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My Child Tosses and Turns at Night. Is There Anything I Can Do to Help Them Fall Asleep?

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The kids who are already ​in bed and desperate to fall asleep and can't, again, I'll look at their hygiene and make sure that's good and it's up against bedtime so that they are actually changing into clothes. I'll make sure they're not doing other things in their bed so that when they get in bed it's time to go to sleep.

If there's things like worries on their mind, then there's a couple of other strategies that we might do to help them let go of those worries. Whether that's a relaxation strategy or a write it down and save it for tomorrow strategy. It really depends on the individual, and we figure that out together. If it's they just...they're not really worried, they're just laying there and having a hard time going to sleep, then one of the things that we talk about is not having trouble falling asleep be a problem, become a new worry. Because sometimes people start to get really worried about, "Oh, no, I'm gonna be too tired, I'm not gonna get enough sleep." And then that doesn't help you fall asleep, that kind of keeps you awake.

Other activities that can help them is just some sort of meditation or focusing on their breathing. It really depends on the individual. When it's a sufficient amount of time, more than 30 minutes they're laying in bed and can't fall asleep, then we're gonna adjust their bedtime schedule up to when they're actually falling asleep. I should say I don't do any sleep intervention without a sleep diary, so that I can see when kids are actually falling asleep. And so we move the bedtime temporarily and then gradually adjust that, so that they're getting the total sleep time we want them to have.

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