mottpoll.org/reports/getting-young-children-bed-sweet-dreams-or-nightmare
Published: 17’th June, 2024 - Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan
Academic title: “Bedtime battles: 1 in 4 parents say their child can't go to sleep because they're worried or anxious.”
Authors: University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.
As an adult who grew up without a bed time routine, I have high anxiety and am an insomniac
Everything makes sense now.
If it makes you feel any better I did have a strict bedtime routine and still deal with insomnia and anxiety.
Me too!
There’s definitely a giant gap between personal sleep hygiene and the known recommendations, so it’s not surprising it’s spilling over onto kids.
There’s a giant gap between sleep hygiene and the way our society functions on the whole, no time to sleep or parent if you’re too busy trying to make money for food or housing and everything is more expensive day by day.
Yeah, but it’s so easy to pretend “bad parenting” happens in a vacuum so nothing ever has to change! Humans are so cool like that.
The thing is, they assume the lack of routines are the starting place and that dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system may in fact be the cause of difficulty sleeping and maintaining routines around sleep. When sleep is biologically disregulated you can't simply fix it with routines, as an unusually disciplined person I know from great experience, and accommodating the biology perforce results in adjustment to ideal routines. There is growing autonomic dysregulation in modern populations for a variety of reasons.
I’m wondering how many parents give caffeinated drinks, like Coca Cola, to their kids just hours before bed time.
I know a lot that do.
I wasn't aware until a year ago that you're actually not supposed to drink soda before bed. Lol. It's so normalized in our society esp the lower working class to have soda alongside meals (references: literally any fast food combo meal)
From a health POV, you're not supposed to drink soda.
Cutting soda out of my diet and not consciously making any other changes in diet or activity caused me to lose 30lbs in 3 months. Soda is so awful for us. I still occasionally have some if I need a small jolt of caffeine and don’t want coffee, but only diet.
That's exactly why i drink soda. I'm underweight
From a sleep POV, stimulants have a paradox effect on me. Caffeine, Adderall, Excedrin etc. makes me sleep like a baby. If I don't get good sleep, my physical and mental health decline rapidly within a couple days. Z-class sleep meds (aka Ambien, Lunesta) are the worst for me... insomnia, anxiety, etc. Coincidentally, that Z-class med paradox effect is common in the elderly...stated right in the package insert. I can't count how many MDs, even Gerentologists switched Dad from Trazadone (a pre-ssri antidepressant that happens to make you sleepy with little to no side effects) to Lunesta then wonder why he's anxious and not sleeping again.
Not just before sleeping. Drinking soda frequently is just bad for your health. It help you get addicted to the worst processed sugar.
Depends on the soda. I enjoy myself some diet 7up and diet sprite before bed. No caffeine.
You didn’t have health class in school?
Even if a school has a health class, the quality of the content and teaching varies so wildly from state to state and from city to city.
Right. Even our health class teacher had a coke every single day at her desk and a bag of chips.
Yeah it was down the hall right past the 10 commandments
Lol of course we did, but it's not like the curriculum revolves around hygienic practices or anything useful. In poor neighborhoods like mine where food deserts are common, it's very much normal to drink soda and sweets at all times of the day. I fr just didn't know caffeinated soda is bad to drink at bed time esp when its so engrained to just drink it during dinner! I don't drink soda anymore anyways so 😗✌🏽
Yeah I’ve seen toddlers drink soda. Always blows my mind.
My parents would even add milk to my tea in the evening, because of the cafeine in black tea.
1 in 5 give young children melatonin
This is insane, especially for children.
My dad’s cousins do this. They’ve got 3 kids. Their bedtime routine is: melatonin and take your iPads to your bed and don’t bother mom and dad. It’s insane. I babysat them frequently in college and had several moral dilemmas with what they were doing 😅
Woof. If they didn’t take iPads to bed they wouldn’t need the melatonin…
Literally. It was so sad. The oldest at the time was 8-9 years old and I remember trying to engage in imaginary play with her because she loved her toys. She couldn’t. She had NO imagination. She could only organize her toys or count them. Then she’d go on her iPad and watch other kids play 😬🫠
genuine, serious question: would she organize her toys in a row, or stack them on top of one another?
I say this knowing I have a lack of critical information to make any real, thorough suggestion, but being as that I have done considerable amounts of research into the topic of autism on my own (due to discovering it was possible I had it as an adult), children having a dearth in, or lack of altogether of "imaginative play" is often a looked for sign for autism in children, particularly young children, which I would very much not say could be diagnosed only from this particular example, but it could be a thing worth looking into, especially because autism in girls is so very often overlooked or disregarded as a possibility, or at best thought of as somehow being a "different kind of autism" from "normal autism"
(I really hope this doesn't come across as rude or invasive, that's not my intent, I am trying to be helpful ; w ;)
She actually doesn’t have autism or exhibit any other signs of autism! It’s a valid question. Honestly as I was typing it I almost wrote that she doesn’t have autism because it’s an entirely valid assumption. 😂
That's misleading. It says 1 in 5 have given melatonin. Not necessarily a part of the routine every single night.
well there are more potential holes in these correlations.
Less likely to have bedtime routine is also just probably avg less socioeconomic status, poorer and higher stress. Such a child may well more often really feel "anxious" and a parent action to let the child have TV on can also plausibly be a "coping" with that same anxiety.
Obivously the other causal direction is probably also happening, but there is some causation/correlation confusion going on as we take in and discuss this.
Obviously not as it says they have no bedtime routine usually.
Lol, true.
I know several kids who have hyper active adhd so bad a kids sized melatonin gummy is the only thing that allows them to maintain a normal sleep-wake cycle, so have a bit of nuance. I've seen it, either they get the gummy or they stay awake, miserable but unable to turn their brain off, until they finally pass out at midnight.
In the case of multi kid families, that also often means keeping their non adhd siblings awake too as their tiredness turns them into moody chaotic assholes
Yeah I remember going throughout my childhood with undiagnosed ADHD and my parents eventually put a tv in my room with a timer on it and if I still couldn’t fall asleep after 30 minutes or whatever the only channel my parents would let me watch was the QVC channel.
They also ended up getting me a radio that I would listen to talk radio on because I just couldn’t sleep.
