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Summer is coming to an end, which means you’re likely moving into a back-to-school schedule with your family and kiddos. Whether that means a return to daycare, preschool, or elementary school, there’s no denying the need to bring structure and routine back into everyday life.
Bedtimes almost always take a hit in those carefree Summer months when we’re more likely to be a little lax. (“Sure, why not let them stay up? We don’t have to be anywhere in the morning.”) Then comes Fall, and we’re faced with the challenge of reinstating the routines that keep our families surviving, thriving, and (hopefully) being awesome little sleepers.
Emily Oster, mom of two, economist, CEO of ParentData, and NYT bestselling author joined me for a conversation on the impact of back to school schedules on sleep. Emily uses her expertise in reviewing and analyzing data to help other parents navigate tricky topics. During our chat, I got to ask her what the data says about good sleep and how it affects school performance. You’re going to want to stick around and get the goods on what Emily shared!
>>Watch this blog on my Awesome Little Sleepers YouTube channel! 👇
What does the data say about routines like back to school and how does it impact kids?
“We have evidence that some structure of parenting that relies on routines or consistency works really well. Bedtime for example: we know that bedtime routines are almost the first thing people will tell you is a good component of having a consistent bedtime because of what we see in the data. Then we look at things like discipline, and we see that consistency is also the key there.
What makes for a happy, structured home for kids is a lot of routine and consistency.
If kids know what to expect, then those outside things, you can have them without it disrupting everything.”
The imagery I like to use for consistency and routine is to picture a rubber band. It can stretch out wide (variety), but it returns back to its original circle shape (consistency and routine). So you can bend and flex when life happens, but it ultimately stays true to its core. I love how the data supports this!
How long does it take to change up a routine?
“You know this from your work: I think we have a general sense from how we try to change sleep routines and how long it takes kids to adapt to a classroom routine that kids are quite fast. They learn good habits fast, they learn bad habits fast. We're not talking about setting up a routine and waiting three or six months to see the fruits of that routine; you're talking about setting up a routine and seeing benefits of that two days later a week later.”
What I took from that is that we need to start thinking about a week in advance what we want our days and nights to look like for school season. Getting out ahead of it a bit should give everyone time to get used to the new structure. And it helps your kids start implementing routines and knowing what to expect before they’re totally wiped out from school!
What do we know about how sleep affects school performance?
“My favorite is a study in which they had kids change their routine. For a week, {researchers} asked parents to keep them up just one hour later for four days. At the end of the week, you test them for cognitive performance, ask their parents how they were during the week and get some information from their teachers.
Just the four days of one hour later bedtime, the kids are doing worse on cognitive testing, and their parents say they're acting like jerks with worse behavior metrics in school. That's just an hour for a few days! That to me illustrates just how important a small amount of variation in sleep can be.”
I've also heard about longer-term studies where they tracked kids when they were three or four and when they're in kindergarten and first grade, and kids that are chronically overtired and not getting enough sleep typically do worse. It’s so interesting to learn so much data about the impact of sleep on cognition and mood!
What does any data show us about the effect of sleep deprivation on parents?
“Lack of sleep is an incredibly significant risk factor for depression. And you can see this In studies of sleep training. Many of the studies on sleep training are in fact focused on the outcomes of parental mental health.
What's so powerful I think about the evidence on sleep is that it is not something that we have to rely on, but we are able to experience these impacts ourselves so distinctly. So when someone tells you that not sleeping in a consistent manner makes you depressed, you’re like ‘Of course, yes, thank you, I know.’”
As parents, when we have kids who are not sleeping well, we can see it in their behavior – increased tantrums, being super-clingy, not being able to self-regulate. And at least for me, I get ONE night of bad sleep? My whole family's gonna feel that. It can have a profound effect on marriages, too, especially when both partners are sleep deprived. The effects of poor sleep show up in every aspect of life, so it makes a lot of sense that the data backs this up, too.
Does the data tell us how much sleep kids need each night?
“Something between nine and eleven hours… depends a little bit on the age, but for preschool early elementary, I think maybe looking at something like nine to eleven hours with a lot of variation depending.
Once kids are in school, nine and a half to ten hours could be okay depending on the kid. It's a lot of sleep. I think that's quite surprising for a lot of people. I think parents need to sit down with like, ‘Okay, my kid's gonna have to get up at 6:30am so I can get them to school and I want them to get 10 hours of sleep, so that's like asleep at 8:30pm, which means for sure you're in bed at eight, and starting to wind down at 7:15pm or something.”
What about screens close to bedtime?
“My kids watch screens. I spend a lot of time telling people like some screen time is fine. But screens close to bedtime – and by that I mean within an hour of bedtime – have been shown in studies to affect the quality of sleep. REM sleep is worse if there's screen time within an hour of bed. So I don't think we should have screens that close to bedtime.”
There was so much great information in my conversation with Emily. I’m a member of her ParentData community, which is wonderful, and I hope that you explore her website for the answers and guidance for the challenges you face as a parent on a wide variety of topics.
You can also connect with Emily and follow along with the work she does over on Instagram, @profemilyoster.
If you want to learn the REST Method, join me in my next Toddler Sleep Masterclass.
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