parties
It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to… By Maryanne Taylor, Child Sleep Works www.childsleepworks.co.uk
You spent the morning cutting cucumber and carrot sticks and putting the last minute touches to the birthday cake, and the afternoon enduring Mr Magic’s loud antics and ensuring that all children are fed and in one piece by the time their parents come to collect them at 5 o’clock. So you get home, unload the car, go inside and start getting the dinner ready, surrounded by 30 wrapped items of varying shapes and sizes, plus a child clearly on some kind of adrenalin rush, dashing around the house looking like what can only be described as a scene from a movie on a constant fast forward setting. An overload of excitement, sugar and presents has caused a level of giddiness which has been unparalleled in its strength since that first taste of chocolate cake. The question now is how do we get from this high intensity scenario to one of calm,
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quiet, relaxed child lying in bed on the verge of sleep within the next hour and a half? The key element – as is it on any other day – is the all-important wind-down routine leading up to bedtime, which is essential in bridging the gap between giddy excitement and calm relaxation. Here is my suggested step-by-step plan for reducing adrenaline levels: • Move all the wrapped shapes to another room out of sight to be dealt with another day and in a manner of your choosing – some people choose a grand unwrapping ceremony of all of them at the same time, or a few at a time over a longer period; • Depending on how much non-sugar food types were consumed by the birthday hero/ heroine at the party, see if you can get some form of dinner into him/her – if all else fails, maybe just a yoghurt and a piece of fruit, if for no other reason than to make you feel like you’ve provided at least some form of dinner; • Get your child into a warm bath straight after dinner to start the wind-down process. Try and keep the bath as calm and relaxed as possible, keeping the splashing hysterics to a minimum; • Make sure your child’s bedroom is warm with dim lighting and after the bath, all the routine should take place in his/her bedroom; • The tone of your voice should be more lowkey while you are getting your child ready for bed and keep interaction with him/her as unfussy as possible; • If your child is drinking milk at bedtime, sit in a chair with him/her and let him drink in quiet; • After milk, include stories or songs that soothe, rather than stimulate, and avoid scary stories. • Leave plenty of time for this as your child
The question now is how do we get from this high intensity scenario to one of calm, quiet, relaxed child lying in bed on the verge of sleep within the next hour and a half? may need a little longer to wind-down before getting into bed after the excitement of the day. If you rush it, your child will sense this and will more than likely seek extra attention when you put him/her down to sleep. For older children: • Make sure the rules for how many stories and how long you are reading are clear and non-negotiable. Explain this before you start reading. • Give your child a warning a minute or two before story time is due to finish saying something like ‘We have a few more pages in this book and then we will turn the light off to go to sleep’. • It is also a good idea to help a child feel involved in their own bedtime, so you might suggest that they switch off the light themselves as part of their bedtime routine. And so we reach the ultimate goal, a relaxed child lying in their bed ready to drop off to sleep. Or so we hope… The next question is, what if they don’t just drift off to sleep and that little angelic head pops up a short time after making it clear that sleep is not forthcoming?? We will look at that in the next article, but in the meantime, just be relieved that the joy of the birthday party is over for another year!
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01/05/2013 18:00