Analysis:
At this stage, most children need 10- 12 hours of sleep every day.
Sleep of children aged 3-5
For many parents, putting their children to bed every day is the most terrible thing. They often think that preschool children will not sleep unless they are very tired. If a child has a sister or brother to play with, it will be more difficult for him to fall asleep. If other family members haven't gone to bed after the child goes to bed, the child is bound to feel forgotten and afraid of "missing something". These feelings are understandable, and the flexibility of sleep time is harmless, but remember that most children need 10- 12 hours of sleep every day at this stage. Listening to stories is the best activity for children before going to bed. After the story is finished, you should say "good night" to him, don't let him make any excuses, and don't allow him to ask to stay with others before going to bed. He must get used to sleeping by himself. Don't let him make a scene before going to bed, and don't let him play games for a long time. The calmer and more enjoyable the activities before going to bed, the better and easier the child's sleep will be.
Most preschool children can sleep all night, but you need to check your child's sleep many times before going to sleep. However, there may be some days when very active dreams will wake up the children at night. These vivid dreams often express his views on some events during the day, which may be some impulsive, intense emotions or inner fears reappeared through terrible pictures or dreams.
When a child is 5 years old or older, he can better understand that these images are just dreams, but preschool children may still not be sure that dreams are not real. So, when he wakes up at night, he will feel scared and cry. Hold him, tell him it's just a dream, and get along with him until he is calm. You know, this is just a nightmare, not a serious problem. In order to further help children overcome the fear caused by nightmares, you can read him some stories about dreams and sleep. When you talk to him about these stories, he will understand better that everyone has dreams and there is no need to be afraid.
Sometimes, the child will lie in bed, screaming or flapping, his eyes wide open and full of fear, but he doesn't respond to you. In this case, he may be awake, or he may be having a nightmare. You may also personally see a phenomenon called "night terrors", a very mysterious sleep behavior for parents, but it is a common sleep behavior for preschool or primary school children-depression. Generally, children have no difficulty in falling asleep, but they may wake up for about an hour at night with their eyes open and full of fear. He may have hallucinations, pointing to objects in hallucinations, kicking and screaming, which is generally difficult to comfort. In this case, the only thing you can do is to pick up the child to avoid injury. And comforted him: "You are all right, Mom and Dad are here." 10-30 minutes later, he may recover and fall asleep again. The next morning, he didn't remember what happened.
Some children may have only one night panic attack, but some children may have multiple times. However, there is no typical attack frequency and duration. When fear attacks are very frequent at night, the hypnotic drugs prescribed by the doctor may have some effect, but the best way is to let the sleep fear disappear automatically. As children grow up, the fear of sleep will disappear automatically.
But there are still some cases where children are neither nightmares nor night terrors. He will wake up and shout for you. What should he do at this time? Let the child feel that everything is fine, put him down to sleep and then leave quietly. When he wakes up, don't give him food or let him talk in your room.