristina  26:10

And if you think about it too, it's like, oh, if you've had a day where your kids have been outside a lot and they aren't typically outside a lot, what we often say to each other: woo they're gonna sleep well, all that fresh air. And it's true. They do sleep better.

Heather  26:23

True. They absolutely do sleep better. And all of that exercise and that movement gives us all those happy chemicals, right? It's the serotonin, it's the good dopamine that we can get these little squirts of that just really help. And it's the production of melatonin, which can get wonky in our darkness in Michigan in particular. So it helps with the production of all of those chemicals that we need to have better rest. The other thing is, I talked about this a little bit, is the sensory stimulation and the improved mood. Yeah, nature just has a way of bringing our central nervous system back in line. And it's the space for me where I feel small in the world, like we can sometimes feel like there are such big things happening. Things are hard. There can be stress. And when I go out and it's night time, and I look up at the sky and I realize that's the same sky that all of these people that are all over the country or the world that I love are out there under the same great big sky. It's very perspective giving. For me like, oh, that actually what I thought was such a big deal at 3:30 today, really is. It doesn't seem as big now. It's very perspective giving and all of that stimulation just regulating the central nervous system, aligning our breath with whatever we might be hearing, just being present in the moment, looking at what we see and breathing deeply has a profound impact on our mood and our mental health.

Kristina  28:11

Yeah, you know you were saying that, and it reminded me of a study that was done recently that looked at the impact of listening to birds. Bird song, and the impact that has on our mood. And listening to bird song decreases anxiety, and it decreases paranoia, and you don't even need to be necessarily terribly aware of it. Yeah, right. And so there are times that you do need to be indoors, right? And I'll walk into the office and say, Bridget, she's the one that runs our whole stinking office over there. I'll say, Bridget, put on the bird song, because it's gonna help all of us to listen to it, even if we can't be in it, in this.

Speaker 1  28:11

Even if you're not aware of it, it's running in the background. And it's just calming your nervous system. Itis. That's why when you go to the dentist, they have pictures of mountains and streets and beautiful nature photos, because they're gonna drill your teeth. And not many people like that.

Kristina  29:13

No, and they want you as relaxed-

Heather  29:15

Relaxed and comfortable as possible. Yeah, it's so true. Nature has such a beautiful way of just regulating that central nervous system. So getting kids outside, getting yourself outside, is going to undoubtedly improve your sleep. 

Kristina  29:32

I mean, we're really lucky here, because we live in an area that has the Outdoor Discovery Center right? A huge nature preserve, which is a beautiful place to come with your family and with your -  for free, for free, yep - with children and take hikes and just be in the natural world. It's wonderful.

Heather  29:52

Dawn to dusk. 

Kristina  29:53

Yep, wonderful. Not everybody has that right, and so figuring out what it looks like. Where you live, to be able to get outside. So we don't live next to a nature preserve at my home, but parks, yeah, there, I was gonna say you can get to parks and even taking a walk outside around our block and noticing the trees and breathing that air. I'm a reader. I love to read, but when I read outside, right? I can, I can do that easily. I don't need to go a long distance to be able to do that. But that's really beneficial. So it can be riding your bike, it can be taking a walk. It doesn't have to be, we're gonna strap on our backpacks and hike the mountains today. 

Heather  30:39

No, it doesn't need to be a trip to Yellowstone. It could be-

Heather  30:42

It doesn't have to be, it, doesn't it, literally, can be stepping outside. 

Heather  30:47

Yeah, me too. I mow my lawn. Yeah, I love it. I love the smell of the cut grass. I love to listen to a book. I have one ear bud in and I have one ear to the world, and I'm doing my lawn, and I garden and all of those things. And there's just great value. And being present, being in nature, being in dirt.

Kristina  31:11

Well, and your kids, in particular, because of who their dad is and who you are, and how you've ordered your life, right where you live, and the things that you say yes to and the things you say no to, they are very outdoorsy kids. 

Heather  31:26

They are. They would rather all of us actually would rather be outside than inside. For the longest time, we only ever had one TV in our home, one, and we never had video games. It was just something that my husband and I were like, we aren't going to spend our money on that for you. They wanted them. Of course they did, but we just didn't do that because we knew the draw would be too great, and we love the natural world. And so we just were like, you know, you can do that when you're bigger. That's your choice, but this is how we're going to live. And so they're campers, they're boaters, they fish, they are avid outdoors people. My daughter's an equestrian, so she's at a barn, and she's riding and all of those things. 

