The Pandemic Has Messed With Kids’ Sleep. Here’s How to Get Them Back on Schedule.

After a spring semester in survival mode and an every-day-is-pajama-day summer, schools and parents are earnestly trying to restore some order this fall. But the challenges of returning to a school schedule, in whatever form that takes, may be compounded by some fundamental shifts in kids’ sleep routines.

The pandemic has significantly shifted kids’ sleep habits. One Chinese study found that during lockdown, children ages 4 through 6 went to bed and woke up almost an hour later on weekdays compared with a similar group in 2018. I’m too embarrassed to admit how much later bedtimes became in my household, but suffice to say it has resulted in the usual morning drama times 10, with my son fed, dressed, and in front of a camera only through force of sheer will.

“It’s difficult to overstate the importance of sleep when it comes to how kids feel, behave, and interact with others,” says Stephen P. Becker, PhD, pediatric psychologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Like adults, sleep-deprived kids have a hard time springing out of bed; they also get grumpy when asked to do something they don’t want to do, and they have a harder time paying attention. The impact is compounded for children because “their brains and bodies are rapidly changing,” says Becker, who recently published an editorial about sleep and the pandemic in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. “They also haven’t yet developed the coping strategies and emotional regulation that would allow them to hold themselves together when they’re tired.”

As a writer on Wirecutter’s sleep team, I’ve reported extensively on sleep strategies for adults, but when it comes to kids, advice is easier to dole out than to enforce. So for real-world and (hopefully) tantrum-preventing strategies, I talked to experts in both sleep and child development. Here’s what they recommend to shift a child’s circadian rhythm this semester and lay the groundwork for brighter days ahead.

Return to your ideal bedtime through manageable 15-minute shifts. If your kids have been going to bed later, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to revert to their pre-pandemic bedtime overnight. The hormone melatonin plays a crucial role in determining the sleep cycle. As levels rise in the evening, kids feel sleepy; as levels diminish, they feel more awake. This ebb and flow establishes itself over time, so abruptly shifting bedtime from 10 p.m. to 8 p.m., for example, will only leave them staring restlessly at the ceiling or sneaking video games under the covers.

“Rapid shifting in sleep schedules by more than an hour confuses the brain,” says Lisa Medalie, PsyD, behavioral sleep medicine specialist at the University of Chicago. But when you adjust gradually instead, and in smaller increments, your child will have an easier time adapting. “Sleep pressure [how sleepy you feel] and melatonin is not so precise that a 15-minute difference will be noticeable,” says Medalie. (This gradual technique can also help with shifting sleep and wake-up times once daylight saving time ends on November 1.)

Once you reach the desired bedtime, keep it up, even on weekends. “This helps keep your child’s biological clock on the same schedule,” says John O’Neill, PhD, a specialist in biological timekeeping at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. To foster quality sleep, keep the room relatively dark, comfortably cool, and quiet. (Blackout curtains or white noise machines can help.) We cover more strategies in our post “Why Your Kids Can’t Sleep, and How to Help.”

Work exercise into the schedule. ��Kids need to move during the day,” says Megan Goslin, PhD, clinical psychologist and associate research scientist at the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center. That’s a point often lost this summer, with many camps getting canceled, and potentially again this fall, with long hours of remote learning, socially distanced classrooms, and Zoom play dates. Taking an active break, such as playing tag, kicking a soccer ball, or running a lap around the yard, after school can help kids focus better and, at night, fall asleep faster, too.

Aim to finish dinner at least two hours before bedtime. A light snack is fine. But meals, especially when large and heavy, power up the digestive system when it should instead be powering down to enter rest mode. “If your body is busy trying to digest food, it interferes with sleep quality,” says Medalie. “Think about that tummy discomfort-bloating-and-need-to-go-to-the-bathroom feeling that happens. This kicks you out of deeper sleep stages and disrupts sleep.” What’s more, as rodent research published in the journal Cell suggests, the hormone insulin (which the pancreas secretes into the bloodstream when you eat) helps to keep the biological clock closely aligned with day and night, too. To nudge your child toward sleep earlier, bump up dinner time (and avoid bright light around bedtime), says O’Neill, a co-author of the study.

If you can, eat together as a family. This gives kids the time and space to talk about their day. It’s also a good opportunity to ask them for their insights on how you can help them get to school or bed more smoothly. “Treat them like sages. Figure out together how to make the new schedule work for them,” says Wendy Mogel, PhD, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles and author of Voice Lessons for Parents. When they help make the rules, they’re more likely to stick to them.

Start the bedtime transition early. This step is especially important if your kids use screens in the evening hours. Tablets, laptops, and phones emit blue light, which suppresses melatonin, so be sure to end kids’ screen time (and any other non-sleep-promoting activity) at least an hour before bed, and possibly earlier if you anticipate a struggle. “Anger and frustration related to conflict can trigger elevated heart rate and blood pressure,” says Medalie, who is also the creator of the DrLullaby app. “For effective sleep transition, we need the arousal system slowed, not accelerated.”

Let your kids take the lead on what helps them relax into bedtime, says Barbara Fiese, PhD, professor emerita of human development and family studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “If it doesn’t fit with the children’s personality or mood, they might resist and it doesn’t provide the benefit of the routine.” Ask kids what they find soothing and comforting—maybe reading, listening to music, crafts, board games, or taking a bath or shower. Let them spend the hour before bed doing that.

Come morning, cut out the snooze. My 10-year-old has always enjoyed lounging in bed until I blow a gasket. And teens are biologically driven to sleep in. But “snoozing only trains the brain to push snooze when the alarm sounds, instead of rising from the bed,” says Medalie. She suggests “alarm training” instead: Pick a time during the day to set the alarm to go off in two minutes, and then ask your kids to close their eyes and pretend to go to sleep. When the alarm sounds, have them immediately jump out of bed and walk to the bathroom. Do this twice a day for one to two weeks, and kids (and adults, too) will have an easier time actually getting up with the alarm, says Medalie. Some kids may benefit from using a sunrise alarm clock, which gradually brightens to imitate the stimulating effects of sunlight.

Raise the shades immediately, and give your child a healthy meal soon afterward. The combination of seeing light immediately in the morning and having an early breakfast helps make earlier wake times stick, says O’Neill.

If you are your child’s alarm clock or backup alarm, wake them up gently. “If they say they’re tired, validate them,” says Goslin. But instead of drawing out the discussion in the morning, set up a time (perhaps over dinner) to explore why they may be having trouble sleeping and to find solutions.