How is Your Child’s Sleep Pattern?

Have you felt a change in your sleep pattern with the time change last weekend? Most likely you have and nature, too, has a way of telling us that we need more rest with the longer nights & short days of later fall and winter. Even if we don’t hibernate like a bear our body’s metabolism slows down, encouraging rest. So getting your children to bed early in the fall and winter keeps them from becoming run down and at risk of colds and the flu.

Most parents can trace their child’s illness to exhaustion with the many demands of school, after-school activities and social pressures. Children don’t have the resiliency to maintain their reserves in situations like this.

So it is very important to keep your child properly rested with younger children in bed by eight o’clock. In the summer time when the days are longer the sleep schedule can be more flexible. The best way to protect your child from a cold or flu is having sufficient rest. Of course going to bed late and sleeping late doesn’t provide the same benefits as going to bed early. As a mother you will know that a child without routine is a confused child.

Here is what Ayurveda explains about sleep and daily rhythms:

We have daily cycles of doshas ( body types of Vatta Pitta and Kapha) which happen twice a day. The first cycle begins when the sun rises:

5 a.m. to 10 a.m. – Kapha time (Earth)

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. – Pitta time (Fire)

2 p.m. to 6 p.m. – Vatta time (Air)

When the sun sets the second cycle begins:

6 p.m. to 10 p.m. – Kapha time

10 p.m. to 2 a.m. – Pitta time

2 a.m. to 6 a.m. – Vata time

Your child will have a sound, restful sleep when going to bed during Kapha time (6 p.m. to 10 p.m.), settling down with the slumbering bear. The hours between ten at night until two in the morning are the hours of metabolic cleansing and renewal in the body so sleeping at this time brings the most rest to the whole body. If your child goes to bed late this renewal is affected and your child will not receive the same benefits. And remember the longer you or your child lie in bed in the morning, the sleepier and duller you will feel.