A Couple of Sleep Solutions

We talk about how to adjust sleep schedules for summer vacation and how busy school days can exhaust our kids. We share practical ways to keep routines steady, prevent late-day naps, and adjust bedtime so everyone rests better. 
• keeping bedtime and morning routines during summer while shifting times 
• watching total sleep to avoid grumpy, uncooperative behavior 
• handling the after-school nap that leads to being awake at night 
• spotting triggers like stress, activities, growth spurts, illness, or medication changes 
• remembering each child is different and parenting takes trial and error 

If you have any questions or need a sounding board, you can message me on Instagram at BeThereParent. 
If you found this episode helpful, follow, set up automatic downloads, review, and share. I'd appreciate it. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi,

Welcome and Why Routines Matter

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I'm Sheila and I'm here to help you be their parent. Several episodes ago, we talked about bedtime and morning routines to help life run smoother. I hope you found some little nugget that would help you and your family and that things are going well. But I have thought of a couple of scenarios that might be coming or you might be facing right now that we could address to maybe help things to keep going smoothly. So

Summer Break Without Losing Sleep

SPEAKER_00 0:26

the first one is summer vacation. I know it's right there. We're all getting so very close to it. And that's going to affect all of our kids that are school age, right? Now, oftentimes when summer hits, all of us parents are like, yes, now they can stay up late, they can sleep in, we can ditch the routine. And I'm just going to tell you, as a seasoned mom, keep the routine. Now, you might adjust the times. Absolutely. It is summer. Let them stay up later and then adjust for the time that they need to get up because you know, kids still might have daycare to go to or a camp or some activity. And so you're still going to need them to be able to do their bedtime and morning routine so that those things still go smoothly. But maybe you can adjust the bedtime so that they still have the feel of summer and that you know opportunity to stay up later than they normally do for the school year. So keep in mind that you're still going to want some routine there. Now, as long as they are getting the amount of sleep that they need, it doesn't really matter, right? It whatever works for your family in the summertime, do that. But you definitely want them to get the sleep they need. Otherwise, you're going to have grumpy kids and they're not going to be cooperative, and then everybody's going to be miserable. So get help them to get the sleep they need, but have some fun with that, right? Now, it also depends on your kids. Now, my kids, all three of them, didn't matter how late they stayed up, they would still get up at their normal time. Every time. Oftentimes we would let them stay up a little bit later, you know, as we would get into summer. And I was hoping they'd sleep in. No, they're still up their usual, still up their usual. And then usually about two weeks before school started, that's when they would finally really start sleeping in. And then that'd be about the time I would start dialing back their bedtime so that we'd be ready for school. So, you know, you can't win for losing with some kids. However, every kid is different. Your kids might flex with it and be just fine. Others, they're not going to. And so you just need to keep that in mind so that they get the sleep that they need.

The After-School Nap Problem

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Now, something else that has come up recently is a friend of mine mentioned that her son often falls asleep after he gets home from school. And then he wakes up late in the night, middle of the night, and he'll be up for a little while because he's had a good little nap. And it's hard for her to get him to go back to sleep. Now, that happens, right? Um, it did remind me of the time when my son was about four and we'd had one of those busy Saturdays and we had a couple of birthday parties that we'd gone to. So he had missed his rest time, and we got home about five, and all of a sudden I realized he was going around doing all the things he normally does right before his nap. And he was getting himself ready for a nap. He was tired, and I was like, no, buddy, no, we're gonna wait. You can go to bed a little bit earlier, but you're not taking a nap right now. That would have derailed our whole evening. So we moved on. Now, if this happens rarely, I wouldn't worry about it, right? They might be having a growth spurt. Maybe they're fighting off a virus, maybe it is just a particularly stressful week at school. We all have those times. Mental exhaustion is just as real as physical exhaustion. So if it happens every once in a while, I wouldn't worry about it. It's when it develops into a pattern that you're gonna have to do some work to adjust that so that it doesn't continue on, because really we want them to go to bed and sleep straight through the night as much as possible till the morning, because that's when the best rest happens.

