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An evidence-based, step-by-step information (with examples)

July 25, 2020
Homeschooling Blogs

© 2020 Gwen Dewar, all rights reserved

Fading before bed is a gentle "no cry" technique that allows you to align your child's internal clock with the desired bedtime. You start by asking your child to go to bed late - late enough that your child has a strong physiological urge to sleep. Then gradually adjust your child's schedule over several days until your child falls asleep at the earlier preferred time.

Studies suggest that this is an effective way to overcome a child's chronic resistance to bedtime. It is also
useful to prepare a child for a new, earlier schedule.

But who is a good candidate for this approach? What makes it different from other forms of sleep training? And what procedures should you follow to maximize success?

This Parent Science Guide provides answers - and detailed instructions.

Who should try this technique?

Fading before bed was used in toddlers and preschoolers. It has been used in children who develop normally and in children with developmental disorders. But it is not for every family.

To be successful, you need to spend some time learning the concepts, analyzing your child's current sleeping habits, and troubleshooting. You also need to be ready to make some important changes.

For example, you need to take steps to reprogram your child's daily rhythm.

You will too
You need to change any environmental or lifestyle factors that keep your child awake at night.

And you need to be prepared for some short-term difficulties like setbacks and daytime sleepiness.

However, if you're ready to make an effort, you'll likely see improvements. As I conclude at the end of this article, studies suggest that fading before bed is effective. Children adapt to earlier bed times and can fall asleep easier and faster.

Does bedtime fade into some form of sleep training? Does it have anything to do with "cry it out" techniques? Or the Ferber method? How is bedtime fading different?

Fading before bed can be seen as a form of sleep training, but it's a completely different approach.

First, it was specifically designed to improve bedtime compliance. It doesn't focus on solving other sleep problems like waking up frequently at night.

Second, it is not about leaving children alone to cry. If that happens, you're doing it wrong.

Third - and most importantly - the fading of bedtime is different because it addresses the physiological causes of resistance before bedtime.

"Cry it out" techniques and the Ferber method should only make children stay calm at night. They don't teach children how to fall asleep, and they don't do anything to ensure that a child gets physiologically sleepy before bed.

In contrast, the fading of bedtime is said to change the brain's internal clock. It gives children the biological tools they need to fall asleep immediately - without protest.

What are the key background concepts? What do parents need to know before starting the procedure?

The technique of fading before bed was developed by two professors
pediatrics, Cathleen Piazza and Wayne Fisher, and it's based on solid
Principles of sleep science and learning theory.

If you understand this background, the steps of the program will be carried out
If you have a sense, you can adapt the method to the respective method
Your child's needs. Here are the key concepts.

1. To fall asleep, people have to experience physiological sleepiness. If a child does not fall asleep immediately before going to bed, this is a sign that the child is not sleepy enough. Something is in the way.

What causes lack of sleepiness? As I explain elsewhere, children do not become sleepy for various reasons. Here are some of the most common culprits:

  • The child's circadian rhythms do not match the parents' preferred bedtime. The child's "internal clock" does not trigger this
    Chemistry of the right brain when bedtime is approaching so the child is physically unable
    fall asleep.
  • The child does not experience enough of what scientists do
    call it "sleep pressure", d. H. it has not been enough time since the child has slept the last time, so that it cannot feel sleepy yet.
  • The child is experiencing too much psychological stimulation
    before bedtime; e.g. B. too much television.
  • The child's daily experiences have trained them to relate bedtime
    to fall asleep with conflict, stalling and failure. When bedtime approaches, the child anticipates problems and this expectation blocks sleepiness.

This list is not exhaustive and it is likely that your child is
more than one of these problems.

No matter what else is going on, it's a good bet
that your child is affected by the last problem on the list - learned
negative associations before going to bed.

The fact that you
have tried
Forcing a certain bedtime - trying and failing - suggests that everyone
those
night fights have become a kind of night routine for you
Child. Your child has a habit of being sleepless before bed.

The crucial point, however, is that something actively prevents it
Your child does not feel sleepy and peaceful enough before going to bed. If you want your child to fall asleep easily and quickly, you need to remove these barriers.

2. Your child can achieve a breakthrough if you "restart" your current routine.

You need to get rid of these negative associations at bedtime
and replace them with positive ones. You need to help your child learn
This bedtime is a time of calm, security and power
Sleepiness.

Depending on your child's individual circumstances, this may mean
avoid a late afternoon nap; Avoiding potentially disturbing or exciting
Television programs before bed; or address your child's nightly fears.

But whatever you do, you should immediately stop trying to enforce your current official bedtime. Instead, you should replace it with a later bedtime - a bedtime that is too late for your child
will experience strong, physiological sleepiness.

This should make it easy for your child to fall asleep immediately and without delay tactics. And once your child has made these new positive sleep associations,
You are ready to enter the fading training phase - the phase in which you gradually shift your child's bedtime to your preferred earlier time.

