Children's sleep can be erratic during the summer holidays. Here are some tips for how to reset it before school starts. Photo / 123RF
If you’re preparing to send the kids back to school after the summer holidays, you’ll know it can be a struggle to get them back into their usual routine.
Weeks of late nights, sleeping in, holiday eating, travel and activities can throw off your sleep schedule - and theirs - and make it difficult to get through the first few weeks back at school.
Dr Karyn O’Keeffe, senior lecturer at Massey University’s Sleep/Wake Research Centre, says good sleep is the key to getting back into routine.
“Sleep is a really good foundation for being at our best ... so it’s really important that we look after it.
“Enjoying the summer break is also really important. It can give us a lot of wellbeing benefits, and we can definitely be a bit more flexible with our sleep over the summer break. But once we’re back into our normal routine, we also need to try to get our sleep back into a routine as well.”
During the holidays, our regular schedules are upended.
“When the times you go to bed and wake up change, it can lead to some little challenges getting enough or good quality sleep,” O’Keeffe says.
“Travelling can often mean that we get up earlier to beat the traffic, which means our sleep can be quite short on those days.”
The holidays can also add to our stress levels as we navigate busy schedules and family dramas.
“That can make it hard to get good sleep as well, so that’s just a perfect storm.”
Dr Michael Hlavac, respiratory and sleep physician and clinical director of Christchurch Hospital’s Integrated Respiratory Service, says sleep can be “erratic” during the holidays.
“You’ll have nights when you stay up quite late, you might have a variable sleep time, so your body clock kind of gets a bit lost and doesn’t know how to regulate your sleep.
“If you have lots of nights when you stay up late and lots of mornings when you sleep in, you come back and try to go to work, and your brain’s not wanting to fall asleep until midnight and doesn’t want you to wake up until 8am, which is quite hard to readjust.”
However, it’s not all bad. As O’Keeffe points out, the holidays can also come with some benefits for sleep.
“We often get a lot of sunshine over summer, and that bright light during our daytime hours is really helpful for getting good-quality sleep and supporting regular timing of sleep.
“We’re also, quite often, more active, so that physical activity is really good for sleep. It can help us fall asleep a little more easily, and sleep more soundly as well.”
Maintaining good sleep over holidays and long weekends can help us get back into a good routine for work and school - and it’s not too late to start.
“Having a good mindset towards sleep, or the way we think about sleep, can actually be really helpful,” O’Keeffe says.
“The way I normally talk about sleep is that it’s really important to value it. If we value it, we tend to prioritise it a bit more.”
That’s going to look a little bit different for everyone, as we all have different sleep needs.
“Not everyone’s sleep is the same, and our sleep also won’t be the same from night to night ... some people are natural morning people, some people are natural night owls.”
During breaks from your normal routine, try to sleep according to what you naturally need. Don’t worry about your alarm, and don’t force yourself to stay awake in the evening.
“Allow yourself to have that flexibility that your work routines or school routines don’t allow you to do.”
However, “sleep doesn’t need to be perfect”, O’Keeffe adds.
“There will be some days when there is a bit of a late night - that happens all year round. But if we trust that our brain and body have got those really good ways of helping our sleep, if we have a bad night or two, it will be okay and we can get back on track again fairly soon.”
Hlavac suggests that sticking to your normal bedtime and morning alarm during breaks can ease the transition back to work and school.
“Either try to keep a regular sleep-wake routine when you’re away, the same as when you’re at home and at work ... or for those few days before you return to work or school, you can try and gradually bring your sleep pattern back to a normal routine.”
O’Keeffe suggests setting a regular wake-up time to help you get back into routine.
“If we set a wake-up time and then we get into bed when we naturally start to feel sleepy in the evening, that can really help us to get back into a good routine.
“It does mean that we can’t push through the evening sleepiness to go to bed late ... we need to pay attention to how our bodies feel. If you go to bed too late, push through that sleepiness and have that alarm clock go off in the morning, then you might end up with short sleep. So, it’s just about being a bit mindful of those things as well.”
Hlavac says practising good sleep hygiene - that is, “habits and routines around sleep” - will help.
“Device use and being on social media have been shown, particularly in young people, to delay sleep onset and lead to a reduced total amount of sleep overall.
“If you’re on your device and you’re scrolling or watching content, it will take longer for you to fall asleep once you’ve turned your device off. Try to make that hour before lights out a period of quiet relaxation without stimulation, and that’s a much more sensible approach to take in the evening.”
Stimulants such as caffeine, tobacco and alcohol will also affect your sleep quality, so it’s best to avoid these in the evening.
Every child has different sleep needs, O’Keeffe says.
“You need your kids to go to sleep earlier than they were before, but they’re quite natural sleepers, so they just don’t feel sleepy. My advice there would be not to leave it too late to get them back into a routine.”
Go back to regular bedtimes and wake-up times in the lead-up to school returning, to get them used to it.
“That might mean that they struggle to go to sleep for the first couple of days, and then you wake them up and they’re grumpy getting out of bed at their wake-up time. So, sleep might be a bit shorter on those first couple of days.
“But after that, they’re going to start to feel sleepy earlier in the evening and, if you stick with a regular wake-up time, sleep often comes right.”
You can also take steps during the day to encourage good sleep later on, she says.
“Lots of bright light [and] physical activity can also help with a good routine.”
Bethany Reitsma is a lifestyle writer who has been with the NZ Herald since 2019. She specialises in all things health and wellbeing, and in telling Kiwis’ real-life stories.