Kristina  32:13

Yeah. So nature really important for a whole host of reasons, right to be getting outside. So I want to, with that in mind, think about how it can be different for some families, and it all depends. It is, yeah, definitely different for sure, city or country. What's your schedule like, and do you have only or multiples, and all of those things can have an impact, not that it keeps anyone from being outside, but sometimes there requires just more effort to

Heather  32:46

Or intentionality-

Kristina  32:47

Yeah, or to get out there. So we talk about Grace. My Grace has struggled with anxiety for most of her life, and she's not an outdoorsy kid, and that anxiety really, really interrupted her sleep. So one of the things I want to for us to talk about before we wrap up today is, what are some of those strategies that we can use as parents, not just to help our sleep, but to help our children sleep. And you know, one of the things that we'll talk about a lot is, do your good breathing. Do your good breathing. And not everybody is aware of what good breathing really looks like. And it's amazing that it doesn't take a lot for that to really impact your well-being, doing good breathing. So I was just at a trauma conference two days last week, which was amazing, and I learned a new way to breathe at that conference. And it is you take a deep breath in through your nose, and then you exhale with your lips really close together, making an "F" sound. So you breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. And what doing that does is it lengthens your exhale to be longer than your inhale. 

Heather  34:21

Oh, for a minute I thought I was gonna say a bad word. 

Kristina  34:24

Oh, no, no, sorry about that. I should have warned you. But we think about breathing right? In through your nose, out through your mouth. We talk about square breathing.

Heather  34:35

Which is what we taught our kids, right? Like it was always square breathing...

Kristina  34:39

Where you breathe in through your nose to the count of four, and then you hold it that breath for the count of four, and then exhale, exhale through your mouth to the count of four, and hold, hold for four, and then inhale. And do that little. We call it a square because they can visualize that

Heather  34:57

We've recommended that you use painters tape and put a square on their ceiling, and they have that visual.

Kristina  35:04

So that's good belly breathing.

Heather  35:08

That's the important part, the belly breath. And kids always just want to be like, yeah. They want to hyperventilate. It's like, oh no. So when we model the breathing for them, and they mirror neuron they can get out of that kind of hyperventilating, which is what kids kind of naturally go to, especially when they're young. But when we can-

Kristina  35:33

And do it very audibly, their breathing will match ours again because of that mirror neuron. Now, it won't do it immediately.

Heather  35:41

No, they may shout, I don't want to breathe right? You just, you don't even pick that up. You let it fall and you keep breathing, right?

Kristina  35:47

Or they may kind of spit at you the first time they do the exhale. That was one of Grace's favorites, and you don't react to that. You just can let it fall and keep breathing, exhale, and they'll match you. So in order to, you know, usher our children toward rest, teaching them how to do that good breathing, that four-square breathing, is something that you can leave them with as you exit their sleeping area and say, Now, you do your good breathing. 

Heather  36:17

And that was something I had to do frequently because we had three so you had to, kind of, you know, get the youngest off and started and then move on to the others. But you could circle back too. I could say to her, you get started on your breathing, and I'm gonna come back and check on you. And oftentimes, she'd be back asleep, not always, but oftentimes. It's a skil. I love that it's a skill that they then take with them. And we're growing them to launch.

Kristina  36:46

Right, right. And that square breathing serves them during the day. It's not just about falling asleep before you take a test before you who knows right? Whenever you're starting to feel activated inside, you can do that good breathing, and that will help calm your system back down. It helps you bring your thinking brain back online.

Heather  37:04

And once they've intentionally been taught that they know your game. My kids will see me in certain social situations and they'll be like, Oh, Mom, just took a really big breath. I wonder what brought that on. I'm like, I'm just breathing. They're like, we know you. That was a big breath.

Kristina  37:26

So another thing for sleep is some kids need more pressure. And I love sleeping with a weighted blanket.Grace has used weighted blankets at different times in her life. Some kids just need that extra weight or the extra pressure-

Heather  37:44

It grounds them, anchors them.

Kristina  37:46

Yes, and they're much better able to sleep. Yep. Another thing to be really aware of is the temperature in the room. How dark is it in the room? You know, when the days are really long, it can be harder to go to sleep because the light is it's all light sun.

Heather  38:04

We have that hour switch at daylight savings, or fall back, spring forward. I remember Ava being like, I cannot sleep. It is so bright in here, and she had curtains and the things, but she took the pant leg of some black pants one time, and I have a picture of her sleeping with her pant leg over her eyes. She knew what she needed. Gotta do, what works?