3. After your child succeeds in the new, later bedtime, you can use circadian clues - and incremental night shifts - to adjust your child to the earlier bedtime you prefer.

If you've ever had jet lag, you know how it works. We
Do not immediately adjust to an earlier bedtime - not when the bedtime is
Essentially out of sync with our internal clock. But it's pretty easy
get there in small steps - d. H. by going to bed 15 minutes earlier
Night.

So this is the approach that parents use when fading in before bed
Combination with the provision of important environmental features for reprogramming children
their circadian rhythms.

The gradual pace is critical because you don't want to restore these negative sleep associations. If your child has trouble falling asleep immediately at any point on the way (within 15 minutes of announcing bedtime), your child is at risk of re-experiencing that bedtime is difficult, uncomfortable, or a reason to choke.

For this reason, Piazza and Fisher have regressed their programs. If a child has not got used to the last incremental change - d. H. If the child cannot fall asleep immediately after postponing bedtime for 15 minutes - do not continue to advance. Instead, you will immediately return to bedtime later.

1. Estimate your child's sleep needs and set a realistic goal for your child's bedtime and morning wake-up time.

Check the recommended sleep times for people around you for help
Age group of the child. Also consider how your child really is
leads and works. Some children need more sleep than their peers.
Others need less.

Example (toddler): Sophie is 18 months old. Most children their age take a total of 11 to 14 hours
Sleep every day, including naps. A couple of children live from only 9-10
Hours of total sleep. Some may take up to 15 hours.

Based
According to observation, Sophie's parents estimate that it takes about 14 hours
from sleep to feel happy, alert and healthy. Sophie takes a nap each time
Day, which is about two hours of sleep. So she has to sleep
about 12 hours at night.

Sophie's parents want her to wake up at 7 a.m. each morning, so they set their goal for 12 hours before bed - 7 p.m.

Example (preschooler):
Mario is 4 years old and doesn't take a nap anymore, so he has to hit everyone
His sleep needs at night. Experts recommend that children get Mario's age
approx. 10-13 hours total sleep time. You also acknowledge
that some children seem to do well if they fall outside of it for an hour
Offer.

After observing his behavior, Mario's parents appreciate it
that he needs about 10 hours of sleep. They want him to wake everyone up
Tomorrow at 6:30 a.m., so they find that his bedtime goal is ten hours
earlier - at 8:30 p.m.

2. Treat factors that may affect your child's ability to become sleepy at the desired bedtime.

Is your child napping late in the day? Does your child
Consume caffeine? Is your child exposed to bright light in the evening?
or too little bright light in the morning? This educational science
An article on bedtime issues can help you troubleshoot.

Example (toddler):
Sophie took a nap every day after 4 p.m. This reduces sleep
Pressure in the evening so that their parents postpone their afternoon nap
that it ends at 3pm.

Example (preschooler): Mario is in the
Habit of playing video games just before bed. The excitement
- and bright light emitted by his device - could be delayed
Sleepiness. So his parents implement a new rule: no video games during
the hour before bed.

3. Find out when your child is currently in the habit of falling asleep every night, and then
Choose a new bedtime that is 15 to 30 minutes later.

Example (toddler):
The ultimate goal for Sophie's parents is to go to bed at 7 p.m., but right now
She misses this goal: Sophie doesn't usually fall asleep every time
Night until 7.45 p.m. So Sophie's parents postpone bedtime to 8 p.m.

Example: Mario's parents want him to fall asleep at 8:30 p.m. every night. But currently Mario
doesn't fall asleep until about 10 p.m. every night. So Marios
The parents postpone his bedtime to 10.15 p.m.

4. Keep your child awake (with calm activities before bed)
until the newly defined bedtime arrives.

Why? Remember: So far, your child has linked bedtime
with conflict, vigilance or failure to fall asleep. You want to help yours
Child to learn a new association - one that combines bedtime with a simple one
Transition to sleep. If your child falls asleep beforehand
Bedtime, you missed this learning opportunity.

5. Observe how your child reacts to the new bedtime. How
How long does it take your child to fall asleep? And do the right thing
Adjustments.

If your child falls asleep within 15 minutes, stick to this new schedule for another night.

Example:
Bedtime is announced at 10:15 p.m. and Mario falls asleep within 3:00 p.m.
Protocol. The next evening, Mario's parents continue at 10:15 p.m.
Bedtime.

If
It takes your child more than 15 minutes to fall asleep
Adjustment: Make the bedtime later the following night (around 15 to 30)
Protocol).

Example: Bedtime
is announced at 10:15 p.m., but Mario stays awake until 10:40 p.m. So the
Next night, Mario's parents announce bedtime at 10:30 p.m.

5. As soon as your child has spent two consecutive nights
Imagine success with the same bedtime - falling asleep within 15 minutes
a slightly earlier bedtime.

Example: The bedtime is set at 10:15 p.m. and for two nights in
Mario immediately falls asleep in a row. The following night, Mario
The parents set the bedtime at 10 p.m.