It’s amazing they never took me to a doctor but because I could always perform in school it was never a problem
Now as an adult I take a melatonin gummy and for the first time in my life I have a consistent sleep schedule
I only WISH my parents understood what was going on with me, I never had a bedtime, any talking/music/TV would keep me awake, I learned to sleep with a fan on every night for this reason. I had really bad insomnia after puberty hit for some reason, like stay awake for 3 days straight kind of insomnia. I was failing all my classes because I couldn't pay attention to anything that bored me and I wouldn't do math "the correct way" even though my answers were correct....I would also leave doodles all over my work. My mom didn't understand at all that I literally could not function at 6AM in the morning, so that whole dumping water on me thing she did, or all the yelling, or all the grounding/punishment....none of that helped me be awake enough to go to school, I eventually dropped out because of these and many other reasons.
I hate to say it, but cannabis changed my entire life once I discovered it, I sleep like a damn log now and have a regular sleep schedule for the most part. I don't even need a alarm clock most of the time anymore.
this is so accurate!!! we have tried putting my ADHD kiddo to bed without melatonin and he legit will stay awake until midnight, losing his mind. he will often play with a rubik’s cube in bed or whatever but he cannot fall asleep, poor dude, and keeps his younger sibling up too! Melatonin has been a sanity saver and has saved my marriage as well- we only give him a quarter mg but it’s like magic!
Yup, my kiddos is the same. We have a strict bedtime routine as well. I find gentle wrestling and a bit of chasey before bed helps. But my kid is Autistic and has a few other NDs.
I have a 12yo stepkid with ADHD that just can't sleep at night at all. We close all the blinds and hour before bed, change the TV in the living room to lofi music on low volume, follow the same bedtime routine every weekday: brush teeth/make lunch/read for 30-40 mins, don't allow screens in bed... And the kid is still up until midnight.
He sees a Psychiatrist regularly, talks to the school guidance counselor on and off, takes medication for his ADHD as soon as he gets up in the morning, gets lots of sun and fresh air... And is still up until midnight.
I think the core of the issue is that when he goes to his dad's they go to bed between 10 and 12 on week days (12 and 2am on Weekends), eat an insane amount of junk food, he doesn't regularly take any of his medication there, and both kids share a small apartment bedroom with their dad. He also experiences pretty bad abuse there from his unemployed dad — emotional mostly, but occasionally physical. We have gone through CFS but he has just been mandated to take abuser courses over and over and keeps 45% custody.
So we started giving him Melatonin on the advice of the psychiatrist, and he has slept every night since. I don't want it to be this way, but he literally went years getting 3-5 hours of sleep per night. We had to remove everything from his room at night for awhile because he would get bored after a few hours of layong there and start reading, play with random crap on his bookshelf, do pushups/situps, etc.
Yeah, sounds like my son, though we have a routine. He's just very much impacted by his ADHD and anxious. After years of trying all sorts of things, we started giving him meds to sleep. I don't love it, but he's much happier and more able to regulate and I'm also a rotten sleeper, so I do better when I can get better sleep too.
Hey team step-dad! high-five always happy to see another one in the wild
My kid is like that and I have always been like that as well. It takes me 3+ hours to fall asleep without any sleep aids (and sometimes with them). It takes my daughter anywhere from five minutes to 2 hours or more to fall asleep. Her average is probably about 45 minutes. If it's 10 on a school night and she's still not asleep, then yeah, she takes a melatonin gummy.
This describes my son. We have a solid routine. PJ/ > Brush Teeth > Read Books > Bed. Every single night. No TV after 6. Bed time around 7:30. Kid still needs 1 mg of melatonin every night to fall asleep. He’s 3.
Honestly I remember having trouble falling asleep as a kid. I would have loved to have had access to melatonin.
As an autistic adult, hard agree. I was given massive doses of over the counter "kalms" (valerian root or antihistamines) as a kid and then prescribed mirtazapine as an adult, gaining massive amounts of weight and sudden onset uncontrollable irritability, melatonin was safer and life changing. My child (also autistic) is about to hit puberty and still never sleeps before midnight, more often than not its 2ish and no, there's no ipad. I suspect melatonin will be life changing for them, too.
Yeah melatonin is better than not sleeping. Not sleeping is very damaging. Especially for developing your brains. I dread to think what life would be like without it for my kiddo. Believe me we have tried everything else.
Me too
Not surprised unfortunately.
Why develop healthy bedtime habits when you can just give your kids a pill
My kids have habits, we have a routine, they are active at school, my oldest plays club soccer, and we don't do tablets during the school week. They just don't sleep. I never slept well, and I'm so old we didn't have cell phones or tablets or even a computer. I know people judge me, but at this point, we do what we do so people can sleep.
My parents used to give me unisom and Benadryl.
It’s not legal for that usage in the UK. Is this an American problem?
Melatonin is widely used in the US as a sleep aid. It’s available over the counter.
It is legal in the UK, you just have to buy it online overseas. It's very legal for personal use. Don't give it to kids unprescribed.
I’m in my 30s and melatonin gives me insanely bad nightmares. I would literally never give that to a child.
Try using less. Seriously, if you're having side effects like that, I'm not sure what your dose is but they make one mg pills. That's all I need. If I take threes or fives, it's terrible for me while other people do just fine with that dose
I'm on 10mg occasionally more per night. And I take a pain medication bef sleep that has drowsiness as a feature not a side effect . I've had struggled work insomnia and other sleep issues since I was a literal baby.
All my dreams/nightmares are vivid and weird now. But honestly it's better than being awake (dealing with chronic pain, cancer, autistic, severe mental health struggles, unemployment, etc) these days so I'll happily take my fucking bizarro nightmares instead. At least I don't have chronic pain in my dreams.
I wouldn't say I'm doing fine on this dose but the alternative is more prescription drugs like Ambien no thank you, some Dr gave me that as a 16 year old!! And I took it for 2 years. Some "fun" stories from that lol
Anyway, sorry, I'm babbling. I don't really have friends so I dump on strangers 🤷
Yeah sounds like she is using too much.
I had to do this in third grade due to nightmares and insomnia. My teacher (the laziest one ever, who would scowl at us if we asked for help and would go a week without lessons) told me how I "wasn't supposed to take it." That bitch should've f'ded off, it's nobody's business what an anxious and unwell child's parents must do to sleep. It sucks that in this society it's so common. I later developed depression and used melatonin in... incorrect ways, let's leave it at that. Now I don't take it anymore but I'm grateful for all of the sleep I got from it.
