Kids and Sleep During Quarantine
Author: Dr. Priscilla C. Butler
It’s not just adults who are awake at night during the COVID-19 pandemic. From relaxed routines to sudden nightmares, children of all ages are struggling to settle as well. Most kids just aren’t being stimulated in the same ways as they are at daycare or school. They’re not getting outside as much, and aren’t able to play together in the same ways.
These are difficult times, but keeping your child’s sleep on track may make the challenges of quarantine just a bit easier and healthier for all concerned.
The Struggle is Real
Although many working parents now spend all day at home with their children, it’s frustrating to all involved that it doesn’t mean more quality time. Bouncing between conference calls, virtual schooling, food prep, and keeping the house going can tax even the most energetic and organized parent or parenting team. Despite the huge efforts, children can end up feeling neglected, and many parents are seeing more conflicts around bedtime or naps.
In addition, the abrupt shift away from rigid schedules and commutes has prompted many parents to become (understandably) more lax about bedtime and wake-up calls. Sleep schedules are shifting later. While getting up later isn’t necessarily bad, especially for teenagers, younger children staying up late tends to push into the only downtime left to stressed parents.
Stress and Anxiety
Many kids are waking up in the middle of the night and visiting a parent’s bed more often during this time. This can be a sign the child is feeling anxious or struggling to process stress. Hearing adults talk about COVID-19 or watching the news can be upsetting for some children. Others may be grieving a missed birthday party, school play, or athletic event. Even if your child isn’t expressing to you that staying at home is stressful or negative for them, this is such a major life change that one of the first signals of distress may be disrupted sleep.
The effects of stress and anxiety on sleep can include new night fears, insomnia, and wanting new parental practices to soothe a child into sleep. That’s all the more reason for parents to have an honest, reassuring, age-appropriate conversation about the headlines with kids who are old enough to process it, and to stay calm as you can manage in their presence.
If your child is demanding more attention at nap time and bedtime, try to carve out more quality time during the day, difficult as it may be. Take breaks where you focus entirely on your child, even for 10 or 15 minutes, which may reduce your child’s neediness. If your child is older than two and refuses to nap, it’s OK to enforce 30 minutes of quiet downtime (even if you have to resort to giving them a screen).
You might want to start with a couple of concrete ways to address your child’s concerns during the day, while keeping them from spending too much time focusing on their fears. For example, establish a “worry jar” to collect pieces of paper on which your child has written their concerns – as well as “worry time” – a half-hour block of time set aside each day to explore worries. If there is time left after discussing your child’s concerns, use the rest of the break for a fun one-on-one activity.
Structure-in-Place
In a time of so much uncertainty, one thing we know for sure is that reliable structures can be calming in the face of stress. Kids – especially younger ones or those who are anxious – tend to feel more secure knowing what’s going to happen next, and when. For the most part, your children will do best if they get up, eat, and go to bed at their normal times. A schedule with fixed activities throughout the day such as regular lunch, exercise, and play times can strengthen the brain’s association with daytime wakefulness and help a child feel sleepier at night.
Bedroom as a Sanctuary
While it’s important to offer time to talk about your child’s concerns, it’s not a good idea to do this at bedtime or in their beds. You don’t want to associate anxious thoughts and difficult conversations with the place where your child relaxes and sleeps. Try to have these talks well before bedtime and in another room, if possible.
If you can, find ways to rearrange the bedroom to make it feel fresh, welcoming, and free of negative associations. Add a new comfort item like a special blanket, soft nightlight, stuffed animal, or another beloved item.
Resist Understandable Temptation
Try to resist the temptation to regularly allow your child to crawl into your bed, which they may expect long afterlife returns to normal. Similarly, your child may want you to lie down with them until they are completely asleep. Think about whether you can help them in a different way that encourages settling themselves more independently.
For example, try concluding the bedtime routine with some reading time together in your child’s bed, and then giving your child a final hug and kiss. Then, allow your child to read, look at a picture book, draw, or play quietly with a small, safe toy in bed by the light of a soft bedside lamp until they are drowsy enough to fall asleep independently. If your child is having a particularly difficult time, you could sit in the doorway reading your own book while they settle.
If your child is calling you back to their room for “just one more thing” or venturing out of bed to find you, try making “bedtime tickets” – small cards good for one or two items per night. This can be a great way to preserve valuable sleep in a way that still lets kids feel involvement and connection.
Let Mother Nature Help
In addition to the one thing that we all know by now will help us fall asleep – shutting down all screens 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime – here are some additional things you might try:
- Tire your kids out. Play tag; go for a long walk; have a dance party with your family.
- Make sure evenings are relaxed. Some families are actually discovering leisurely evenings to be an unexpected benefit of social distancing.
- Don’t close your child’s shades, since natural morning light may help wake her up.
- Take a walk or play outside first thing in the morning, to start the day with sunlight that will help his circadian rhythm.
- If you can get outside after dinner, the setting sun can signal that bedtime is near.
Let’s Be Real.
Even before COVID-19, it seems that many children (especially teens and tweens) get insufficient sleep. How much sleep does your child actually need? Here are the amounts recommended by pediatricians:
- Infants (4 to 12 months): 12 to 16 hours (including naps)
- Toddlers (1 to 2 years): 11 to 14 hours (including naps)
- Preschoolers (3 to 5 years): 10 to 13 hours (including naps)
- Grade school-aged children (6 to 12 years): 9 to 12 hours
- Teens (13 to 18 years): 8 to 10 hours
The bottom number is considered the minimum for most children; some need closer to the maximum to function well. Ultimately, you’re the best judge of your child’s need for sleep.
The experts agree that setting and sticking to a regular schedule is key, even when you’re all at home all day. But exceptions are perfectly fine. Some professionals suggest keeping to a firm schedule 80 percent of the time, with flexibility for the remaining 20 percent of nights.
If your child’s schedule is drifting later during this time, try to keep the shift to one hour – two for teenagers. By reinforcing gentle bedtime boundaries, you can create consistency, trigger better sleep built around prime melatonin release time, and avoid resistance from kids.
Softening bedtime too much may mean missing the natural release of melatonin, making it even harder for your child to fall asleep. And, longer sleep-related shifts will be harder to unwind when this is all over.
Sweet Dreams!
As you consider these ideas, as with all the well-intended advice and information out there that can feel daunting, please remember there’s only so much you can do. Not every sleep issue has a simple solution. You may not have the bandwidth for much of anything, and that’s okay.
Remember, too, that children pay more attention to what we do than what we say. If you simply make your own sleep a priority, you will set a good example for your child — and feel better yourself.
References & Resources
Healthy Sleep Habits: How Many Hours Does Your Child Need? (American Academy of Pediatrics)
General Sleep Techniques for Children
4 ways to help your child get enough sleep Claire McCarthy, MD
Unique Sleep Challenges Due to COVID-19
Bedtime Was Hard Enough. Then Came Quarantine. (Craig Canapari, M.D.)
Supporting Kids During the Coronavirus Crisis (Rae Jacobson)