6. Expose your child to critical factors during this process
circadian clues. Wake your child up at the same time each morning - waking up
Time you identified as your goal.

Piazza and Fisher recommend this, even if it doesn't give your child enough sleep for the day. Why?

You are trying to reprogram your child's daily rhythm - to move your child's "internal clock" to an earlier schedule. And exposing your child to morning light - at the same time every day - is one of the most powerful tools to achieve this. (Read more about it in my article here.)

If your child misses some sleep as a result, this can speed up your child's adjustment to the new schedule. Your child will build up more sleep pressure during the day and increase his sleepiness at night.

What if your child has a habit of waking up much later? What if your target wake-up time makes your child too sleepy to work?

In this case, I think you have to use your own judgment. It makes sense for me to avoid a wake-up time if your child would lose more than an hour of sleep as a result. You can reach your goal step by step.

Example: Mario is used to waking up at 8:30 a.m. - two hours later than his target wake-up time! This is a huge gap, so his parents decide to change the official process. Instead of waking him up at 6:30 a.m., they start training by waking him up at 7:15 a.m. every morning. Then, over a period of several days, they gradually shift Mario's wake-up time to 6:30 a.m.

7. Continue to fade bedtime and make adjustments from night to night until you reach your target bedtime.

How long will it take? It depends on many factors, including the gap you want to close. If you try to get your child to sleep 30 minutes earlier at night, it may take a few days to reach your goal. If you try to adjust more than an hour, the workout can take up to two weeks.

And what exactly do studies tell us? What is the evidence that fading before bed really works?

First, there is evidence from a study of tantrums before bed. The researchers randomly assigned 36 young children one of three experimental conditions:

  • a program of sleep training using the Ferber method;
  • a program that combines bedtime fading with the implementation of a comfortable bedtime routine (like taking a bath and then reading a story); and
  • a control condition.

After 6 weeks, children in the two treatment programs had fewer tantrums than children in the control group (Adams and Rickert 1989).

Then we have evidence of a slightly different type - studies that are not randomized and contain no control groups. Instead, researchers treat all participants equally and check whether the treatment is associated with changes.

These studies monitor children's sleeping habits before they fade before bed and then again after they complete the program. And the results are good.

For example, one of the largest of these studies tracked the progress of 21 preschoolers in
Australia. The children all had sleep problems - sleep disorders,
Problems with frequent night watch or a combination of both. What happened?

It is not clear that the fading of bedtime had an impact on nighttime awakening, but the researchers observed rapid improvements

  • the time it took children to fall asleep before bed;
  • the frequency of tantrums before bed; and
  • The total time that children spent awake at night after falling asleep.

Before treatment, the children had taken an average of 23 minutes to fall asleep before bed. Two weeks late, the average had dropped to 12 minutes.

For children who had tantrums before bed, parents reported an average decrease from 1.7 a week to 0.4 a week.

The total time spent awake at night (after starting sleep) also decreased from an average of 32 minutes to 24 minutes (Cooney et al. 2018).

Other, smaller studies have tested variants of bedtime fading and reported similar results. Children fall asleep faster before going to bed, get more sleep overall, and parents report a high level of satisfaction with the method (e.g. Piazza and Fisher 1991a; Piazza and Fisher 1991b; Piazza et al. 1999; Sanberg et al. 2018; Delamere ) et al. 2018).

Where can I learn more about moving my child's "internal clock"? And other ways to improve my child's sleeping habits?

Read my article "How to reset your child's internal clock to an earlier bedtime".

In addition, I recommend these articles in Parenting Science:

References: Fade bedtime

Adams LA and Rickert VI. 1989. Reduce tantrums: comparison
between positive bedtime routines and graded extinction. Pediatrics
84 (5): 756-7. 761.

Cooney MR, Short MA, Gradisar M. 2018. An open process from
Fading bedtime with sleep disorders in preschool children: a parent group
Educational approach. Sleep Med. 46: 98-106.

Delemere E, Dounavi K. 2018. Bedtime implemented by parents
Fading and positive routines for children with autism spectrum disorders. J Autism Dev Disord. 48 (4): 1002 - 100; 1019.

Piazza CC and Fisher W. 1991a. A faded bedtime with an answer
Cost protocol for the treatment of multiple sleep problems in children. J Appl Behav Anal. 24 (1): 129-24. 40.

Piazza CC, Fisher WW. 1991b. The bedtime fades in the treatment
of pediatric insomnia. J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 22 (1): 53-6.

Piazza CC, Fisher WW and Sherer M. 1997. Treatment of
multiple sleep problems in children with developmental disorders: faded
Bedtime with response costs compared to bedtime planning. Dev Med Child Neurol. 39 (6): 414-4. 8th.

Sanberg SA, Kuhn BR, Kennedy AE. 2018. Results of a behavioral intervention
for sleep disorders in children with autism spectrum disorder. J Autism Dev
Disarray. 48 (12): 4250-4. 4277.

Credit:

Title infographic from Parenting Science

Image of the girl under the covers of Liderina / istock

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