Keeping kids on track with sleep during the summer

As summer approaches, we know the excitement is building – longer days, sunny adventures, and a well-deserved break from the school-year hustle. It’s a time when kids can explore, play, and enjoy the freedom that comes with the season.

But amid all the fun, it’s easy for routines – especially sleep schedules – to slip away. While it might seem harmless to let bedtime slide for a few extra hours of summer fun, maintaining a consistent sleep routine is key to helping kids feel their best, stay healthy, and be ready for all the adventures summer has to offer.

We get it, summer and fun happen, so even if there isn’t a perfect schedule, it is important to try to get back to your regular sleep schedule a lot sooner than you think to get your kids ready for the next school year!

It can be easy to let the summer pass you by, and then suddenly, school starts in two weeks, and the kids are going to bed at 11 p.m. Trying to fix a possibly three-hour bedtime adjustment in two weeks is not going to be easy. That means that you have just 20 days to try to put your child to bed 180 minutes earlier, meaning an adjustment of nine minutes earlier each night.

While it may not seem like a lot, it can be difficult to have your child adjust to those nine minutes each night.

Instead, if you start getting your kids back on schedule in July to get to bed three hours earlier, you’re only starting bedtime three minutes earlier a day! That is a much easier adjustment than almost 10 minutes.

Parents – utilize the technology at your fingertips! Set an alarm each night to remind you to start getting the kids to bed those three minutes earlier so you can all be ready for the new school year.

Remember, everything we do is muscle memory, and that includes mental and emotional habits. The more we stick to a routine, the more it sticks.

For more information about pediatric pulmonology and sleep medicine at Valley, please click here.