Sleep optimisation for parents

In a world where sleep is a hot topic and if you’re not getting enough you’re told you are at risk of high blood pressure, poor concentration, heart disease, weakened immune system to name a few. What do you do if you’re a parent to young children not getting enough sleep? How do you calm the anxiety provoked by posts about sleep on social media.

It seems these posts forget about the large proportion of individuals who do not have total control over their sleep due to a small human aka sleep thief. Some of those small humans struggle to sleep in the early years and therefore learning to optimise the sleep you do get can be very important!

How to optimise sleep when you have a small sleep thief:

1.Have a bedtime routine.

As parents we spend a good hour preparing our small being for sleep but often do nothing to prepare ourselves for sleep. Take the time to prepare and signal to your body that you are winding down for sleep. I used to bath my daughter, give her a massage, a bedtime story and some milk before expecting her to sleep. Let’s show ourselves some of that same care.

2. Remove blue light.

Ideally turn off your phone a few hours before bed but if you’re like me doing life admin in the evenings use a blue light filter on both your phone and laptop. It's well known that blue light disrupts melatonin, the hormone needed to get to sleep and to stay asleep. If you wake in the early hours you may have run out of melatonin and that might be because your body didn’t produce enough due to artificial light signalling to the body that it was daytime. If you enjoy T.V in the evenings invest in some blue light blocking glasses. Added to this is to have a red-light to switch on when baby wakes.

4. You are more important that how tidy or clean your house is.

Prioritise napping when you don’t get a good night sleep. Sleep is more important than the laundry or the dishes.

5. Sleep in a pitch black room.

Make the effort to switch off all the small lights (which will affect your melatonin levels) or put a red light sticker over them or tape.

6. Remove EMF’s

Turn your electronic devices off. Those Electro Magnetic Fields (EMF) do nothing for a good nights sleep.

7. Mouth tape.

If you’re a mouth breather investing in some mouth tape is really worthwhile. Breathing through your nose has many benefits that will enhance sleep including increasing your oxygen levels and aiding your immune system.

8.Drop into parasympathetic nervous system

Our nervous systems need relaxing before bed. Quite often we do the opposite by watching T.V, browsing instagram or exercising before bed. Prepare for sleep and switch your system into parasympathetic mode by having a hot bath, reading a relaxing book, drinking a bedtime tea, meditation or mindful breathing, anything that signals to your body that you are preparing for sleep. My go to for this is yin yoga or TRE which I  will write about soon.

Not to-dos

1 Do not have emotional conversations before bed. Sleep and our dreams is where we process our emotions throughout the day. It can heavily disrupt sleep. Schedule a time to have these conversations and if necessary ask others to look after the children so you can have these conversations.

2. Avoid stimulants caffeine, chocolate, alcohol after 4pm. If you are sensitive these will be showing up as sleep disrupters.