You’ve probably already wondered if your child’s bedtime really affects the wake-up time… In her book “50 keys to help a child who doesn’t want to sleep” (Éyrolles editions), Nadège Pétrel answers others, to this question. Extract.
Bedtime is often a headache for parents who don’t really know how to go about it. Many parents wonder about the ideal bedtime to find so that their children do not wake up too early in the morning. One could indeed think that bedtime plays a role in relation to waking time. But in fact, it depends on the biological rhythms of each one. Each child is therefore “programmed” to wake up more or less early.
However, while bedtime does not directly affect wake-up time, it has an impact on the quality of your child’s sleep. In fact, morning sleep is less restorative than that at the start of the night, due to the increase in body temperature and the production of cortisol, which increase after 5 and 6 am. Ideally, children should be lying down before 9 p.m.. It would even be necessary to wake them up, on weekends, at the same times as the week so as not to disturb their rhythm. Also, it is useless to put your children to bed later hoping for late awakenings. Instead, focus on the quality of his sleep.
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To determine the appropriate and specific bedtime for your child, you will have to be attentive to its signs of fatigue at the end of the day. They are the ones who will guide you to find the right balance in order to go to bed neither too early nor too late. Be careful not to go to bed too early either because you need a moment off that you can give yourself once he is sleeping. The risk would be to find yourself with your child who is agitated in his bed, who does not want to sleep, and a bedtime that drags on. The whole family could therefore find themselves in difficulty and upset, which would be totally counterproductive.
“50 keys to help a child who does not want to sleep” by Nadège Pétrel, Eyrolles edition.