I’ve heard a little tart cherry juice can do the trick
Wait until you find out how many are also on amphetamine salts
My kid's pediatrician told us to do that when she was 2-3. She was always a terrible sleeper, more exercise during the day and bedtime routines/sleep hygiene stuff didn't help, and he said it was better for her brain to get help sleeping than to get like half the recommended sleep for her age
I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old, my 4 year old is the most energetic being I have ever met. We have established a pretty good bed night routine (read a book or watch a short calming cartoon, brush teeth, give love to everyone, and try to be in bed by 7:30 each night). My wife or I lay with her in her bed until she falls asleep but we still have to give her .5mg melatonin almost every night to help her sleep and there are still some night that she will sleep a few hours and be awake from like 2 am onwards. We don’t give her caffeine, no food or medicine with red dye food coloring, or even chocolate. We didn’t start trying it until a pediatrician friend suggested it when she was around 3.5 years old. I’m worried about the long term problem’s but she has to sleep.
Keep in mind these kids might have autism, ADHD, and anxiety disorders that's why my kids take them.
Soooo dangerous for young brains.
And where are you getting this information? Melatonin is a natural hormone that our brain produces.
Studies have found no negative impacts of melatonin in short-term use but there haven't been good studies about long-term impacts00260-2/fulltext). However, we know that sleep deprivation causes everything from more falls to obesity to neuron death so many doctors recommend using melatonin in children with chronic sleep problems following the precautionary principle.
Thank you for linking an actual source! I've been trying to cut down on melatonin for myself and my daughter and the lack of sleep has been rough. Kiddo went about two months without it and had some nights where she was up past midnight and had to go to school in the morning, so I caved and bought another bottle of gummies.
Make sure you're buying a reputable brand of gummies, as some of them contain way more melatonin than is stated on the label.
I recommend that you experiment to figure out the lowest dose (part of a gummy) and dose timing that will result in reasonable sleep onset. For example, melatonin mouth spray hits peak blood concentration 23 minutes after administration while a slow release tablet can take up to 3 hours.
I always buy the Olly 0.5 gummies that have lemon balm in them. The ones that contain additional herbal supplements always seem to work better.
So is HGH but I wouldn't give it to my kids.
That’s a pretty terrible analogy because the two substances have different functions, effects, and safety profiles. Also, if melatonin is so terrible, why not link a study providing evidence of that?
But is it fair to equivocate HGH to melatonin? Asking for evidence for such a statement seems reasonable.
It's as reasonable to ask for evidence that children taking melatonin is a good idea.
the existence of a naturally occurring substance in the brain is insufficient as a well-considered reason to provide it exogenously as a supplement to children with developing brains.
Whether every such substance is the same beyond that isn't material to my point.
Source: I made it the fuck up
Press release here.
“** Bedtime battles: 1 in 4 parents say their child can’t go to sleep because they’re worried or anxious**”
“Certain nighttime habits can either help or hurt sleep issues in young children”
Many bedtime battles stem from children’s after dark worries, suggests a national poll. And while most families have bedtime rituals to help their little ones ease into nighttime, many also rely on strategies that may increase sleep challenges long term, according to the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.
Overall, one in four parents describe getting their young child to bed as difficult – and these parents are less likely to have a bedtime routine, more likely to leave on a video or TV show, and more likely to stay with their child until they’re asleep.
"Our report reinforces the common struggle of getting young children to sleep. When this transition to bedtime becomes a nightly conflict, some parents may fall into habits that work in the moment but could set them up for more sleep issues down the road,” said Mott Poll co-director Sarah Clark, M.P.H.
“Establishing a consistent bedtime routine is crucial. When children don’t get enough rest, it can impact their physical development, emotional regulation and behavior.”
Nearly one in five parents say they have given their kids melatonin to help with sleep while a third stay in the room until their child completely dozes off, according to the nationally representative poll that includes responses from 781 parents of children ages one to six surveyed in February.
Nighttime worries interfere with sleep
Parents share common reasons behind bedtime struggles, with nearly a quarter saying their child’s sleep is often or occasionally delayed due to being worried or anxious.
A particular challenge, parents say, is when children don’t stay asleep.
More than a third of parents say their child wakes up upset or crying, with more than 40% saying their child moves to their parents’ bed and about 30% saying children insist that the parent sleep in their room.
“Many young children go through stages when they become scared of the dark or worry that something bad might happen, causing them to delay bedtime or become distressed by parents leaving the room. Bad dreams or being awakened in the middle of the night can also disrupt sleep,” Clark said.
“Although this is a normal part of a child’s development, it can be frustrating when parents already feel tired themselves at the end of the day. Parents should find a balance between offering reassurance and comfort while maintaining some boundaries that help ensure everyone – both kids and adults – get adequate sleep.”
Below are more findings from the report, plus Clark’s recommendations for helping young children fall and stay asleep.
My parents would give me niaprazine so I would shut up. It's a forbidden drug now as it can literally cause death in very young kids.
I know a couple parents who give their kids melatonin just to knock them out earlier so they can have time to themselves. Not because a doctor recommend it or anything.
We need to stop winding each other up. It’s spilling over into children and messing them up.
Yeah, we need a trauma informed society
I don’t know why people can’t see the systemic issues where. School is insanely stressful for a lot of kids, there’s little free time in higher grades, especially if you’re involved in extracurriculars.
Maybe listen to all the research that says school starts way too early for most kids and let them live a more balanced lifestyle instead of just preparing them for 40 hour workweeks.
Valid
I see what you're saying but I wonder what's so different now to a few decades ago. Like both my parents worked. Both their parents worked. Most boomer parents worked tbh. We've all have mindless kids TV since like the 70s. School is also far easier now than it used to be thanks to all the advances in tech and education research that accommodates so much more than what they used to. We have SEN staff now and back then there was fuck all like that. School started and finished pretty much at the same times it does now. Every generation has arguably had their own big stresses and worries. Every generation has a fucked up economy story, fucked up leaders, fucked up world events going on. I literally don't understand why we now have teachers leaving the profession in droves because they can't handle the kids that are currently in classrooms. Why so many kids can't read or do basic maths. Why so many are turning up to school not potty trained. Why so many young kids who really should have no fucking idea what's going on in the world outside of their own little kid bubble are that anxious.
I see all the excuses of parents not having time, the school schedule is hard etc. but these things have been this way for decades and the mental fortitude of the up and coming gen seems shot to shit compared to even us millennials. So what gives? What changed that made it get this bad for kids this quickly?
You raise great points, but the answers to your question are intricate and complex.
Some of the largest factors I believe are as follows: Informational overload, social media, phone addiction, less robust social structure and support for parents who are working, prevalence of substance abuse / addiction, the idea that kids should be busy 24/7, “helicopter parenting,” and I’m sure there is more than I’m not listing here.
