Bad Behavior or Tired Tot?
The pre-mom version of me would declare that it was a bad kid. 100% of the time. And then I went to college to be an educator, worked 6 years in daycare centers ands preschools, 10 years in the public school system, and am now a parent to 4 children who range in age from 6 months to 8 years. Let’s just say I have definitely changed my mind.
I’d love to say it gets better as they get older, but tired is tired. Even as adults, we get grumpy, so why wouldn’t we expect our children, especially around the toddler age, to be able to function when their little bodies are exhausted?
I mostly taught middle school, so when those big kids were tired, it was usually from their own doing, or because of their heavy load of extracurricular activities. But what about youngsters?
People have thought I was joking before when I tell them what time our family eats dinner and usually gets in bed. Apparently its super early by some parents standards. But there is a lot that went into that decision. When I was working, I was teaching, so I would usually get home by 3:30 pm at the latest, this allowed me the time to get dinner ready, have the kids do their homework, pack lunches for the next day, and do a few chores before my husband was home from work. This meant that on the average day, we were sitting down at 5:15 pm for dinner, kids had a bath and were ready for bed by 7 pm, and usually in their rooms by 7:30, maybe 8 pm at the latest. I felt like this gave them a good nights rest, which let them be prepared to wake up around 6 am, get ready for school, and head off to daycare. Things have definitely changed now that I am a SAHM and not rushing to work or trying to cram all of my chores into my fast moving afternoons. But I still try to stick to a schedule and on most days we are eating by 5:30 pm and everyone is in their rooms by 8:30 at the latest.
I find that my kids have a completely different personality when they aren’t well rested, specifically my oldest son, who will be 7 in May. He is basically unrecognizable when he is overly tired. He will scream, throw fits, cry, shut down, and just completely check out from what’s going on, and there is absolutely nothing at all that helps, other than him falling asleep. So bed time is a priority around the Orgeron house.
I am not factoring in other outside influences that could disrupt your child’s sleep schedule or their quality of sleep. Bad days at school, illness, stress over a big test, late night at the ball field, or even an impromptu weekday outing. All of these things definitely throw a wrench in my kiddos routines. I try to avoid as much of that as possible, but life is life, and with four kids, I can never really predict what’s going to happen.
Something I had not heard of before is children dealing with different degrees of sleep apnea. My son, has the worst tonsils ever and constantly suffers from an ongoing case of strep throat. We go through a round of antibiotics and things are looking good for a few weeks and then before we know it, he starts complaining that his throat hurts again. While speaking with the ENT for a consultation on removing his tonsils, she shared with me that many kids with inflamed tonsils suffer from sleep apnea and this can cause behavior issues during the day because the child is never getting a full deep sleep. Y’all, this made so much sense to me and really aligned with my sons behavior.
I think the recommended hours of sleep for children and even adults will be a shocker to most of us. Hint: Kids and adults most likely need way more sleep than they are getting!
Also, check out this article for a little more information on the effects of not enough sleep.
—————-> https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/03/study-flags-later-risks-for-sleep-deprived-kids/
