Tips on How to Make a Lovely Children’s Bedroom
Most likely you are here because your kid has been having trouble with sleep. You’ve had a hard time getting him/her back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night. It means interfering with your sleep too. But did you know that your kid’s environment could be the source of all the troubles? The bedroom should be calm, safe and always welcoming. They should not feel discomfort and isolated but rather happy that they are drifting to sleep. The Pediatrics journal carried out a study on how the bedroom influences children’s sleep. They concluded that the bedroom environment has a greater impact than the genes they possess. That implies that the sleep environment plays a key role in the sleeping behaviors of your kid.
That becomes great news for you as a parent as you can control over the sleeping environment of the child. It is important, however, to understand that there are hurdles to face when striving to create a healthy bedroom environment for that child. The neighborhood is also a key determinant of your kid’s sleep. Probably, your home’s location is beside a busy street, or there are dogs in the neighborhood that bark all night. That is beyond your control as a parent. But there is a solution to this challenge.
We can’t overemphasize the importance of quality sleep either for small kids or the adults. Sleep has a significant influence on the health of humans including children. Research links cancer and heart diseases to poor sleeping habits. Sleep plays a vital role in the health and wellbeing of the kids during the early stages of development.
Reasons Why Your Child Needs Enough Sleep
Sleep Promotes Growth in Young Ones: When sleeping, the growth hormone secretion is at its peak. Children should spend at least 50% of their time in deep sleep. Research proofs that children with a deficiency in growth hormones spend less time in deep sleep. For your child to grow normally, enough sleep is paramount.
Sleep Keeps the Heart Healthy: Sleep helps to protect the child from vascular damages. The damages arise from circulating stress hormones and the walls in the arteries. The level of glucose and cortisol remain high all night. Here are tweaks to your child’s bedroom to make it conducive for sleeping regardless of the location of your home. Other than leading to heart problems, it is also linked to diabetes and obesity.
Reduces Weight Problems: Sleep helps keep weight in check from the infancy stage. A child who faces problems with sleep tends to become overweight.
It Helps to Beat Germs
During sleep, children, as well as adults, produce protein hormones known as cytokines. The body uses this hormone in the fight against infections, diseases, and also stress. The hormone helps the body in resting and healing. Less sleep means fewer cytokines and more susceptibility to diseases.
There are other benefits associated with good sleep in children. Enough sleep helps to the learning ability of the child. Finally, it contributes to increasing the duration of attention, and reduction in the level of risk of injury.
Do you want to help your child sleep better, deal with illness or deal with weight problems? Then, we have few measures to help your kids have a sound sleep. The following tips will help you when designing a sleep-friendly bedroom for your child.
1. Natural Wood
The natural wood can absorb sound in a busy house. Keep laminate floors which resemble wood but produce a lot of noise. Vinyl planks are an alternative if you lack natural wood. They look much like the real wood. Avoid glass and metal as much as possible. Try your level best to eliminate any sharp corners in the room during the design stage.
2. Room-Darkening Shades
Maybe your child takes a long time before sleeping at night or taking a nap. Or he wakes up earlier than the rest in the morning. You need to check the lighting of the room. Too bright light in the room interferes with sleep and filtering is necessary. Room darkening shades come in handy. They are the solution to the problem as it acts as a soothing mechanism for the young ones. Darkness encourages the release of melatonin. Melatonin is the hormone that makes the child drowsy and ready to sleep. But ensure that there is a dim light in the room enough to see when you on check on him later in the night. A good blackout curtain to keep off the light from outside is necessary. It’s particularly so if your home is in a busy surrounding.
3. Red Lights
Dim and warm light do not keep the brain much active as is a bright light. Warm lights help to reduce the attentiveness in children and to keep them warm. The living room could also be emitting light to the bedroom. To prevent that, immediately the child retires to bed, switch off the overhead lights. In the living room, use lamps that do not have much light. Also, ensure that no electronics are producing tiny bright lights on them, be it cell phones, sound machines, etc. Get that TV, computer or even music system out of the child’s bedroom. Those kinds of electronics help them fight off sleep as they draw all the attention to them.
4. Color
Color has a lot of impacts the child’s mood and how her body functions. It causes distractions just like sound, light, and scent. Pediatricians’ advice to parents is to consider less exciting colors when designing the room. Colors popularly known to be over-stimulating are not ideal for using in the house. Blue, green, black, and purple lights are a safe bet. Avoid painting the walls and ceiling with red, orange, and white colors.
5. Regulate Temperature
Bedroom temperature is another aspect that is highly ranked when it comes to a good bedroom not only crucial for the kids but also the adults. When designing a house, ensure that there is enough ventilation to keep the levels of temperature in the bedroom steady. The primary challenge is hot temperature. Again, ensure that it is slightly lower temperature than the living rooms. To keep the temperatures constant, you may need to connect thermostats to both the heating air conditioning system.
6. Background Noise
This tip is essential for those who live in a noisy neighborhood. If you reside close to a busy street, industry or the neighbors have dogs that bark throughout the night; you have nothing to worry. White noise is also necessary for a circumstance where a house serves more than one kid. If one snore loudly and distracts the rest, then the technique is best suited to you. Ensure that the tone or volume is low, and sounds as natural as possible. A consistent background sound cancels out the distractions from other kids or from outside. Having the noise consistently playing ensures that they get used to the sound and help them train themselves to ignore the noise and sleep.
Smartphones nowadays come with apps that are designed for that purpose. The sound they produce helps induce sleep. If that is your greatest problem, then you don’t have to shift your home. The same trick applies when sleeping in a hotel room where there are footprints from other people walking outside.
7. Humidity
The level of humidity is necessary for the health of your kids. A dry winter season may cause dry skin, and encourages flu, cold and other disease viruses to survive. During the summer, there is high humidity and favors the growth of molds and bugs to thrive. Ensure that you keep the humidity level in check. A 50% humidity level is recommended. A humidifier can help increase the humidity level while a dehumidifier decreases it. Ensure that you maintain the humidity at the golden mean.
8. Comforts in Bed
Have you checked how comfortable your child’s bed is? You need to ensure that the mattress supports him well, and the pillow should be the right size. The young one should feel comfortable to use the sheets and the bedcover without you coercing them to cover themselves.
9. Safe and Child Proof Sleeping Cribs
If your kid is too young for example below the age of 1, ensure that the sleeping area is safe. Don’t use blankets, pillows or bumper pads. Make sure that the mattress fits in perfectly and the sheet is properly fixed to keep the infant safe. For older kids, since they are free to move all over in the room, just make sure there are no dangerous items in the room
10. Keep Away Any Toys
Although toys can help parents in keep infants from crying, they may also be a cause of unnecessary distractions in the crib. Keep them away as they delay the onset of sleep in children. In any case, you want the young one to concentrate on the sleep rather than objects.
By now, you have seen the importance of sufficient sleep for your child. As discussed, the sleeping pattern of your kid impacts the health of your kid. You now know how to design the sleeping room to ensure that the little one gets enough sleep in a conducive. Go ahead and take these measures: Regulate the light in that house to help to help bring the sleeping mood. Install white noise in case you live in a noisy area or you have a kid who snores loud. Paint your walls and ceiling with colors that bring a soothing mood to induce sleep. Keep an average humidity and temperature, ensure the bed is comfortable enough. Finally, keep away any toys that act as a source of distractions.
