After a certain stage of fatigue, agitation and crying take over, and bedtime turns into a real obstacle course for parents.
It’s a problem parents know all too well. After a certain hour, even when they should be exhausted, children become unbearable. Agitated, overexcited, they transform into real electric batteries. Like the Gremlins who should not be fed after midnight, beware of parents who miss their children’s bedtime… at the risk of facing the famous evening crisis. A sort of second wind after fighting against sleep. And to avoid it, everything depends on the “sleep window”.
“We speak of a sleep onset window when the child begins to show signs of being ready to sleep, before becoming agitated or crying. When the sleep onset window is missed, the child’s arousal system is strongly reactivated: he or she may then become agitated, make small cries, cry, seem hyper curious, while in reality being very tired”explains Caroline Ferriol, educational psychologist specializing in sleep*. Here’s why it’s essential to know how to spot that moment when the child is ready to fall asleep, and how to make up for it once the moment has passed.
First, you need to know the signs that a baby or young child is ready to go to bed. This goes through “almost imperceptible blinks”but also “a look that becomes more floating, less attached to the environment”when he looks into space for example. We also generally notice “a decrease in tone”that is to say that the movements are slower and the child relaxes more or snuggles up more easily, as well as a “gradual disinterest in games or interactions”. And of course, yawning and rubbing your eyes or ears are also among the first signs of fatigue: “This is when it is relevant to offer sleep, before the child goes into a phase of hyperstimulation.” Once this window of falling asleep is missed, everything becomes more complicated… but there are some tips to “catch up on the situation” and help the child to “lower pressure” when he becomes too excited to sleep.
Caroline Ferriol recommends “reduce visual and auditory stimulation”with dim lighting and whispering for example, to create a more peaceful environment. But also “physically contain the child, if it suits him”. We can rock him, cuddle him in the dark, and “take deep breaths” by carrying him in his arms, when his age allows it. The whole thing is “rely on a simple and stable ritual, which serves as a benchmark”with “a few steps repeated, without adding any more”. The specialist also specifies that sometimes, when the child or baby is really too agitated, you have to agree to let him “unload” his excess energy or emotions. In other words, let him cry a little, “in the arms or in bed with the parent by their side, to evacuate excess cortisol and then allow them to more easily activate their parasympathetic system and fall asleep peacefully”. And for babies, Caroline Ferriol insists on the importance of “always double-check that he is not hungry, even if the last meal was only 30 minutes ago” For example.
Everything therefore depends on this crucial sleep window, which can vary from one child to another. Caroline Ferriol advises parents to “fine and individual observation of their child’s sleep signs, over a few days”to be able to understand them and then adapt them to the basic benchmarks on bedtime and sleep time recommended for each age.
* Caroline Ferriol is also the founder of the Fée Dodo collective, and the author of a collection of books on children’s sleep