I stay with my daughter until she falls asleep and it’s because I co-slept with her as a baby. Horrible sleep routines established early on linger. I don’t mind it, but we have a whole bed time routine, no tv, and no melatonin. She’s usually asleep within 10-15 minutes. I used to give her melatonin, but she hasn’t taken it in 2 years.
Also, let me clarify that she has bunk beds. I’m on the bottom reading a book, and she sleeps on the top. When she’s asleep, I leave.
I think some parents really try to do the best that we can, and sleep is one area I struggle with the most. Even when she was a baby, she had FOMO. She never napped. Getting her to nap was a challenge. So, I would let her nap next to me. I just had my second baby, and decided that I can’t do this again. I’ve been very strict with laying him down and not co-sleeping when he’s tired. The thing is though, he actually naps. He enjoys his naps. They are 2 wildly different babies, so it has been helpful in establishing a routine. I’m interested in seeing how his routine differs as he grows older, but I’m fairly certain that this will help him fall asleep on his own later in life too.
Reddit loves to dole out parenting criticism without any knowledge of parenting. Sounds like you have done a good job.
Thanks friend. I feel like a lot of parents do the best we can. I think the research on the impacts of melatonin is mixed. I’m eager for longitudinal data. It will be interesting to see
Parents try harder now than ever and get in constant shit for being the worst. LOL
Every kid is different and I think if we parent with love and with our eyes wide open we are doing better than almost all the parents before us.
My daughter takes a melatonin gummy before bed (she is 12). She usually listens to music and sings or reads books in the evening before bed. The melatonin helps her fall asleep which is something both myself and her mother struggled with as kids as well. My wife grew up without TV in the house, so these things can happen without distracting screens.
I think the problem lies with people applying all the aggregate knowledge we have today to specific cases and using the knowledge to judge parents. My daughter is allergic to peanuts and we have been criticized for being too scared to feed her peanuts when she was little and it is people like us that are causing all the peanut allergies. What they don't know (or fail to find out) is that my mother had a deadly peanut allergy her whole life (born in 1940) and so we did everything we could when my daughter was little to ensure she didn't develop the allergy as a good parent should, but it is genetic and there was nothing we could have done.
All children are different with different needs. Some of these “expert Nanny’s” responding to you are just doling out unneeded parenting advice. I think the idea that it’s bad for kids who “struggle at bedtime cause they want a parent” is not really assessing the correct problem. I personally think it’s just frustrating for parents to have to stay instead of their child being independent, since parents are so ready to relax instead of parent. They are upset with the bedtime battle in order to establish child’s independence, but these studies and experiences aren’t looking at long term outcomes. I wonder how their emotional well being will be impacted, and I honestly hypothesize that children who know their parent (or sibling) will be there for/with them when they feel alone, is a good thing. I doubt she’ll want you to sleep with her forever, even if she is older than what others deem “necessary”. Sounds like you’re doing a good job with your child’s needs.
I’m a nanny and just made a comment with very similar sentiments because I’ve seen what you described happen more than once.
I’ve worked for multiple families who contact napped before transitioning to cuddling their toddlers to sleep and in the long term it’s a detriment to everyone but it’s the kids who struggle most. Most parents do it from a place of love but when you raise your child to only know one thing it is normally incredibly difficult to transition to something else, especially when that something else removes their biggest source of comfort from the situation.
My general rule as a nanny is that, whenever possible, I don’t allow my kids to do things they won’t be allowed to do once they’re older because I don’t think it’s fair to set a precedent. It might cause for some big feelings in the moment but in the long term I think it’s much kinder to them.
Research shows parental availability at bedtime improves sleep, doesn't make it worse. This is outdated thinking. Humans, especially young ones, are not meant to sleep alone.
It’s one thing with babies but if your toddler is used to sleeping with an adult they are going to struggle sleeping alone once they get older. Can you cite anything that says having your toddler fall asleep next you every night and every nap is best for their sleep through the rest of their childhood?
I’m exclusively an infant toddler nanny and have worked for over a dozen families. Every single family who contact napped when their children where 6mo+ had massive issues when their children were older and needed to sleep by themselves where as those who had strict routines around sleep once their child was 6-12mo rarely had issues past what is considered developmentally normal.
Not research, but personal experience, I contact napped, nursed, and slept alongside my daughter until she was 2. On her second birthday she got a big girl bed and moved out of the crib I had up against my side of the bed. She loved her bed, and her own room, so much so that the first night on she has slept in it every night since. I did continue nursing her to sleep until she was 3.5 and then we stopped. She will very happily head up to her room now when it’s time for bed and doesn’t fight me over going to bed and also does not need my presence anymore. My daughter is also autistic, so I’m not sure how that changes compared to a neurotypical child. I was fortunate enough to be a SAHM so I gave my daughter my presence for her comfort and safety when she wanted it, and now she’s a very independent 4 yo and not a whiny child either.
ETA: I want to add, I used to climb into my moms bed at night up until I was 13 years old due to really bad nightmares. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
I was a nanny for years prior to becoming a parent. I have also worked in infant mental health and child development. I am a parenting educator. I have worked with 1000s of families. I have 3 kids. It's truly not helpful to argue from a position authority, especially because you are speaking to someone else with authority and we have starkly different opinions. Clearly you have a bias, and in western societies there is a cultural bias- the belief that independent sleep is necessarily better. Other cultures do not preference independent sleep or hold it as the standard and we just don't hear about sleep issues coming from those cultures. Do you wonder why that is?
We also know your advice does not match the experience of human children throughout evolutionary history. We evolved to sleep close to each other and our children because night time was dangerous.
Here is the updated research I was referring to:
Longer parental presence and contact at bedtime were associated with better sleep (minutes, efficiency) for children who experienced high but not low parenting sensitivity. Lower child technology use in combination with higher parental presence was also associated with longer and more efficient child sleep. The findings illuminate aspects of the bedtime context that may promote emotional security and reduce physiological and cognitive arousal in young children. These naturalistic observations may readily translate into intervention programming targeting improvement in young children's sleep. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved). Here is the link
You come at me for having a bias when you purposely misrepresented the research to suit your narrative.
Partial correlation analyses controlling for child and family demographics showed that more quiet activities, greater parenting sensitivity, and less child technology use at bedtime were associated with longer and more efficient sleep
I agree wholeheartedly with all of that! A focus on quality time with quiet activities in the lead up to bedtime, no electronics and parents putting a focus on their child’s emotional state are all great ideas and I’m sure play into kids getting a better sleep but it has absolutely nothing to do with what I said in relation to children being conditioned to always have a parent next to them when they fall asleep.