Kristina  38:27

Yeah. So we have blackout curtains. We put them in Grace's room. We have them in our room just because-Oh, baby. 

Heather  38:35

I don't know if they existed way back when.

Kristina  38:37

They didn't. I'm sure they didn't. We just had those little shades that did nothing. So paying attention to the temperature in your room. Lots of times, people sleep better if it's a little cooler in their room, and then they can get snuggly under blankets. Some people just give off more heat. You know, your little children, who are the hat boxes, they wake up and they've been sweating in the night and and then the kids who are like just they're chilly, they need to be wrapped up more So paying attention to the temperature and the light and dark in a room. Do you remember? I don't know if they did this when you were growing up, but there would be this thing we'd do at school where we'd say this little rhyme, and then you'd like pretend to crack an egg on the head, and then the yolk would kind of trickling down the face. Do you remember that? I do not remember. Oh, boy, I'm sure it sounds insane. Okay, well, there's another one where you would ask somebody to close their eyes and then tell you when they got up to your elbow, right, they would be moving their hands along the inside of your arm until they got to your elbow, and you always sense them being at that part before they actually get there. We don't need to have any of this. One of the things that we've learned is that I'm going to call it scratching, but it's not really scratching, but it. Very lightly, using your fingers and your fingernails to just rub your child, or, you know, rub an arm, rub their back. We think about patting right with Pat backs, or just rubbing with our hand on a back, scratching, and it's and it's not hard, and it's not fast, it's slowly scratching the back. 

Heather  40:26

That's how you get teenage boys to talk: scratch that back. 

Kristina  40:31

Yeah, it's really helpful.

Heather  40:33

 It's like mesmerizing.

Kristina  40:34

 It is, and again, it calms the system. So not too fast, not too hard, but doing that little scratching on their arm, leg back can be very, very soothing and help kind of usher your child into their rest. 

Heather  40:51

I did a lot of bilateral tapping with Ava. We can put that in the show notes too, so people know what that is. But I remember thinking when she was really little like, oh, someday, like you're, whenever you find someone in life, you're going to want them to always be touching your face and tapping your face to help you relax. Yeah, because that really relaxed her, and she was our youngest, and so there'd be a lot of activity still happening. So she just needed some extra strategies to try to help get herself to sleep and to get herself relaxed, because the third born always wants to be out where the party's at. They don't want to go to bed. 

Kristina  41:28

Yeah, well, and you're referring to EFT.

Heather  41:30

Emotional Freedom Technique. Yeah. 

Kristina  41:34

Look it up. It's fantastic. It's where you are actually tapping. You do it yourself with your own hands. 

Heather  41:41

Or you can do it here, like you teach them at first, right? But they can do it, which is one of the beautiful things about it.

Kristina  41:48

Yeah, for sure. And you're actually tapping on little acupuncture points, and what that does to your system, just like pro tip. It's also great for when your kid has to get injections at the doctor's office to go in there and you can tap their pressure points, and that will help them soothe. So we use that a lot and at school too. Yeah, yeah. And you can also just tap on each shoulder or tap on each leg. It doesn't have to be a pressure point. Those are just more powerful. But if your child is upset, try. 

Heather  42:23

It's another one of those things to align your central nervous system that brings calm, relaxing breathing while you do it. Just really-

Kristina  42:31

I know that can all seem a little "woo woo", like what's going on there that's gonna really magic? Yeah, woo, woo, magic. It's not. It's actually the research indicates and very functional MRIs and everything else can show us what happens in the body with our heart rate and our respiration and our brain waves when we do things like that good breathing and that tapping. They really do work. They absolutely do. So we'll hear from- I'm sure you do together - hear from parents like but my child doesn't get tired that early. They're not tired at seven o'clock. They don't get tired until like 10 or 10:30

Heather  43:08

You missed the window. You missed the window,

Kristina  43:12

And the secret is putting children to bed before they're over tired. Once they're over tired, they look like they aren't tired.

Heather  43:23

And they look like they get the zoomies. They get. They do get the zoomies. It's a little maniacal, yeah,

Kristina  43:28

Giggly and kind of crazy, uh huh. It's just because you missed the window,

Heather  43:32

Uh huh. So it's like, when adults get slap happy, yep, same thing. Yep, yep. 

Kristina  43:37

So when that happens, I'll recommend to parents, hey, move that bedtime up and see what happens.

