How to calm your child before bed? 11 tips for parents
Bedtime is one of the most important moments in your daily routine. In many families, this is also the loudest time of day. The child experiences overexcitation and tries to get rid of it in the most accessible way - by screaming and crying.
We offer you 11 simple tips on how to calm your child before bed . They will help you restore calm to your newborn baby or a child aged 1, 2 years and older, set him up for sleep, and make the evening the most enjoyable time of the day for the whole family!
1. Stop all active, loud games about an hour and a half before bedtime. Let the rest of the evening be accompanied by calm music and quiet activities .
2. Try to look into the baby’s eyes as little as possible. When it's time to sleep, close your eyelids so that your child follows your lead . Visual contact with your mother (also called eye-to-eye contact) is one of the most powerful stimulants, so save it for the morning.
3. Let your evening swim be quiet and calm, and let the water in the bath be a little warmer than usual. It is better to leave hardening and noisy games for another time of the day; in the evening, give preference to quiet activities.
4. A light stroking massage for 10-15 minutes, especially after a warm bath, helps babies fall asleep faster.
5. If your child is cranky before bed, try to help him calm down with the help of scents. Lavender flowers, added during an evening bath or sewn into a mattress, relieve tension and promote gentle relaxation. However, you should be especially careful when using aromatic products for children under 6 months old or with allergies .
6. Maintain a daily routine . Going to bed at the same time helps the nervous system better cope with overstimulation that accumulates towards the end of the day.
7. Don't forget about the evening bedtime ritual. Regular routine activities are the key to restful sleep.
8. Even if you don't co-sleep, place a crib next to yours. This will make the child feel safe. In addition, American pediatricians have proven that the smell of a mother and the feeling that she is nearby help children grow up calmer and more confident.
9. Despite much controversy, light swaddling still remains on the list of the simplest and most useful ways to soothe an infant. Wrap your baby in something soft and pleasant to the touch, making sure that the fabric is not too tight.
10. Tell your child a bedtime story or sing something. It has been proven that reading aloud and singing lullabies creates a healthy family microclimate and helps to establish strong family bonds, especially if one of the parents is often absent. Such a ritual brings people closer together and is also useful in older age.
11. When your child is hysterical before bed, try moving bedtime to an earlier date . A baby's evening tantrums are most often associated with general accumulated fatigue, and an extra half hour of sleep a day can play a big role in the fight against it!
Try to put your baby to bed before he gets completely tired. Rubbing the eyes, tapping one's head, pulling the nose or ears, yawning or whining noises are just some of the signs that will tell you it's time for your baby to go to bed.
Follow these simple tips to help your newborn or older child calm down before bed and restore a pleasant atmosphere in the home. Let the whims of the evening never again prevent you from enjoying each other!
How to calm your baby before bed
He is still too small to calm down on his own, he needs your participation. How to help your child come to his senses and sleep peacefully?
● First, try using the old method that our great-grandmothers used. Sing your baby a lullaby. A quiet and melodic song performed by a mother should calm the child down. If for some reason you don't want to sing, you can just chant. The mother's native voice, calmly drawing out the words, will definitely have a calming effect on the baby. At the same time, if you do not walk around the room, but sit still, close your eyes so that the child will eventually follow your example. It is very important that at this moment you are internally calm. Remember that children are well aware of all the changes in their parents’ moods, so you are unlikely to be able to calm your baby down if you yourself are upset.
● Fairy tales always go along with lullabies. Read aloud, this will help your child calm down faster. It is not so important whether he understands the meaning of what you are reading. Intonation and volume are much more important.
● Important point: if you notice that your child is easily overexcited and upset in the evening, try to stop all loud and active games a couple of hours before bedtime. Switch your baby to quiet entertainment, turn on calm music. By the time it’s time to go to bed, the child will be relaxed and will have no difficulty falling asleep peacefully.
● Evening bathing in warm water is very soothing. After water treatments, give your child a stroking massage session.
● You can also use aromatic products. A number of scents have calming properties. But if your child is prone to allergies, you should consult a specialist before using herbs and oils.
● Children who have a clear daily routine fall asleep easier. Try to establish a routine, this will help the child tune in to sleep. Don't neglect your evening rituals; often these routine actions have an absolutely magical effect.
● Light swaddling is often cited as an effective way to calm a baby before bed. How appropriate this is in your case is up to you to decide.