Show me research that contradicts what I said.
Why would you copy and paste in order to refute what I was saying and not cite everything? the length of time and sensitivity of the parents was found to be correlated with better sleep quality. Why accuse me of misrepresenting and the ignore the piece I was referencing?
Why are you not also responding to the very important piece of what I said: solitary sleep for young kids is a recent and western invention. Children throughout history have not been expected to sleep alone. So we diagnose kids with sleep problems when there truly isn't an issue. Independent sleep is an anomaly. It's not that you have bias (we all have them, I'm not calling you out). It's that that specific bias is very meaningful here.
is that all you have? You argue with this person below about including the part of the abstract you liked, the "longer parental presence", and didn't include the whole quote either! I'll include it below. Also, that could very well mean just reading to them longer before bed. Did I miss the part about solo vs co sleeping?
Longer parental presence and contact at bedtime were associated with better sleep (minutes, efficiency) for children who experienced high but not low parenting sensitivity.
If you don't have facts on this specific topic than your "authority" here means little to the topic at hand. You don't have a paper talking about the main thing you are promoting?
Interested in the research you’re referring to. Can you share links?
For my daughter she was just anxious and upset. Things were tough. We were all stressed. She just needed reassurance things would be okay. Sometimes I would stay with her if she needed it. But these days, the most I typically do is come back to check on her after 10min. 9/10 times she’s completely asleep before I get back. But it took a few consecutive nights of doing this.
I work as a nanny and most parents who consider their children terrible sleepers are the main reason as to why.
I’ve worked for more than one family who transitioned from contact naps with their babies to cuddling their toddlers to sleep and it’s so unfair on the kids. For one family it was like the world stopped at nap time and no matter what was going on an adult needed to lie down with their toddler for the entirety of nap. No phones, no distractions, just lying next to him in a bright room for up to 2.5 hours waiting for him to wake up. When he started pushing back against nap because he realized it was more fun to play with his toys and the grown up in the room instead of sleeping I suggested they get black out blinds and move out some toys but they decided to stop naps instead despite him still desperately needing them.
It’s like a cycle, they set the kids up for failure by maintaining unsustainable routines and when there’s difficulty during the transition period they decide their child is obviously not ready so they revert back to the behaviours they were trying to correct. If your child spends the first 3-4 years of their life never sleeping alone of course they’re a lot more likely to struggle with sleeping alone when they reach elementary school. If they’re used to always having an adult there the second they open their eyes of course they’re going to have anxiety when they start waking up and there’s no one there.
Parents today are often so focused on not allowing their children to feel or show distress they’re unknowingly depriving them of the opportunity to build a distress tolerance in a safe environment. Passive parenting has become a real problem.
Oh my god, this is my sister in law to a T. She has a 4 year old who still takes naps with someone in the room. And she has a baby who recently turned one, and she is still contact sleeping throughout the night and for all naps.
They complained so much about my nephews sleep issues and then repeated all of the exact same behaviors with their daughter. Lo and behold, she is a shitty sleeper too.
Meanwhile, my husband and I have had a strong bedtime routine for our babies since day one. We have a 3 year old and 18 month old and both sleep through the night from about 8pm-7am every night. Sometimes the toddler takes longer to fall asleep now but other than that they are great sleepers. But we prioritized sleep training and moving them to their own space at a reasonable time so that we could all get our sleep.
Sometimes I feel guilty because my in-laws will keep our girls for several days at a time, and they’ve never done that for my SIL. But they literally can’t because her kids basically require her presence to get any sleep at all. And her reasoning is all based on not wanting them to cry it out. I can tell you all of the crying of both my kids combined when we did sleep training was maybe 20 mins. I can’t help but feel she is creating an unhealthy attachment with her kids in the name of not letting them cry.
Every generation has parenting trends we look back on and shake our heads at and I truly believe for this generation one of the biggest ones is going to be the inability for so many parents to see their children in distress. Children need boundaries to thrive and when they’re only figuring out how to exist in their tiny minds they need to be upset so they can learn that they’ll be okay when it’s over. Children are so resilient but when you jump in every time they’re upset and fix the problem you’re teaching them that emotional outbursts will give them what they want and that they can’t handle uncomfortable emotions or situations without the help of an adult. It’s not for the children’s benefit, it’s for the parents so they don’t have to deal with the emotions that come with seeing their child upset.
I think there’s also something to be said about parents mental health and how their general mental wellbeing affects their children. If you’re sleep deprived as a parent you’re likely to be more anxious and stressed and kids pick up on that. Sleep routines allow for happy and well rested parents which is huge.
I completely agree with everything you said. I even have a friend who had a daughter 5 weeks apart from my oldest. She had a horrible time with sleep. The baby would wake every 30-40 minutes all night. She didn’t want to cry it out or sleep training but she became desperate when she started hallucinating. She paid for a sleep training program and it worked wonders, her baby never really cried and took to it within a week or two. In the grand scheme of things, powering through a little distress saved them both so much more distress in the future.
I definitely feel that these sleep issues contribute to emotional development. My kids know I’m right there if they need me, and my youngest is even a snuggle bunny and would have happily contact slept her whole life, lol. But she has learned to sleep well and feel safe knowing I’m a step away.
My SIL is so sleep deprived she cannot emotionally support her children. She barely has time to work, shower, eat, and provide for herself, much less emotional bonding time with her kids. Her life revolves around sleep and the lack of it.
I wish I could send her this but I know she is so resistant and feels like it’s bullying. It’s so tough watching it.
I feel like a lot of "they're not ready" is more "I can't be bothered with the transitional phase".
One hundred percent! Learning a new thing can be really frustrating for adults, it’s completely understandable why toddlers get upset but parents often don’t allow them the opportunity to work through it because it makes them, the parent, uncomfortable. Instead of doing the hard thing and helping support the child in the moment they throw their hands up all together. Giving up when your child is emotionally distressed is the absolute worst time because it teaches them that when they get angry or sad they get what they want and that makes the next time even harder. It’s a horrible cycle that helps no one.
Why do we force young kids to sleep alone? That’s such a western notion. They probably can’t sleep bc humans are meant to sleep in groups to feel safe. Why not just let your child sleep with you until they’re ready for their own space? Why do we force arbitrary timelines on child development that aren’t even based on science but just western cultural norms instead of following the child’s lead?
because they go to sleep at 7 pm?
