"Routine" this word may sound boring to us. But we cannot deny the immense power it has to put things in an organized and predictable manner. It also saves lots of our energy and time. And trust me it is very easy to introduce any routine in our kid’s life by making sure “Consistency”.

Sleep is one of the crucial things in our daily life. Sleep helps our body and mind to recover as well as restore our energy. That is why we become more focused, more productive with a new day start. Sleep deprivation is very common to parents of very young kids. So for a peaceful sleep, we need to first put a healthy sleep routine for our kids.

Establish the sleep time

Consistency is the thumb rule for building any kind of routine. Hence, it is vital to put your kid to bed every day at a similar time. Based on your child’s age, school timings, required sleep time, etc you can finalize a suitable bedtime. Ideally, it should be before 10 pm.

The gap between dinner and sleep

We have a tendency to have dinner just before our sleep. Eating too close to bedtime may interrupt our digestion which disrupts our sleep as well. Please make sure there is a gap of 1-2 hr between dinner and sleep. This is applicable not only for our kids but also for us. It is advisable to have a cup of warm milk before sleep.

Soothing bedtime environment

It is not easy to switch from a super active mode to a sleep mode. So after dinner, there should not be any exciting activities like playing, jumping, watching videos, etc. As soon as dinner is done, the kid should be transferred to the bedroom and the light should be dimmer. It is preferable to switch off tube light or any bright light. If you have no dim light in your bedroom, trust me it is worth putting such a light. It signals the brain that now it’s time to calm down both physically and mentally.

Good night ritual

The gap time between dinner and sleep is the best time to introduce a nice good night ritual. According to your kid’s age, you can attach things to thier nighttime ritual. Let me give you some ideas on this.

• Talking about what went great today
• Planning for evnets(it can be next day’s breakfast menu, birthday celebration of grandparent or so, some DIY activities ideas etc.)
• Storytelling (not only the fable, it can be your childhood story too. Sometimes let me them tell a story)
• Listening to some comforting music
• Brushing teeth
• Putting on night suit
• Good night prayer

Even though I am emphasizing on ‘consistency’, make sure you keep a room for flexibility too. Of course you should stick to your routine on regular basis, similarly you should also allow your child to be awake for a little while occasionally like holidays or special events (by holiday, I didn’t mean every Sunday though 😉)

Bonus Tip

Some babies or toddlers need some continuous, monotonous sounds to fall asleep. This is known as white noise which helps to mask other surrounding external sounds like a car's horn. White noise is the sound of a hair dryer, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, ceiling fan etc. If possible, you can turn on your ceiling fan at full speed or you can search for white noise on the internet to play such sound until they fall asleep.