● Rock the baby. If this is not enough, turn on the water or vacuum cleaner. Everyday sounds that often irritate adults seem very pleasant and soothing to children.
● Observe your baby. Perhaps you should start putting him to bed half an hour or an hour earlier. It is important to catch the moment when the child is not too tired.
Why does a child get mad in bed before going to bed, or Our pedagogical omission
The child is 1 year and 2 weeks old. Sleeping has always been a problem. But now it's something. I'll start with some background.
At first, she had difficulty getting any sleep, and could only do so after feeding (this happened for about six months). In general, the norm for this age was just a little breastfeeding and a bottle. Then my daughter stopped suckling, there was no milk, she fell asleep with a bottle, then she stopped falling asleep with a bottle. Somewhere after six months. I started swaddling her for naps and rocking her in my arms and a fitball + pacifier. The fitball didn't work, we swaddled until 7.5 months. Then just rocking in your arms for daytime sleep + pacifier, and for nighttime sleep rocking + lullaby + pacifier. She always slept in her crib (until six months she fell asleep in an adult bed, then shifted, until a year - in her arms, then shifted). The time has come when it is physically impossible to rock her in your arms, your daughter weighs more than 10 kg and it is impossible to carry her for half an hour while she squirms in your arms. And the pacifier is still with us 
I've read a lot of advice about how to put a baby in a crib and, after a while, fall asleep on its own. I tried it with and without a pacifier. As a result: the child rages in the crib for an hour and a half (before this there were 6-7 hours of wakefulness) and does not fall asleep. Neither reading fairy tales in a monotonous voice, nor actively staying awake before bed, nor feeding (by the way, has not drunk anything from a bottle for a long time), nor the established rituals (dinner, quiet games, bathing, dressing for bed at approximately the same time every day) did not help. the same time). He just gets mad, turns on the light (the crib is next to the switch), throws the pacifier, falls on his back, gets up, and so on 500 times.
What did help... I began to put her at the prescribed bedtime (and she is very attached to the sleep-wake schedule) with me in an adult bed, we also get dressed for bed, I change clothes, dismantle the bed, curtain the window (for daytime naps, and naturally, night). We lie down... and then the fury begins for an hour! The child rushes back and forth on the bed 1000 times before he chooses a place and falls asleep. And so on for both sleeps - nighttime and daytime. We sleep for an hour and a half during the day, and usually from 9 to 7.30 at night. The child walks for 3-5 hours, depending on the weather. We don’t walk on our own yet; I carry her by both arms. But we still try to walk enough, the rest of the time the child crawls around the apartment wherever he wants, gets up on his own, and walks with support. We eat 4 times a day. In general, activity is normal and sleep should be fine. But no...
We visited a neurologist, he said everything is fine (we are monitoring the problem with upright posture on our own). In general, for a long time I could not understand what was the matter. And then I remembered.
My husband, a very “creative” person, came up with a way to keep the child occupied. They were freaking out on the bed together. My husband’s motivation is that the bed is soft and safe, I teach the child to do somersaults so that when she falls (we had such a problem), she can group herself correctly. So they went crazy for six months (from 6 months to a year). Now I explained to my husband his pedagogical omission, that everything had to be done on the mat, and not on the bed, where they actually sleep! But the child remembered the main thing - on soft things you can go crazy and tumble. Now wherever there is a soft surface, it tumbles and turns over. And I’m waiting for her to get tired and fall asleep so she can put her in bed... Damn, will this ever end??? What to do???
Tummy is ok
The main cause of restless sleep in children of the first year of life is pain and discomfort in the abdomen.
The reason for this may be: • dysbiosis - so-called “colic”, cramping pain in the abdomen; • problems with the intestines - constipation, gas or diarrhea; • hunger. Here's how you can help your little one:
• be sure to feed your baby before falling asleep: breast milk (high-quality infant formula), the warmth of the mother’s body - this is the best sleeping pill, pain reliever and sedative; • if the baby is experiencing paroxysmal pain in the abdomen, a warm diaper will help - iron the fabric and apply it to the tummy; • the pain is also relieved by stroking with a warm palm: if the baby is constipated, stroke the tummy clockwise, if diarrhea - counterclockwise; • after eating, carry the baby in a column for some time, during the day lay him on his stomach as often as possible - this will make the gas easier to pass; • if the baby cannot empty his bowels within three days, help him: give him an enema or use a glycerin suppository.