Telling kids to go to bed at 7pm is the most mind blowing things about today’s parenting to me. The sun would still up in the summer in most of North America.
According to WHO they need more hours of sleep than adults. As they cannot generally get up late, they need to go to bed early
Most kids 3 to 5 need about 10 hours of sleep. 7pm to 5am is not a good option IMO.
Kids 3-5 needs 10 to 13 hours according to WHO. So on average kids of that age they need 11.5 hours
This is in the paper that I linked which is a global guideline
Typically the ones that need more than 10 hours of sleep take more naps, so they are not logging 13 straight hours at night. The inclusion of naps in the total daily sleep time is also in the guideline that you linked.
It’s light until basically 10 PM in June here… you just gotta tell your kid to go to bed anyways because 10 PM is too late for them to be up regularly.
I don’t live in Nordic countries but I regularly “went to bed” after 10 pm. Quotation marks around the terms because I did not actually sleeping when I was ordered to lying in bed at 10pm, I was reading comic books with flashlights until later.
Anyway, I don’t understand the obsession of force your kids to go to bed this early when majority of audits are still awake and creating noises that would prevent kids from actually falling sleeping. Like my other comments, why not ask your kids go to bed at 5pm?
Because kids need more sleep than adults and they likely wake up around the same time in the morning no matter what so they need to get to bed earlier.
How much more hours and who said that? let’s say that kids, in average, need 10 hr of sleep, they slept at 7pm, that means they likely wake up at 5 am next day. Where I live, school allows children to enter around 8:45am and school officially starts at 9:15 am (per county website.). Unless there is like 2 hours commute to school, I don’t see the point of letting your kids sleep at 7pm and have them naturally wake up at 5am.
A lot of kids need 10-12 hours. They will also naturally wake up at around 7-7:30. My kid goes to bed about 8:30 normally. We stay up until 10 or so. Do you have kids?
So???? Should people in the Arctic stay up 24 hours a day when it's light out for that long? I hope your children have someone I telligent in their life to learn from.
Well, actually, my kids’ bed time is 5pm. You all sucks at parenting.
/S. I have no children.
Haha. Seriously, though: sunset shouldn't dictate bedtime. I'm in Northern BC, Canada, and it's daytime light out until past ten right now. Using sunset as a measure of putting a child to bed is nuts.
Yes, I agree. We all sleep in the same room, just with a seperate bed for the toddler and it works well. Even if he needs to be comforted, it's quick and doesn't really disrupt us as much as it would if we needed to go to another room. We're a UK/JP couple so some of sleeping in the same room is the JP influence I think, as I slept along growing up in the UK. That said, it also feels very natural to sleep together and I like it.
Yeah, Umich likes to point out differences when there is an opportunity to defer responsibility to individuals when discussing problems with children parents are experiencing. There could be a poll that highlights the "best" or "most effective" bedtime routine/practices, to help parents, but that is never the goal/approach.
Because mothers have to go back to work in a few months after the baby is born and they need a nights sleep to be able to work with focus the next day
Not all of us do. We get a year off in the UK.
I got 16 weeks (in the US) and that was seen as REALLY good. A lot of places don't give any.
So who looks after the baby? Because nursery here costs a hell of a lot of money so I imagine in the US that's probably worse.
Personally, I had to put my daughter in daycare because my husband and I both work and can't afford to be single income, plus my job provides good health benefits. It was around $300/week a couple years ago when she was an infant.
I think as long as the parent’s have good sleep hygiene, then yes. Most people in my extended family bed share or room share but their children all have some sort of sleep problems (note these are 4 to 8 year olds) because their parents have poor sleep hygiene. They stay up late, look at screens in the middle of the night, can’t sleep and do hobbies in the same room while their kid tries to sleep. Two of my family members often incorporated screens in the bedtime routine and gave their kids melatonin.
My husband and I coslept with our daughter until she was 3.5 and we had our second. The only time I think it didn’t work for our child, in particular, is when my husband would have very vocal nightmares or would toss and turn. There are a lot of variables!
I love this thought.
Because parents need sleep too, and I don’t want to have to worry about suffocating my child
Most of the conversation here seems to revolve around toddlers to small children (2-5). That’s not the age of suffocating a small child in their sleep.
Because besharing with little kids is a recipe for suffocation, especially infants- it’s the leading cause of SIDS.
You can share a room with them without sharing a bed. They make cribs that have pillow barriers but basically hook o to the side of the bed. Also I’m talking about older kids we’ve been taught should sleep on their own but there’s really no scientific basis for that belief. Use a little creative thinking. You’re being intentionally obtuse.
You didn’t say “in the room” you said “sleep with” but sure. God forbid anyone be cautious about the #1 cause of accidental infant death in the western world.
Again, they said "sleep with you" not "sleep in the same bed with".
The baby can sleep with you in your room without sleeping in the same bed as you.
Not "especially infants" only infants. The greatest risk is under 4 months and then a huge drop off at 6 months. And the research on cosleeping involves a lot of cofounders (drug and alcohol use, sleep location, etc) and is notoriously flawed.
People downvote but it's true. Most "SIDS" cases are actually just suffocation or being crushed to death. My niece died this way. Nobody cares about it because it hurts their sensibilities when it's brought up. It's the one thing I've found that you can't raise awareness about without people getting very upset with you.
Because not all of us have a sexless marriage…? I mean it’s one thing when the kid is a baby and maybe a young toddler, but you will not convince me that it’s morally acceptable to have sex in the same room as 3+ year old lol
Some of us have sex other places than the bed, lol. Or we have a guest bed to retreat to. Nobody is saying have sex with your kid in the bed. When mine was a toddler we’d get her down to sleep in our bed, then roll away and hang out outside the bedroom.
Do you think all the parents in countries where it’s common to cosleep have sexless marriages? Why is a bed the only place you can have sex? Our kid sleeps with us and we have a great sexual relationship.
Okay that was a huge reach. No one said to have sex with the child in the room you cuckoo bird
It is not a huge reach, that’s exactly what happens in many of the cultures where bed/room sharing is normalized. You can’t do it in a guest room if you don’t have one. I am not comfortable with that.
Ew no not even young toddlers. Tbh having a baby in the room skeeves me out.
Parents arnt parenting, shocking revelation.
I work in child and adolescent psych (inpatients). One of the best “lessons” I ever learned was from a mentor. He went around the room asking each of us if we ever had ever taken a class on parenting at any point in our education. The answer is obviously no, and one must consider how you parent is a confluence of your own upbringing amongst multitude of unique factors present day.
