Share your top child and adult sleep tips with BleepBleeps – £300 voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

[EmmaMumsnet]

Whether you have babies or tweens, getting a good night’s sleep isn’t always easy. In fact, bed-time can be a long and tiresome task. There’s getting your DCs to sleep in the first place – often taking hours – and then there’s waking up in the night and early mornings. BleepBleeps wants to know what your top tips are for making this process easier. Have you mastered a bed-time routine which means you and your DC both get a great night’s sleep?

Here’s what BleepBleeps has to say: “BleepBleeps has made, and is still creating, neat little gadgets which make parenting easier, including your night-time routine. We offer a range of devices which make it possible for you to keep an eye on your DCs from your smartphones so you have peace of mind whilst they’re sleeping.”

Do you have a bedtime strategy in place such as co-sleeping or controlled crying? Do you use devices like nightlights and baby monitors? Or other products that help your child fall asleep and/or keep them in bed till the morning?

Whatever your tips and tricks are, add your comments below and you’ll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard T&Cs apply

As soon as you are pregnant, buy a superking bed and never buy a house that can't fit one in!!

warm bath, bedtime story - same routine evry night

My first born never slept, or that's how it felt! He was almost 6 before I didn't have to get up in the night to him - sometimes, time and time again. It was terrible and I used to feel like such a failure when everyone I'd been through baby classes and groups with preached and boasted about their sleeping children. The only thing I can say is keep as calm as you can and be consistent - eventually you will get there!
My second born was the incredible sleeping baby who had to woken up for everything. All things balance out!

Dark room, essential, calming build up, lots of love and comfort, imaginary stories of wonderful things that get dreams on the right foot at the start! Made up stories, exhausted my daughter and helped her fall asleep and wake up happy to tell me the tale of her dreams! Oh and hungry cold or hot children dont' sleep..

Remember that while routine is important, the routine will change as they grow! Sounds obvious, but we can get stuck in our ways sending the children to bed at 6.30, because that's the time that's always worked, then suddenly they are finding it difficult to get to sleep so early.

We demarcate 7pm as "going to bed and reading until tired time". Or a bit of netflix at the weekend. Seems to work a treat!

We have a strict routine on school nights where DD has to be in bed by 8 but we allow more flexibility at weekends. My top tip is to not leave it until your DC are over tired before putting them to bed. A cranky and fraught child is no easy to put to bed and will fight sleep more than a child who is just starting to get sleepy.

a few drops of lavender oil on the pillow, a black out blind and the gro clock seem to work for us! : )

Knowing about the wide range of normal in baby/child sleep helped me. And time! Both my DCs sleep really quite well now (at 5 and 3), even if it took a while to get there.

Sleep is for wimps! The best tip someone told me for an adult trying to fall asleep is talking silently to yourself, describing everything you are thinking about. ie I am now thinking about... I am now thinking.... Try it, it really works :)

Dark, quiet, not too warm room. Read a few stories. No interruptions from the cat!
And allow a little talking but be firm when it goes on too long and they're not quieting down.

A set bed time is key. Make it a routine. Even if you don't feel sleepy you'll eventually get to sleep.

Keep your electronics away from bed so you have no distractions and don't keep electronics in your kids rooms. It just makes it harder for them to get to sleep!

Routine - wind down, bath, book and bed

For children absolute calm atmosphere before bed and for me I sleep much better if I'm well hydrated

I just read her a story before bed and make sure there are no night lights or anything distracting. Thankfully she doesn't get scared of the dark so as soon as the door is closed, she's asleep in 5 minutes!

A loving routine of bath drink bed story great big cuddle lights out nights out I t works

for both adults and children a good bedtime routine is important in order to prepare our body and mind for sleep/rest. not using anything with a screen in the 30 minutes lead up to bedtime as these items are stimulating.

We co sleep! With a breastfed 1yo who still wakes to feed multiple times each night and an energetic 4yo who needs my full wits about me in the morning, this is the only way we can cope. I can just plug baby in and go back to sleep!

A good tip for adults to get to sleep once baby is asleep..

I have always struggled with sleep, however, a trick I have learnt is to count backwards from 500. It clears my mind of everything else and I rarely get to 450. If you lose count, which does happen, you have to restart from the beginning.

We co sleep with our 8 month old. It makes breastfeeding at night much easier and is great for our bonding as daytime is just so busy with a toddler as well!

Mine are still tiny, but what works for us is a calm and clear bedtime routine where each task always follows in the same order. Responding quickly when they shout out in the night I think helps our two because it helps them feel safe and calm in their cots. We have a video baby monitor so that I can check on them without waking them up.

Lavender spray as part of the bedtime routine.

Routine and preparation. Have a bed time and make sure that you have everything ready befor hand so when it hits bed time all you need to do is tuck them in. I have yo make sure we stick to our routine as ds has as so if we dont it can get chaotic, but prettu much every night both dc are settled within minutes now.

Bedtime routines are essential and enjoying the time with them as well. If you rush the kids they know it and drag it out!

Blackout blinds!

I have 3 children & each has needed a different routine for bed. Ds1 is severely autistic & so sleep has been a constant issue. A recognisable bedtime routine helps him settle. Ds2 needed to co-sleep when little. Biggest problem now is surgically removing him from his computer at bed time. Ds3 needed to be in a room with someone but not co-sleeping. He had an amby hammock when little which had him bouncing himself back to sleep from 6 weeks. Fabulous thing.