Important! Check the cleanliness of diapers regularly - sometimes it is a dirty diaper that prevents your baby from sleeping.
Peculiarities of the child's psyche that affect falling asleep
A child is born with not yet fully formed systems and organs. Thus, children develop the skill of distinguishing day from night only a month and a half after birth.
Infants have a different sleep structure from adults, with short and rapidly changing phases:
The baby's sleep begins with a superficial or rapid phase, when the nervous system and brain are actively working, digesting information received in large quantities during the day. Also during this period, muscle activity is observed that can frighten and wake up the child. Transitioning from one phase to another can also cause your baby to scream and cry in the middle of the night.
In children under 4 years of age, the nervous system is designed in such a way that excitation processes dominate over inhibition processes. The exception is 10-15% of children who can feel overexcited and cope with it.
The developmental characteristics of a child allow him to begin to independently cope with overexcitation only by 3.5 years, and in practice, six months later. Until this age, it is easy for a child to become overexcited and requires a lot of work to calm down. For this reason, children scream and cry, especially before bed, when they need to relax.
Our ancestors were not afraid of children's crying. In their arsenal in case a child is hysterical before bed, there were lullabies and fairy tales, as well as various nursery rhymes to distract and calm an overexcited child.
Overwork overtakes the baby quickly and imperceptibly: one minute he was playing, and the next minute he can no longer control himself, screaming and crying like a knife. Parents are perplexed by such sudden mood swings and cannot understand the reasons.
Being able to notice the signs of approaching fatigue in time is a complex behavioral skill that not all adults have, and in children it is formed only by the age of 4.
Mistake 1: Sitting with your baby until he falls asleep deeply
All parents know how nice it is to cuddle with your baby before bed. And here is the first mistake you make at this moment: you stay with the baby every (or almost every) evening until he completely falls asleep, instead of gradually teaching him to calm down, relax and fall asleep on his own.
If you stay with your baby until the last minute, you teach him to depend on your presence to fall asleep. Sometimes you offer him even more than just your presence. These are additional relaxing options: hold the hand, sing the same lullaby several times, stroke the back as much as necessary - even for a very long time.
Because these actions help baby fall asleep and gradually become necessary each evening, they are sometimes called “sleep crutches” or “sleep props” (or even more cumbersome, “negative sleep initiation associations”).
Whatever you call them, they all confirm the fact that your child has not learned to fall asleep on his own. For example, he knows how to fall asleep while you read out loud. Or perhaps he falls asleep quickly while fiddling with a strand of your hair or holding your hand.
Children accustomed to such methods of calming down often have great difficulty going to bed in the evening. This happens because from time to time you try to leave the nursery before the baby is completely asleep, and he must keep watch for you so that he knows for sure that you are nearby. If you do try to sneak away, your baby may ask for things that involve physical contact to make it harder for you to escape too soon, such as holding his hand.
This method of relaxation before bed also becomes a problem because children tend to wake up several times during the night, usually at the end of the next sleep cycle. Because your baby is used to falling asleep only with your help, it may be difficult for him to fall back to sleep if he wakes up, whether immediately after you try to sneak out of the nursery or later in the middle of the night.
When a child wakes up and you are not in the area, he does not have what he needs to continue to sleep. If you are not nearby, patting his back or holding his hand, he will call you or go looking for you. He must restore the conditions that were provided to him when he went to bed!
Your baby is not able to fall asleep on his own without these things, and only you can give them to him. As a result, you get a long-hour bedtime ritual and long periods of night wakefulness, which, in turn, completely deprives parents of energy and children of normal mood.
However, this method of consolation can be gradually replaced by behavior that will allow your child to calm down on his own, and symbols of safety that will always be with him. If the child wakes up and finds that everything he needs to calm down is nearby, he will soon learn to fall asleep quickly and independently - after training and exercises.
It is also very important to put your baby in his own bed every night. He knows how to quickly fall asleep in your bed, even when you are not there, because he knows that you will come anyway. He also knows how to easily fall asleep on the couch in the living room while you are doing something in the kitchen or watching TV nearby, but he wakes up in his own bed after being carried there and almost always calls for you or comes looking for you. Sometimes a child may even go back to sleep on the living room couch after waking up in the middle of the night and turn on the TV again to fall asleep. He is simply not accustomed to falling asleep in his cozy and quiet room.
