Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Ken John Payne. This is the second in our series on sleep for children. And in this session today, we'll be talking about how to strengthen rhythms and what rhythms have to do with sleep.
Now quite a lot of this is intuitive, to most parents. We know that having good, solid nighttime rhythm is a way to ensure that a child moves more smoothly into sleep. But we're going to dig a little bit deeper into that today.
When we're talking about rhythm in relationship to sleep, I often think of it as lots of all the little and lots of little rituals that we have as we build up towards sleep. For me, rituals are the stepping stones over the river, so to speak, into that transition from waking to sleeping. Rituals are the stepping stones across that river.
And all these little things that we do, we might not necessarily call them larger rhythms, but they are small little rituals. We all have them, right? They're little things like, this is the way we go into the bathroom. This is where the towels are.
This is where the toothbrush is. This is where, this is the holder the soap is kept in. This is where.
Now we spoke about that a little bit in our last podcast about the environment, but in terms of the relationship to rhythm, that this is where the, whatever it is, soap, towel, and in the bedroom itself, this is where things belong. That's also a part of rhythm because those things need to be rhythmically and routinely put back in those places so that when a child comes into that space, they can move right into this comforting ritual of what it is that preparing for bedtime is about, and what bedtime is, and then what sleep is. Sleep, as we'll discuss more later, is so dependent on the rituals and rhythms that precede it.
Now, forgive me, I know that's obvious to many of us, but it's really remarkable how often that slides in a family, and we just want to bundle the children off to bed. There is no bundling. There only is a walking on the stepping stones of ritual across the river to sleep.
No bundle involved there. Doesn't work. I think that's kind of a flawed concept, really.
So, in terms of when you stand back and look at what are the rituals and rhythms around your bedtime, have a good think about it. Have a think about what are the things that we're doing already that are very rhythmical. We just do it in the same way every night with very little deviation.
This is the way we do this. This is the way we run the bath. This is the way we put our lavender oil in the bath, or this is the way we brush our teeth.
This is where, and it's done in the same order, in the same way. This is the way we get, this is where we get dressed. Some parents, in the colder months, in the colder climates, might dress the child in the bathroom where it's cozy and warm.
Others may choose to not do that and have that in the bedroom. The clothes are laid out just so, so the pajamas and nighttime clothes are in the same place, right there on the chair, right there under the pillow, right there at the bottom of the bed, wherever it is, that's where they are and that's where they're laid out in the same way. The child then comes into the bedroom and then again there are the rhythms that and the little rituals that surround this.
It might be that the child hops up onto the bed. You sit in a chair beside the bed. By the way, I'm a big fan of that.
The bed needs to be the child's space and we sit beside it in a comfy chair. It really is a strong signal to a child that you're not going to lay down beside them every single night in what more or less can amount to a hostage-taking situation with them not allowing you to get off the bed. So bed is that cozy, sacred space for a and this is mommy or daddy's chair, big comfy chair or little chair, whatever you can fit in the room, right? But that's the space, that's your space at night.
So there is a spatial quality to the way this also goes in terms of rhythm of where you sit, of where they sit. And have a think about that part of the sleep, preparing for sleep ritual as well, because that is another key part of securing a child. When they lay down, do you light a candle? Do you have a little, do you have a prayer? In my family, as some of you have read the Simplicity Parenting book will know, we had a rose and thorn ceremony where we would have one thing that was beautiful from the day that we really enjoyed, one thing that was prickly that we didn't, one thing that might be hard about tomorrow and prickly, that's a thorn, and then a rose, something we're looking forward to.
We'll discuss that more actually in the next podcast when we talk about scheduling and how to decompress from the day. But that, but just suffice it to introduce that idea now that you might have a little rhythm or a little ritual that involves, you know, reviewing the day, previewing the next day. All these things bring the child to rest.
And because they're so familiar, it brings a feeling of security that bedtime and my bed is a safe base, not my mother's bed, my father's bed. If that, if particularly if you're wishing for the child to be sleeping in their own space, that's a, that for many parents is an important piece of the way they're raising the children. And if you happen to be doing that, as many parents do, then you want to be able to represent the bed as a safe space for the child.
