{"id":37665,"date":"2018-01-15T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/?p=37665"},"modified":"2021-02-11T12:34:49","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T17:34:49","slug":"sleep-rules-for-kids-why-they-work-for-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/sleep-rules-for-kids-why-they-work-for-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleep Rules for Young Kids: How We Make Sleep a Priority"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello and happy Monday; I hope y’all had a nice weekend! We had a date night at 90Novanta<\/a> on Friday evening after a meeting our financial adviser. Hailey had a basketball game on Saturday, then we spent the evening with friends.<\/p>\n

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They recently moved and invited us over for dinner. It was so much fun seeing their new home, but also just taking time to hang out and chat, eat, and laugh while the kids ran amok. Plus, Mike makes a mean cocktail. I mean, I don’t even like gin, but this was tasty!<\/p>\n

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We stayed out late! The girls ended up climbing into their own beds at 11:00 PM, a mere 4 hours after their normal bedtimes. Needless to say, we paid for it Sunday, but sometimes those nights are worth it. While Kaitlyn bounded out of bed around 7:30 AM, only a few minutes past her normal, Hailey was out<\/em>. It seriously took me a few minutes of shaking her around 8:30 AM to rouse her in the slightest.<\/p>\n

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Girlfriend loves her sleep.<\/p>\n

That morning had me thinking about kids and sleep in general. I’ve always been fairly strict on the amount of sleep our girls get and for the most part I still am. Of course exceptions happen, and Saturday night was certainly worth it, but on the regular we are firm when it comes to how we handle sleep around here.<\/p>\n

In our house, for both girls (ages 6 and 3 1\/2), we have a 7:00 PM bedtime. Sometimes in the summer it edges closer to 7:30 PM. I really don’t know when we will change this. According to the National Sleep Foundation<\/a>, children need the following amount of sleep:<\/p>\n

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This chart rings true in our house, with Hailey needing more on the high end and Kaitlyn being a little closer to the lower end. However, if either one drops below their threshold for even one night, it’s obvious. They become more emotional, quicker to lose their cool, more whiny, and they struggle with getting quality rest the next night. I also see a quick drop in the strength of their immune systems if we go more than one night being short on sleep. Read how we keep their immune systems strong here<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

So to keep sleep a priority, here are our kid sleep rules:<\/p>\n