Back to School Sleep Habits

Try mentioning the word “bedtime” to your kids during any season - especially the summer. You’re bound to get groans and the dreadful “NOOOO’S” from a kid of any age. This is especially true for teenagers since they tend to spend their summers going to bed late and sleeping until noon and even sometimes later.

Since going back to school is inevitable until graduation day, getting back into healthy sleep patterns is a necessity for having the right amount of focus and energy for the classroom.

If your kids have seemed to lapsed into the “late to bed, late to rise” sleep habit this past summer, Mountainside Medical wanted to help you celebrate the beginning of the school year with these 3 tips for getting your kids to bed and waking up earlier:

1. Do you know how much sleep your child needs per night? Kids ages 5-12 need 10 to 11 hours of sleep and teenagers need 8.5 to 9.25 hours of sleep to function at their best. The amounts of sleep adults need ranges between 7 and 9 hours per night. So, while it may seem that you child sleeps a lot, their developing bodies actually need that sleep to function. 2.  Making sleeping habit changes the night before school is not a good idea. Start by shifting your child’s wake time earlier by 15 minutes each morning and then try calculating the right bedtime based on the amount of sleep they need for their age group. A gradual change will make the process much easier on both you and them. 3.  The last two hours before bedtime should be pretty quiet and relaxing. This means no caffeine, no exercise, turn cell phones off and limit television. Setting the mood for bedtime will help them get in the right mindset for sleep.

Mountainside Medical would like to wish everyone a happy first month back to school and wishes you and your child a happy, healthy school year!