We are not built to take in as much stimuli or data (most of garbage quality) from news, social media, etc with caveat that most all of that content is algorithmically driven to keep you locked in. Parents perceived stress levels are higher from a variety factors (finances, pandemic after effects, and the factors above), and I don’t think the effect size of advertising medications as a solutions can be underscored.
The article may state this and may be simple to some but not all: light emitting sources suppress melatonin production. Sleep hygiene works, but parents are largely programmed for the medication first approach.
All that to say is, we need to do a better job educating parents. To me that extends beyond providers and into the realm of public health. Personally, I believe there should be educational ad campaigns on this topic to get ahead of creating a more med dependent generation.
Seems like a cause and effect problem in part. Some kids are not very compatible with routine or sleep. I've got a "spirited" child and she was definitely born that way. My parenting has evolved around her. I'm used to people assuming I'm the problem but sometimes you meet another parent with a similar child and the mutual understanding is very healing!
I believe this is rooted in parents believing they should not make themselves available to their kids at night. My kids have no trouble sleeping bc they know they are safe and they know I'm here if they need me. There's nothing to panic over. Parents are taught that from infancy they should let their baby cry to sleep or shut the door and withdrawal parental support at night. It's a recipe for night time anxiety bc it's ingrained in our primal brains that night time isn't safe and they must seek out the security of a parent at night.
I think it ties back to shitty paternity and maternity leave in the US as well. Parents pretty much just have to put their babies in a different room and let them cry it out so they can get sleep and go to work. It makes a lot sense it would cause night time anxiety. I haven’t looked into it but I’m curious how it affects secure attachment as well.
Eh, good for you, but my kid with anxiety also knows that we’re available any time they need us, day or night. They still have a hard time falling asleep because they’re worried about spiders, radiation, the heat death of the universe (note, kid is an adolescent now—as a young child of the ages in this study they worried about ghosts, burglars, me or my spouse getting sick, etc).
I can't comment on your specific child. We would truly need more research on this. I can't know or judge from a Reddit comment where I don't know you or your child or your entire history. We do have research that says parental availability at night time means kids sleep better and resist sleep less.
Sucks your getting downvoted because they got personally offended.
Could be that the insomnia is genetic. Poor sleep hygiene has bidirectional ambiguity with insomnia, it both causes it and is based by it, so it’s no wonder than an anxious, insomniac parent, would have an anxious, insomniac child, and fall into the same traps trying to help their kid, as they did trying to help themselves.
Is this America only?
This strikes me as laziness. Routine is so important. Sleep is so important. If you take those two away of course it leads to anxiety.
Taking the easy way out (IMO) of medicating it is going to lead to huge sleep disfunction in that group.
These are screen time kids I absolutely guarantee it. Their brains can’t calm down to sleep from over stimulation just like many adults.
The amount of parents I know that have a TV in their child's room or sent them to bed with a tablet actually blows my mind. A bedtime routine is SO important to developing brains! It's sad to see this is so common.
Melatonin should be the last resort to get a child to sleep
Some of those parents restrict screens before bed, have a bedtime routine, address concerns with anxious kids, stay while kids fall asleep or allow kids into their beds, and still have to rely on melatonin or other supplements sometimes. They don't make kids the way they used to.
I'm one of those weirdos that as a child had a strict bedtime routine that always shocked my parents. They would look around and be like "where'd our kid go???" And I would be In bed promptly at 8pm. As an adult, I feel comfy being up until about 10, but on tough days 8pm is still the sweet spot. Additionally, I have really high anxiety and will regularly wake up at 4am. I also recently learned that my dad stays up until 2am bc of anxiety. Like he'd get in bed with my mom so she could sleep, give her the cuddles, and then lie quietly thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong ever and how he could prevent it, fix it, or succumb to it. He and I used to talk about the statistically most likely ways I would die. I found it fascinating. My younger siblings were deeply disturbed, so I decided to keep those thoughts to myself.
When my child is 30 and has worries of their own plus a job that begins the next day rain or shine they will need to rest and I might not be there to help them (I'm either dead or across the country.)
Teaching them a skill now that the world is what it is - the lights are off, the bedroom door is closed, it is bedtime. This is the best gift I can give them. (Disclosure - these are 3 and 5 year olds, not infants!)
I think it's important to remember that everyone's family is different and that most people are trying to do the best for their kids. Nitpicking people's parenting when there is no blatant abuse or neglect going on is not helpful to anyone.
My kiddo has ADHD and gets more wound up/energetic the more tired she is (I think because she has even less capacity for self control when she's tired). We have a bedtime routine that has been the same for several years now. She has night lights in her room and a fan for white noise, both at her own insistence. She reads books in bed or draws, no electronics. She doesn't have a TV in her room at all. She gets caffeine once in a while when we eat out. So maybe 3 to 5 times a month total. Considering that caffeine makes me sleepy at a certain point and our ADHD presentation is similar, caffeine might actually help her sleep, but I don't care to try it because of all the sugar in caffeinated soda.
Yes, I do give her melatonin as needed if she is unable to sleep after ~an hour in bed. She gets one 0.5 mg gummy and then she's allowed to take another one if she still can't sleep. Without melatonin, some nights she'll lay down at 830 and still be awake at midnight. Delayed sleep is a known issue for ADHD kids and adults and there comes a point when the potential adverse affect of lack of sleep outweighs the long term risks of taking melatonin. Especially at the low dosage that my daughter gets.
Yes, I do still lay down with her to help her sleep even though she's 8. From the time she was 3 until about 4 1/2, she had night terrors and was generally very high needs because of the abrupt and likely traumatic way that her father and I split up. I would have loved to transition her to falling asleep by herself when she was that age, but she needed me and I'm not going to ignore her needs because of societal norms and expectations. She still has nightmares and has never done well sleeping alone. We are working on it in our own time.
If that makes me a "bad mom" then I'm ok with it.
Very similar story with us and our autistic kiddo. We don’t do melatonin every day but especially in the summer or if she’s sick, if she needs it, we give her the low dose. She’s been what people would call a “bad sleeper” her whole life and it makes sense honestly because this is a known issue for neurodivergent people. My husband is the same, he’s a night owl with sleep issues and always has been.
Right, it's very common for ND folks.
Gotta love the judgement from all the non parents or parents with good sleepers, lol. We do all the things you are supposed to do for sleep hygiene but that is not necessarily going to be enough for autistic and ADHD kids. We have the blackout curtains, we don’t do screen time past the afternoon, we don’t allow caffeine ever, we have the sound machine. She just can’t fall asleep sometimes and it’s not beneficial to her to just let her struggle and be cranky until 11 pm.
