How to Get Your Child to Fall Asleep At Night

No child looks forward to bedtime. Yet as a parent, you can set the tone for how your child perceives this time of the night. Here's how you can get your child to fall asleep at night with ease.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Compact discs of soothing music
• Children's books
• Hot chocolate
• Tea
• Board games

1. Dance the rest of her energy away an hour or so before bedtime. Exercise can release more energy, but with enough advance planning, you can allow for the energy to subside in time for bed. Put on some fun tunes and dance with your children. It's a great work-out, can burn off dessert calories from dinner and is a fun way to bond and get all the excess energy from the day out.
2. Tell him it's time to get ready for bed about half an hour before the final call for bedtime. This allows time for putting away toys, and you can provide a last minute activity. Make it one last game or book, then bedtime.
3. Give her a bit of hot chocolate or tea prior to brushing her teeth. While you want to avoid this if the child has problems with wetting the bed, this is a fantastic way to emotionally and physically get her ready for rest. The warmth is soothing and this ritual can establish a pattern of relaxation.
4. Make a game out of bedtime. When you have more than one child, you can see who can brush their teeth first and make a competition out of who can get in bed with their eyes closed first. If you have one child, you can play the game with them as though you are competing as well. For added fun, have very inexpensive stickers or little trinkets to give as prizes. You want to be careful to keep a fun tone to this event.
5. Let your child pick their own pajamas. Having something fun on that reminds them of a favorite show or toy can create a sense of excitement and adventure in getting ready for bed.
6. Play soothing music at a low volume while your child falls asleep. You can choose a great CD and leave it on even when you leave the room. Olivia Newton-John's classic lullaby album entitled "Warm and Tender" or Kenny Loggins' "Return to Pooh Corner" are especially great choices for beautiful, calm music that can lull a child to sleep while entertaining you.
7. Read to your child and have them read to you. The best take on the age-old tradition of reading at bedtime is to make it an exchange. Read something interesting to your child and have them read something to you. What you read to them could be a simple article from a newspaper that is appropriate for a child to learn from and what they read should simply be something on their reading level. Both should be done every night.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep a fun tone and attitude towards bedtime. Seeing you approach it as just another fun part of the day can work wonders.
• Listen to why your child does not want to go to sleep if they protest. It could be nightmares, something is scaring them, or any number of reasons. In order to effectively solve the problem, you should help your child deal with the underlying problem.
• Talk to them about how you felt about bedtime as a child. Empathize and explain why bedtime is important.
• Never yell at a child for resisting bedtime. Enforce it, but be kind and understanding.
• Don't worry if your child freaks out sometimes when faced with going to bed. Try to find out the reasons why, but don't worry if there are none. It's a normal phase for most kids.