Sleep? What’s that?
“Without enough sleep, we all become tall two-year-olds”.
JoJo Jensen, Dirt Farmer Wisdom, 2002
Sleep. Or lack thereof. A perennial challenge for many families with young children, and those of us helping to care for grandchildren. We all know that a good’s night sleep helps us cope with the day-to-day stressors of life. Being tired lowers resilience, decreases our ability to respond quickly and increases the likelihood of making mistakes, and yes unfortunately, we can sometimes behave like a two-year-old! Yet, a good night of sleep is often in short supply when children are very young.
My own grandson found sleep hard to come by as a very young baby and the whole family suffered from sleep deprivation. Those who have been reading this series of articles will know that it took some time for the family to realise, and then determine, what food intolerances were at the root of his unsettledness. In the meantime, to help my grandson settle and the family to get some sleep, my daughter introduced him to a dummy (pacifier). The sucking soothed him somewhat and while not perfect, the family gained some additional hours of sleep. However, not before my daughter reported her ‘neurons were not connected any more’, her memory failed her occasionally and she struggled to hold a long conversation without losing track.
While the research reports that carers often may suffer from sleep deprivation and its side effects, babies under one year of age do not suffer from their erratic, disturbed night-time sleep, making up for the lack of sleep with day-time naps. Toddlers and pre-schoolers are not as protected. Lack of sleep in these age groups have been shown to increase behavioural problems including increased anxiety, hyperactivity and children can quickly get frustrated and angry. Lack of sleep also affects thinking and language skills, concentration and the ability to pay attention. The longer the period of time a child does not get enough sleep, the worse the problems become. They can become so bad that the symptoms mimic those of ADHD and children risk being misdiagnosed with a disorder for which one of the treatments is a drug that is known to have a negative effect on sleep, and so the cycle continues…
There are many reasons why a young child may not sleep well. They may be hungry, thirsty, have food intolerances that cause gut pain, need to go to the toilet, be unwell, have had a stressful day, be overtired, or simply have a fear of missing out! They may have high levels of anxiety due to ongoing stressors in their lives, such as being part of a family living with financial, security or housing worries. They may have not been active enough during the day, watched too much TV or had too much screen time. They may have bad dreams, be too hot or too cold, uncomfortable or sleeping in an unfamiliar environment (such as a sleep over at nana’s). Yes, it does seem like a long list of possible reasons for poor sleep, but there are solutions for all! For ideas on how to encourage your grandchild to get a good night’s sleep, please refer to the chapter on Sleep in Grandparenting Grandchildren. Sleep helps us all cope, so working out why a child is not sleeping well is as important as love, diet and active movement in a child’s life. Helping a child get a good night’s sleep means we can all make the most of every waking hour with each other.
… and my grandson, now 2 ½ years old, is he still using a dummy? The answer last week was yes and this week it is a no! Until recently, that dummy was used every night and often demanded during the day as it became his ‘go to pacifier’ for any distress, no matter how mild. So, my daughter decided it was time for it to be gone. She had planned to do it gradually by snipping the top off the dummy, a bit at a time so sleep would not be interrupted and overtime there would be nothing left to suck… but one day, after getting up from his bed and going to the toilet and, just as my daughter flushed, he tossed his dummy in and it flushed away! The planned ‘gradual withdrawal’ suddenly became ‘cold turkey’. While there was great fear about the nights to come, it turned out to be unfounded. It took just one night (with a solid session of midnight howls) and the cessation of his daytime nap for him to settle… oh, and a plastic drill and hedge trimmer with which he now sleeps. My grandson does not even ask for his dummy as according to him, it is being used by creatures of the sea… and it can be seen on ‘baby shark’ videos! Children so often surprise us and delight us….and this makes all those sleepless nights worth it…especially after we have had a good night of sleep ourselves!
