A parenting expert said not having set bedtimes for your kids is the trick to avoiding bedtime battles. Kirsty Ketley, 42, was a nanny for 25 years and had to follow strict routines handed down by parents - such as the '7 until 7' routine. But when daughter Ella, now nine, was born two months prematurely in 2013, Kirsty realised sticking to the same sleep pattern everyday was nearly impossible.
She was "just getting more and more frustrated with it all". Along with husband Stuart, 41, Kirsty decided to “be more child led while keeping some structure" - which involves letting your children decide, or indicate, when they are ready for bed. She has no set bedtime for Ella, and Leo, now six, instead reacting to how tired the kids are - or how busy they've been - when it comes to bedtime.
But she said the secret is to always maintain the same pre-bed routine - in her case, no screens for the last 30 minutes, reading a book and dimming the lights. Kirsty has now set up her own sleep consultancy business to help frazzled parents, advocating for an intuitive approach, which takes children’s feelings into account, rather than a rigid routine. The mum-of-two said: “I do see the merit and routine for children, because it does obviously help them thrive, and bedtime routines are good, but I think parents can focus too much on a set time that the children have to be asleep.
“When my daughter was born prematurely my view of how parenting was going to be totally changed. Although she was a good sleeper, sometimes she wasn't ready to sleep at seven o'clock and it didn't matter how much I tried to do a routine.
“It does cause more stress and I was just getting more and more frustrated with it all. So I just tried to be a bit more child led while still keeping some structure. I was a nanny for many many years and had various parenting books given to me to follow over the years for parents who wanted certain routines for their children, for example the seven till seven, sleeping routine.
“That might be fine for them but often the children would get stressed around bedtime.”
With her own children, Kirsty keeps a bedtime routine to help them relax, but also changes the hour they turn the lights out depending on their energy levels and activities on that day. “We always do the bath and bedtime routine, but sometimes it might be half past five because, when they were babies for example, they hadn’t napped so much during the day or now because we've had a really busy physical day they might go to bed earlier," she said.
“Or sometimes when Ella was little we might start have started bath time at seven o'clock and she went down probably about eight o'clock. So it was just following her cues really but maintaining a little bit of routine so it wasn't completely child-led.
“It just caused a lot less stress for us all, so we decided to do the same with my son as well. He's now nearly six and still now he very much sometimes needs to go to bed at seven o'clock. Sometimes it's eight o'clock. It just depends on what kind of days we’ve had and what we've been doing,
“You can't be too strict on a certain time. But the lead up to bedtime I think needs to be the same. As part of the children’s bedtime routine, Kirsty has introduced some mindfulness techniques and reduced screen time to help them relax before bed.
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When the children were little they would have a baby massage as well as story time, and now she makes sure to avoid television time for 45 minutes to an hour before bed. “It’s important to keep the same routine for children because it helps promote sleep so it helps them relax and get into good sleep habits early and sleep better," she said.
“There has been research to show that watching television right to the last minute before bed isn't necessarily going to promote good sleep. We all know that as adults if we’re scrolling on our phones before bed it can impact our sleep and it’s the same with children.
“Creating 45 minutes to an hour before bedtime is usually what I would recommend for screens off, but of course sometimes that doesn't always happen in our house. At least aim for half an hour to read books, with the lights dimmed slightly for a calm atmosphere.
“I find then they want to come down and they tend to settle to sleep better. Kirsty said Ella and Leo have always been good sleepers, but like all children they have gone through night time wakings due to teething or illness. However, she believes it is easier to adapt to these disruptions with a child-led sleep schedule.
“The first two years of any child's life are always the worst for most parents. There's always an illness so you think you've just cracked it and then they've got something else. So that obviously impacts their sleep. She said: “That's why not having a set bedtime is quite useful because I find it easier to get into a routine of self settling.
“Particularly older children can learn their own techniques for self-soothing in the night if they can’t sleep. My daughter has a smart speaker in her bedroom and she knows there's mindfulness practises on Alexa she uses to relax.
“She likes playing classical FM to relax actually!”
“Or if my daughter is struggling to switch off and go to sleep she knows to put on the reading light and sit and do some reading for half an hour and then try and sleep again. Of course, there are some nights where it's half 10 and we've gone to bed and she's still not asleep.
“So self-settling is about just teaching her how to manage that with mindfulness techniques and things just to help her relax to get to sleep.”
Kirsty also said it is important to treat each child as an individual with different sleeping patterns. "My daughter used to be quite an early riser and this is partly why we realised we didn't need to be too strict on a planned bedtime as well," she said.
"We realised that she actually survived really well just on 10 hours sleep. Of course all the books and things would always tell you your child needs you know 12 hours sleep. But even now she can go to bed around nine o'clock and sleeps for 10 hours, and she thrives really well on that.
“However, my son is more of a 12 hour sleeper and we figured that out when he was younger that he needed more sleep.
“It's just very individual; they both had the same upbringing, I've done the same things, but both of them are very different in how they sleep.”
As well as following children’s natural preferences for longer or shorter sleeping habits, Kirsty said it is also normal for bedtimes to vary with the seasons.
She said: “In summer I think bedtimes quite often shift later because it's darker later. We've had blackout blinds, but sometimes we're just outside all evening as well and you kind of lose track of time a bit.
“Over the school holidays, I'm definitely a bit more relaxed, but my daughter will still get tired by nine o'clock you know, and she will tell us she is feeling tired.
“We just discuss it with them in a way where they feel like they’re in control, but which is still responsible. For example, if you asked your child if they want to stay up until 10 o'clock then of course she'll want to say yes, so we have discussions where you offer controlled choices so they know what the impact is going to be if they go to bed too late.
“I’ll say to them tomorrow we've got X, Y or Z planned, so we need to have a good night's sleep and you want to have lots of energy for that.
“But we don't say you must have an early night tonight if there is something happening and they’re not ready to go to sleep because it doesn’t matter how early you put them to bed, they're not necessarily going to fall asleep.
“Doing some calming activities from as early as half five can be just as beneficial as trying to put them into bed and trying to make them go to sleep.”
Kirsty’s top tips for developing a relaxing sleep routine:
Try not to fixate on exact timings but do maintain a clear routine
Read stories with your children
Turn screens off an hour before bed
Play relaxing music before bed such as children’s lullabies
Teach your child mindfulness breathing techniques to help them self-settle
Go through the alphabet, thinking of four girls’ names and four boys’ names for each letter - usually Kirsty’s children are asleep by 'G'.
Make sure rooms are not too hot or cold
Include a warm bath or shower in the night-time routine
Use dimmer lighting in the room before bed
