Bedtime routine woes

Imagine you are a child who is not living with their biological parent for whatever reason. It may be that home life was unsafe, or you were neglected or your parents just didn’t have the capacity to look after you.

Imagine then you get taken into care and end up sleeping in an unfamiliar house, room and bed.

Not only that but about once a month you are then expected to stay at a different strangers house, with its own oddities. Again, not your house, room or bed.

So is it reasonable to expect this child to sleep through the night in a strangers house.

No. Not at first anyway. Whilst you are still a stranger, and your home foreign, then I think it would be more realistic to expect there to be some bedtime woes for a bit.

Woes like not getting off to sleep easily, waking up repeatedly (and waking you as the carer up too), getting up early and perhaps bed wetting too. And not just four 4yos, and I mean for any child who comes into your home. Children will react differently but I don’t think their age is a factor really in how well they get to sleep or not. As with a lot of areas of their life, their chronological age means little as they’re upbringing has affected various areas of development.

It’s a bit like you having to stay at Aunty Joan’s house for a fortnight despite the floorboards creaking, a toilet flush that barely works and a bed spread that smells of damp dog.

I once had a teen who struggled to get off to sleep because before coming into care he shared with his younger brother who always left the window open. Plus, well, neither had proper duvets, so he was used to sleeping in what I’d consider to be the cold. But for him, my house was stuffy and so he needed the window open to get to sleep. Of course he didn’t tell me this for a few days until I enquired as to why he looked so shattered.

Oh, and linked to this, children’s diets can really really affect how they sleep too. They may have been used to ‘erratic’ sleep before and the idea of sleeping 7-9hrs a weird one. I once had a boy who used to buy ‘Boost’ (a cheap Red Bull) every day and wonder why he couldn’t nod off. Eventually I got him to swap it for Appletiser. Whilst it still had a fair bit of sugar, it didn’t have the caffeine at least. Small steps.

So, how do you improve sleep with your young persons.

This is tricky and all kids are different and bring with them their previous bedtime routines, or in most cases, a complete lack of them.

If the child is coming to you as respite I’d check with their main carer and follow their existing bedtime routine as closely as you can so it’s the least disturbing for the child as possible. So before Lilo and Stitch first stayed I checked what time they go to bed, how long they usually take to get ready (and do they get ready by themselves), do they usually wake up, what time they get up in the morning and what they do before getting into bed – for them it was 15mins of reading each plus a short YouTube video and a mug of hot milk. Before Hari stayed I asked their main carer, and they had quite strict rules around most aspects of their life due to safety issues. So before bed they watched 15mins of YouTube on a tablet but could not be left unsupervised otherwise they’d switch from YouTube and find adult content – and this was a primary aged child. So when Hari stayed we watched YouTube videos they chose that were age appropriate.

If the child is living with you as their main carer, either having moved from another carer or coming into care to you, you need to establish a bedtime routine as soon as possible. The more and better quality sleep the child gets the better they’ll be able to regulate their emotions, concentrate at school and interactions with you and their peers will be better. You are going to need patience with this for sure. If you’re lucky it might take a few weeks to establish a routine, if you’re not, months, and months but it will be worth it.

I’d start with when bedtime is. This will largely be influenced by the child’s age and if it’s a school night or not. For a 5-7yo this could be as early as 7pm, but for a 16yo even on a school night it might be as late as 10pm. Whatever you decide you need to stick with it. So say you have a 7yo who you want to be in bed trying to sleep from 730pm, work backwards – how long will it take to get ready for bed, and will you read before bed too? So they may need to get changed and do their teeth 7pm ish. This will mean they need to start calming down 630pm at the latest, perhaps even earlier if they’re a hectic child. This might be hard to establish over the summer months when its still light at 7pm but stick to it and eventually the child will get used to going to sleep at 730pm.

Then I’d move to when the child is allowed to get up in the morning. This will again depend on their age, experiences and whether it’s the weekend or not. Try to be as firm on this as possible. This may take longer than setting the bedtime. If they’re getting up early there could be a whole host of reasons – too hot, too cold, too much noise in the house, needing the toilet. Or it could be they’ve had enough sleep and so move their bedtime back. However if there doesn’t seem to be a reason other than ‘to be naughty’ or mischievous then consider imposing consequences such as not going out to your fun Saturday activity if they get you up at 5am! Also add a digital clock to their room and make sure they know how to read the time, or at least what 0700 looks like.

Consider, particularly for older children, turning the wi-fi signal off in your home at night or taking their phone or xbox controller off of them so they actually have nothing to do bar sleep.

So if you’ve got bedtime sorted and getting up time sorted, what if your child wakes up often during the night? Interrupted sleep can be as bad as not getting enough sleep. Try to think what will help calm them down so they can properly switch off before bed. Sooooo calm activities before bed, reducing screen time and having familiar smells might all help.

This all might take months. For any child it is worth it, but for a child who previously may not have had a bedtime routine, putting one in place can make a world of difference. Stick to your guns though. The occasional tantrum or screaming teen will be worth it in the end, for both you and them.

And I especially don’t like being woken up at 1am, 3am, 5am and then screamed at for two hours til I get up!

All the best, BF

NB Bristol Fostering is a personal blog and not affiliated with any fostering agency. The author just happens to be a foster carer in Bristol, UK

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