End Your Child's Bedtime Battles with These 6 Steps

If you've ever cheerfully awakened after a good night's sleep—and hopefully you have!—then you know the power a restful night has to make you feel renewed and invigorated. But what if bedtime struggles with your child are preventing your family from getting that sweet (and essential) slumber? These six strategies can help end bedtime battles for good.

How much sleep does your child need?

In 2015, the National Sleep Foundation gathered a panel of 18 experts to update its sleep duration recommendations. They offered some guidelines for how many hours of sleep children and adults in different age groups generally need. For "healthy individuals with normal sleep," here's what they suggested:

• Newborns: 14-17 hours
• Infants: 12-15 hours
• Toddlers: 11-14 hours
• Preschoolers: 10-13 hours
• Elementary-school-aged: 9-11 hours
• Teenagers: 8-10 hours
• Young adults: 7-9 hours
• Older adults: 7-8 hours

We'd all like our family members to benefit from the right amount of healthy sleep. But busy parents know this isn't always easy to accomplish. Worse, suppose your sweet cherub hassles you each night about going to bed? In that case, hiding under the covers might seem more appealing than summoning the energy to take on a nightly battle.

Don't fall into the nightly bedtime woes. Instead, try these tips to help your entire family get peaceful rest more often.

1. Prepare a solid bedtime routine

One of my favorite parenting words (other than nap) is routine! Without question, my sanity and my family's overall well-being would not be as strong if not for creating structure in our busy lives. A solid bedtime routine helps your children wind down and also lays the foundation for a positive start the next morning. In 6 Steps to a Successful Bedtime Routine, I shared tips to help you craft a nightly ritual specific to your family's needs. 

• Start by deciding what time your child will hit the hay and work backward. If 9 p.m. is bedtime and prep takes 30 minutes, then make sure you kick off the bedtime routine at 9:30 p.m. every night.
• Less is more! A short routine works better than letting bedtime prep drag on.
• ...

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