There’s nothing more frustrating than knowing your child should be sleeping soundly in their bed but instead finding them full of energy, rushing around, jumping from here to there, doing anything and everything except actually sleeping. If only your child had a button you could press to switch to tired mode.

Well, in a way, they do!

How can we regulate sleepiness?

There are a couple of brain processes that regulate wakefulness and sleepiness. The first is quite simply how long someone has been awake. If your child is awake long enough, they will eventually become tired and fall asleep. This is why long late-afternoon naps are discouraged, as a child who naps late in the day won’t have been awake long enough to feel tired come bedtime.

The second regulating process, and the button we’re referring to, is the presence of light or darkness. Put simply, light stimulates and energises your child, while darkness relaxes them and brings on feelings of tiredness.

The importance of morning light

As much as we hated it as teenagers, there was a reason our parents would wake us up by throwing the curtains open or pulling up the blinds. Bright light sets off an array of functions in our bodies. From changes in temperature and blood pressure to the release of hormones, bright light literally provokes wakefulness in your child.

The importance of darkness at night

And as light tells your child’s body to wake up and go, darkness is the equivalent of a stop button. Darkness causes an increase in the release of the body’s sleep hormone, melatonin.

So, how do I apply this knowledge to my child’s sleep routine?

We can now go about using this knowledge to our advantage, making sure to fill our children’s bedrooms with natural light when it’s time to wake up and creating as dark an environment as possible when it comes to sleep.

The following four steps should help you create morning- and evening-friendly environments:

When bedtime draws close, go about dimming and turning off lights around the home to stimulate the release of melatonin.

If your little one finds comfort in a nightlight, choose a dim and cooler blue setting to mimic moonlight, not the sun-like warmer yellow and orange tones. Other than a nightlight or a soft lamp, try to keep your child’s bedroom as dark as possible.

Eliminate any incidental light in your child’s bedroom by using light-blocking curtains and blinds. Keep iPads and toys that light up out of your child’s room.

Use daylight to help your child prepare for the day. Open the curtains wide when you come in to wake them.

Noise and physical activity before bed can undermine your efforts with light and dark, obviously. Keep the noise down when your child is trying to sleep, and avoid any physical play or activity beforehand.

How important is light and darkness for my child’s sleep?

From Unii’s Toddler Sleep Journey, we ask how important darkness is for your child’s sleep.