Find the Real Exhaustion Trigger

SPEAKER_00 4:16

So the things I would do is try to see if there is some kind of trigger that is causing this level of tired. You know, maybe it's an activity that's after school, whether it's a sport or an extracurricular that's through school, whatever it may be, if it's something you can avoid, I would do that. If it's not, then we're gonna have to work on keeping them awake. So if I was in this scenario right now, these are the things I would do.

Protein Snacks That Prevent Crashes

SPEAKER_00 4:47

I would give them a snack as soon as they got home, and I'd make sure it had some protein in it and something that was mostly natural sugars. So something like a fruit and a protein source. So an apple and peanut butter, some string cheese and some orange juice, maybe some grapes and some jerky. You know, you get the idea. A protein and maybe a fruit. Those two things will give them that little burst of energy that they won't crash from later. Do not give them caffeine. That is not gonna help. In fact, it's just gonna do the exact opposite, and you're gonna get their sleep routine even more out of whack. So give them that quick little healthy snack. It does not have to be a whole lot, you know, because probably getting close to dinner time anyway, but just that little bit to help keep them going. All

Keep Kids Moving and Engaged

SPEAKER_00 5:38

right, then my next thing is I'd get them moving. Now I'm not talking about a workout. I'm not saying they need to, you know, go run a mile, but maybe take a walk around the neighborhood real quick. Um, have them help you make dinner so you can keep eyes on them. Um play a game, monitor them doing their homework. I would not send them into another room to do their homework, whether it's paper, pencil, reading a book, or on a screen. Because once they're still, they're going to sleep. Now, if I'm doing it with them and I can ask questions and keep them engaged with me, they're more likely to stay awake. I would also, another option could be um doing a craft, playing video games. And you're like, but Sheila, that's kind of counterintuitive you just said about the screens. I I get it. But what I'm suggesting is that you do it with them. Play the video game with them and then start a running commentary. And I mean a running commentary and get them going doing a running commentary. The more they talk, the more awake they will stay.

Adjust Bedtime in Small Steps

SPEAKER_00 6:44

And then as things progress, then I would move their bedtime back 30 minutes. So whatever it is you need to do to keep them awake through that time, and then adjust and start their bedtime routine 30 minutes earlier to give them that extra 30 minutes. Then I would see how they wake up in the morning. If they're pop up out of bed, then I would kind of stick with this time frame for a couple of weeks just to help them build some stamina and see if you can help them to get past this extra exhaustion, if you will, and then maybe move back to their original bedtime. However, if the next morning you cannot get them awake, they're just really hard to wake up, then that night I would move bedtime back to 60 minutes before the original time and just see how that works out. My guess is this is probably a temporary season. Again, it could be a growth spurt, it could be some new medication. There's so many different things, right? Kids are kids, and sometimes you just can't predict. But once you get through it, then you can start working your way back to putting their bedtime back to the original time. Now, here's

Trial and Error With Every Kid

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the thing with kids about the time you figure them out, they change. And it's true if you have more than one kid, what worked for one is not going to work for all three. Well, I have all three. Um, because even though all of mine were similar in that it didn't matter if you kept them up all night, they would still wake up at their normal time. Their sleep needs were very different. One didn't need as much as the others. And so we had to, you know, play around with times to find what worked best for each one. And so that's the thing with parenting, it's a lot of trial and error. And so you just have to keep trying. You've got this because you care. You're taking the time to listen to a podcast. I'm sure you read books and you ask questions of others to help your children. You're doing an amazing job. Stick with it because they are so worth it.

How to Reach Me and Support

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If you have any questions or need a sounding board, you can message me on Instagram at BeThereParent. If you found this episode helpful, follow, set up automatic downloads, review, and share. I'd appreciate it.