Heather  43:44

And we recommend, like, 15 minute increments, right? Yep. You don't want to all of a sudden just go from right, you know, 9:30 to eight o'clock.

Kristina  43:52

So move that bedtime up, because, again, going back to those sleep recommendations, your child needs to be in bed before 10 or 10:30 or

Heather  44:03

they're just simply not getting enough sleep. And then that too has a cumulative effect, and all of a sudden we have a sleep deprived child who is unable to cope, who is unable to focus, who looks a little maniacal. Yeah, yeah.

Kristina  44:18

So when it comes down to it, Heather, and we think about sleep. What do we want to be like our handful of things that we really want to make sure we're focusing on. We now know how much sleep our children are supposed to be getting. Adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep.

Heather  44:38

First, we want to make sure, it's the grown up, we're getting enough sleep, right? So how can we make sure we're setting ourselves up for success with that? And I think that involves having a nice sleep routine. We're going to usher our kids to sleep, whether they're a nighttime bather or not a nighttime bather. We're going to have dinner, and then we're going to move in. Into some sort of sleep routine, whether it involves bath, reading, maybe a sweet little song, CD, that's lullaby, ish, a good night ritual, right? I've talked about how with my daughter, like she had her blankies, scruffs and Fluffs. So we're gonna rock. We're going to after we've read, we rock. She's got her blankets. She's maybe has her Passy, if she's super little, and she goes into bed and we put her down, and she's told how much she's loved, right? That's all your little nighttime routine. I want her head to hit the pillow knowing that I love her so much. Her daddy loves her so much. We're so glad to be her parents, just knowing that that brainis going to cleanse the junk out. That's what I want. My child's last waking thought from me to be I love you.

Kristina  45:55

Yeah, it's that shepherding your child toward rest, and that process is beautiful and can be frustrating, but it's important to keep it consistent.

Heather  46:08

Consistency is the key to this, and then knowing illness is going to disrupt it, development is going to disrupt there are things in our lives that are going to disrupt it, but that we know how to get back on track, and that's through consistency, predictability, routine, and that she knows now you're on mom and dad time. Yeah, I will come back in and maybe blow a kiss. I will come back in and just give you a little wave or maybe some real quick encouragement, but by and large, we're kind of done now, yeah, and you're gonna go off to sleep, you're gonna do your good breathing, you're gonna do your good breathing. And mom and dad are gonna take their time to do what they need to do to prepare us for sleep,

Kristina  46:55

Right. So I think of all those relational things and the routine and the shepherding your child so important. And then there are the concrete things. What's the temperature? What's the light like? Right? How cozy are we? Do we need pressure? Do we not need pressure? And kind of handling more of that tangible? Yeah, the tangible things.

Heather  47:18

And it's also how we set ourself up earlier in our day. How much connection did we have with our child? How much time did we spend outside? How much light? Yes. Did we have exposure to outside? How much physical activity did we have and as the parent, what time did we start the bedtime process? Because that's on us. Our children cannot be in control of that. What time? What are we doing in our lives to make sure that sleep is a priority, and how we're setting that up? 

Kristina  47:54

And like we've said, some children, some adults, are better sleepers than others. If you've tried these things and you've phoned a friend and you've talked through different strategies that you could use, and your child still isn't sleeping, it's time to go talk to your pediatrician. We had to do that for grace. She has a disruptive sleep disorder, and so sleep is trickier for her. We figured that out kind of down the road, but putting these things in place sets you up for the highest rate of success. And most kids are decency, and it sets us all up, oh, my word yes.

Heather  48:36

 For the highest rate of success all of us. 

Kristina

Thank you so much for joining us for Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood. I'm Kristina.

Heather  

And I'm Heather. And we're so grateful to join you on your parenting journey, until next time…

Heather and Kristina

See you on the trails!

Kristina  

The Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood podcast is brought to you by the ODC Network in Holland, Michigan. It is produced by Jen Plante Johnson, recorded and edited by Dave Purnell, with original theme music by Dave Purnell,

Heather  

The ODC Network is a nonprofit organization that strives to advance outdoor education and conservation in West Michigan.

Kristina  

Since 2000 the ODC network has served over a million people through hands on outdoor learning experiences and conserved thousands of acres of native habitat through restoration and preservation projects.

Heather

The ODC Network’s vision is building a better community by connecting people, land and nature. To learn more and get involved, go to www.ODCNetwork.org.