Easing Back Into Sleep BeforeSchool Starts
By Keili Mistovich, MD, MPH, FAAP, FABPS — Zest co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer
I have a high school student. Her favorite time to wake up is noon. I KNOW how painful the getting back into school routine can be for families. Nobody wants to think about the school schedule in the middle of August. Summer earned its slow mornings and its late, lazy bedtimes, and I am the last person who wants to rush the fireflies. But every year I watch the same thing unfold in my practice. The first week of school arrives, and kids who have been staying up late and sleeping in are suddenly asked to get up in the dark and hold it together until three o'clock — and their bodies have no idea what hit them. The good news is that this is one of the most preventable rough patches of the whole year.
Why Sleep Drifts in the First Place
A child's sleep timing is not a matter of willpower. It is run by an internal clock, set largely by light and by consistency. Over the summer, later sunsets, dark morning bedrooms, and a schedule that changes day to day all let that clock drift later and later. By August, many kids are genuinely wired to fall asleep late and wake late, and no amount of “just go to bed” fixes a clock that thinks it is still early evening. This is why the jarring first-week approach fails so often. We cannot demand that a body be tired on command. What we can do is gently move the clock back to where it needs to be, one small step at a time, so the earlier bedtime actually feels natural by the first day of school.
How to Shift the Clock Gently
The whole strategy comes down to small, consistent nudges. Start two to three weeks before school begins, and move in the direction you want the body to go without shocking it there.
Earlier by fifteen minutes. Move bedtime and wake time earlier by about fifteen minutes every two or three nights. Small shifts are the ones the body accepts without a fight. Big jumps just create a kid lying awake in the dark and a clock that hasn't budged.
Wake time is the anchor. If you only do one thing, do this. Getting up at the same time every morning sets the entire clock into place, even more than bedtime does. Consistent mornings pull everything else into line behind them.
Morning light does the heavy lifting. Open the curtains, eat breakfast by a window or even better outside, and do your best to get outside early. A morning walk, for example, even if just around the block, can do wonders! Morning sunlight is the strongest signal we have for telling the brain that the day has started, and it is what makes an earlier bedtime finally take hold that evening. The key to getting to sleep earlier in the evenings is to build up sleep pressure during the day. Starting the morning off early with some sunshine helps to jumpstart this process.
Dim the evenings. In the hour before bed, lower the lights and put the screens away. Bright light in the evening tells the brain to stay alert and hold off on melatonin secretion, which is exactly the opposite of what a tired child needs.
Keep the wind-down the same. A predictable routine, the same steps in the same order every night, teaches the body that sleep is coming. Bath, pajamas, teeth, books, lights out. The sameness is the point.
Reset That Nervous System
One of my favorite additions to a bedtime routine is legs up the wall. Sounds funny, yes. But like many things, sometimes its the simplest things that help the most! Have your child scoot their bottom close to a wall and rest their legs straight up against it, then read together in that position for a few minutes. It is a gentle inversion that helps the nervous system shift out of go-mode and into rest, and children genuinely like the way it feels. More than that, it turns the wind-down into something they look forward to instead of something you have to enforce.
What About Supplements and Teas?
Families ask me about this constantly, and we need to always be careful with choosing and using supplements. Remember kids are not small adults and their bodies do not respond the same to supplements as adult bodies do. The research on sleep supplements in children is much thinner than the shelves at the store would suggest. A warm cup of chamomile tea is a lovely and safe part of an evening routine, and much of its benefit comes from the ritual itself — the warmth, the slowing down, the signal that the day is ending. Magnesium and L-theanine are options I do reach for with certain kids in my practice, but the evidence in children is limited and the right form and dose depend on the child, so please don't start them on your own. Talk with us first. The same goes for melatonin. It is a hormone, not a candy, and it deserves a real conversation before it becomes a habit. Ask us before you reach for it.
The Foundation Is Rhythm
The foundation of good sleep is not something you can buy. It is steady wake times, morning light, a calm and predictable evening, and a little patience while the clock catches up. Start early, move gently, and expect a few bumpy nights along the way — they're normal. Try your best to commit to following these tips and you will very likely increase the chances that your child will walk into that first morning rested, regulated, and ready, instead of running on empty before the year has even begun.
