With back to school right around the corner, it's the perfect time to start getting kids into a better weekday routine.
"If you don't get enough sleep, your brain will not work well. There are lots of studies backing this up, including studies looking at school start times where earliest school start times translate into less sleep and translate into worse academic performance, as well as other issues such as increased rates of anxiety, depression, suicide attempts, especially in the older students, as well as increased risk for obesity, diabetes," said Dr. Luis Ortiz, Sleep Medicine Physician at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital. "It's not just one thing. It's not just your mood. It's not just how well you do at school. It's about your entire life."
Dr. Ortiz said it's important to get off the screens before bed.
"You want to do things like reading or kind of like breathing exercises, relaxation strategies. Ideally, it should be something that the child likes to do. Maybe the child likes to read. Maybe the child likes to color or draw, something that the child will like. But it's also calming and relaxing."
Lack or trouble sleeping can also be a warning sign of something else going on with your child.
"If you're taking hours to fall asleep there [in the dark], there might be something going on. Could the child be anxious? Could there be other things going on in the room outside of the room in terms of noise stimulation? There's a lot of questions that need to be answered as to why the child's not sleeping, even though you're giving a great sleep routine," said Dr. Ortiz.