No kidding right. Some things just aren't going to work because their brains are different and need different things. I have sleep issues too and lack of sleep can really exacerbate my ADHD symptoms.
Thank you for saying all this. My daughter’s situation sounds exactly like your child’s. My concern for giving my child 0.5 melatonin has be weighing on me heavily but I think that not sleeping would have just as bad ramifications on her and us. My parents and in-laws think we are too tough on our kids for making them take a short nap (usually 45 mins to a hour for her) in the afternoon and going to bed at a routine time every night but they don’t see what we see. My daughter gets wild and almost feral as she gets closer to bed time and your comment about not being able have self control made so much sense, I always just assumed she was trying to amp herself up so she wouldnt feel sleepy.
I'm glad it was helpful! For some reason adults tend to assume that children have abilities that they themselves don't have. I think it's a cultural thing. Idk. Adults wake up cranky sometimes, have difficulty with self control when they are tired, trouble with regulating their emotions when stressed, and are sometimes afraid or anxious for illogical reasons. So I try to remember that when my daughter is having a hard time with controlling her behavior or is being clingy or whatever.
The parental judgement in this thread is insane. I have a nightly routine we follow every night with my young kids. Snack -> brush teeth -> get bed ready -> read two stories -> tuck them into bed. They can stay up with a small soft light we got them for reading or doing something calm. If they have trouble after 1-2 hrs of trying to fall asleep, we give them 0.5 mg of melatonin.
We live very far up north, and the daylight during the spring/summer months lasts until 11pm. Even with full coverage shades it's hard to get the room dark.
I've looked into the science behind melatonin and long term use and kids, and it's relatively unknown at this point. I don't feel great about venturing into the unknown but it has to be weighed against the long-term adverse effects of sleep-deprivation in children, which is very well known.
The jugement on here is crazy. We rarely allow screens on weekdays and we have a routine, which includes melatonin. I would rather her take something to sleep than not sleep enough.
The less likely the parent has a night time routine…doesn’t that indicate that the parents might also be suffering from something themselves? I feel like people claiming that the kids are having the problem, but if the parent also is having issues with these things wouldn’t the child mirror that?
Like, the parents themselves don’t have a night time routine to wind down and sleep then why would the child be able to do that?
That's crazy, in the early 2000's Umich docs encouraged my parents to prescribe sleeping pills to my brother.
deeply troubled society
It seems to me people are not sleeping as well as prepandemic. Be it a kid, adult, or senior.
I'm so tired of the pandemic being an excuse for everything under the sun. Yes, it sucked, but it's been over for 3 years now. People are just ruminating on it at this point (obviously I don't expect individuals to be over their loved ones who died during it, I'm talking about the pandemic itself).
1.) who still considers this to abnormal compared to prepandemic levels. The CDC modified it's gauge range on what is acceptable.. health workers spoke that the cases would be consider the amount eye opening prepandemic that being said the cdc has been used as a political weapon for decades. The CDC is funded by the government and serves the government. The WHO is independent and gets it's funding from voluntary contributions.
2.) Long COVID is still an ongoing issue. No treatment, no cure, no science to mitigate its effects on patient besides being preventing COVID in the first place. There's a reason why a large percentage of the workforce is out and that is due to long COVID. Long COVID being a problem affecting people who had COVID long term without scope of severity and the many cannot function normally.
A lot of the problem with melatonin is that people don’t realize what it does. It doesn’t necessarily make you sleepy, it’s like setting your biological time clock to expect bed time to be at the time you take the melatonin. It’s only meant to be taken temporarily to help you fall asleep at a scheduled time
Can't too much melatonin (taking it consistently) mess up your brains ability to fall asleep without it permanently?
What's wrong with the world today that kids can't be innocent until double digits or puberty
Its very alarming how parents are resorting to giving their children medication for every problem. Wonder how much of a physiological impact this will have on them as they develop.
I’m a pediatrician. I don’t do clinic anymore, but in residency this was absolutely my anecdotal experience—and parents would often get hostile when I suggested removing electronics from the room. I had one attending who would refuse to do any interventions for sleep (including a melatonin prescription—yes I know it’s OTC but people want a prescription a lot of times) unless the parents were reasonably following sleep hygiene guidelines.
Anyway, not surprised but glad this has actually been studied.
My mom gave me a now-banned sleep aid as a baby, it was basically opium. She said I slept for 18 hours straight once and she thought I died lmao
Ahh we JUST started giving our daughter (5) melatonin after a sleep study, peds consult, and everything. Like just last night was her first dose.
I feel so awful. We have a strict bedtime routine and we stick to it, and it’s the same time every night and all that. We don’t do sugary food and never sugary drinks, they get physical exercise and all that, but this child will not sleep. At all. I’m talking she is up until 12am frequently, despite us waking her up at 7am. Nothing has helped in months and we finally broke down and tried it.
Idk how the fuck parents just give sleep aids out like that Willy nilly, idc if it’s natural or non habit forming. I feel so guilty, both for giving a sleep aid, and also for giving her insomnia because I didn’t sleep from ages 4-16 and have actual PTSD about it and sleep is a touchy thing for me.
I think it’s insane that parents stay in bed with kids until the kid falls asleep. You lay the kid down and let them get bored laying in bed alone!
Routine is so so important for kiddos.
Have your kid do some form of manual labor when they get home from school. It'll tire them out. They'll sleep well. 😁😂
I can’t comment on the other stuff but as humans we thrive on being close to people so I don’t think you can fault kids for wanting a cuddle with parents or siblings while they sleep.
Solution?
Stop watching TikTok and YouTube 2 hours before bed and you will have your problem solved.
Parents are SOFT when setting boundaries for bed time.
My children have anxiety, they have always had anxiety, even before they were allowed to watch YouTube videos or more than an hour a day of television. Some people, apparently a lot of people, just have anxiety. After years and years of an incredibly involved and lengthy bedtime routine and sleep training I gave up and let my youngest sleep with me. She sleeps easily and peacefully this way, but we are hoping she doesn’t need to do this much longer as she’s now almost adult sized.
They probably feed them ultraprocessed garbage too.
The 1/4 statistic doesn’t surprise me. I bet that more than 1/4 parents are shitty parents, abusive, or going through divorce. If anything I’m surprised it isn’t higher.
As an adult with no bed time routine, I can not image how out of whack it must make a child.