And the way to do that is to have the rituals, these small rituals that build towards larger rhythms. It, it takes a child into a different space within a different place within their being, but it also shifts the brain chemistry as well. And it starts moving into a, into a slower breathing place within the physiology, heart rates drop.
All that can happen when there's predictability and rhythm. We could have the calmest room, you know, on the planet, you know, all kinds of things that are very simple and calm. But unless there's, unless there's the small stepping stones of ritual, which build to the larger rhythms, it's all for naught, really.
This is a key part to securing a child within that larger rhythm of all that surrounds, that surrounds our bedtimes. And if we can pull that off as best as we can, you know, within reason, there are, there are, there are nighttime, you know, there are bedtimes that have a little bit of flexibility, of course, but they're not, they don't wobble, you know, all over the place. They are fairly, fairly ritualistic.
That, that is, this is our time. We do this, we do this, we do this. The, the, the other aspect when we're, when we're thinking about rhythm is, is letting a child, letting a child know that if something interrupts their, their, their little rhythms, if something, you know, you go on a holiday someplace, or a festival comes up, a celebration, and it knocks them out of their nighttime normal rhythms and routines.
If you're, you know, going on vacation to, you know, your, your parents who are someplace else, and you take a long drive or even a flight there, try to replicate the rituals as much as possible wherever you go, because it's sleep that ultimately suffers a lot when you're moving about, when there's interruptions to normal rhythms. And then the children get, of course, get grumpy because they're getting less sleep. And then because you're away from home, there's a whole cycle that gets set up.
So as much as possible, many parents have found it very helpful indeed to be able to keep as, as close to the nighttime rhythms as possible. There are other rituals and rhythms that might get knocked out of shape, but the, the, the nighttime one, the sleep rhythm, the preparing for sleep, that's one that I would recommend you, you go to real lengths to not let go of that one. That's the one that will at least secure the child at, at that crucial time in, in the day.
And that's all the sort of larger picture of predictability and rhythm around sleep. Of course, rhythm and predictability and the rituals that surround the daytime, they're, they're in a way building these safe bases, these base camps, as a child moves through the day. So it isn't just the nighttime rhythm that's important.
Also the, the rhythm that happens around meal times is already starting to signal to a child bedtime is coming, but we can even back that up. And the rhythm that surrounds the coming home from school or kindergarten or daycare that prepares, all this is cumulative. Because these, these rhythms, as we'll discuss in the next podcast, are all a part of the decompression, but of the day.
So rhythms, predictability, and the little rituals you have that, that remain the same every single evening. They'll change a little bit, of course, as a child grows up, things shift and change for a phase, you know, and that might be for a year or two. That's a new set of rituals because now they're nine or 10 or 11, that's going to change.
The rhythms around a 14, 15 year old towards bedtime will also change. Now that may surprise you that I'm talking about, about bedtime rhythms for a 15 year old, but I'm not kidding. They also need to have rituals and rhythms around their bedtimes because sleep is super important for an adolescent.
And so with my two teenagers, we definitely had rhythms and the little rituals still going through. Now it's not involving me sitting beside them, reading them stories, but it's more a conversation about what are your rituals? What are you doing? Okay. So let's just get, and just being very open with a 15 year old that certain things done at certain times will make it much easier to sleep.
You're going to deeper sleep earlier and you'll wake up more refreshed, ready for school, ready for all the many things that you've got to deal with the next day. Just cut off times for homework. It just, there just really is a negotiated time for that with very few exceptions.
There can be, of course. And then if there are for older children, sports clubs, parties, whatever that are happening, of course that that's an exception. But the bedtime, the next day, the day after, the day after that, get back on track because you've got something, you've got a track, right? You've got something to get back to.
And in general, that's the beauty of rhythms wherever they exist in a family is that when you're knocked out of rhythm and that's, that happens, that's family life. We've got something to return to. So no matter what age the child is, there is an importance in the, in the rich, small rituals that build to the larger rhythms around preparing for sleep and sleep.
Okay, sure hope that was helpful. Bye-bye for now.
