How a Sleep Chart Can Help Kids With A Bedtime Routine

We all know how important it is to get the correct amount of sleep each night, but sometimes our kids do not always understand. Knowing how much parents struggle with this issue was the main reason we created our Good Night Sleep Tight Chart.

Routines are key for children, particularly at bedtime. Here are some tips that we found on Web MD blog which we thought would help you  to create a much smoother bedtime plan for your child and stop those battles now!

• Make Sure Your Child's Bedtime Is Early Enough
• Keep Your Child's Bedtime Consistent
• Let Your Child Wind Down
• Establish a Routine for Your Child's Bedtime - check out our Good Night Sleep Tight Chart to help with you with a consistent routine.
• Offer Lots of Choices for Kid's Bedtime
• Take Charge and Set Limits
• Provide a Transitional Object
• Create a Comfortable Sleep Environment
• Teach Your Kids to Fall Asleep on Their Own
• Be Consistent

To view these bullet points in more detail click  here  to view the original post.

5 Steps to a Positive Bedtime Routine

The impact of poor sleep routines on children is a common topic of conversation.  

One of the most important tings a parent can do to help a child is to create a good bedtime routine - sleep is so important to the whole family . Without the adequate amount of sleep it has been shown that it affects a child's behavior, learning and concentration.It is therefore important, if you haven't already establish a bedtime routine for your toddler. When you follow a set routine every night, your child will quickly come to appreciate the consistency and predictability.

A typical bedtime routine will be something like this:

1. Change into pajamas
2. Bedtime drink
3. Using the bathroom and brushing  teeth
4. Bedtime story
5. Getting into bed

This is every night, no matter where you are - consistency is key.

If your child has difficulty in settling at night then it is a great idea to use a reward chart - we have our Good Night, Sleep Tight Reward Chart which enable children to receive stickers at night and in the morning when they have stayed in bed  all night. In 2013 our sleep chart was a National Parenting Publications Award (NAPPA)  Honors winner, recognized for its support to parents wanting to create a bedtime routine.

The chart is fun, simple to use and brings great results for both parent and child. It is designed as a simple reward chart system using fun colored stickers to acknowledge successfully completed steps. A free printable Good Night, Sleep Tight certificate complements the chart and is available to download from The Victoria Chart Company's Facebook page.

The Victoria Chart Company's President and Founder Victoria Ballard says "We are at the forefront of knowing what parents struggle with, the pressures of modern day life can be very disruptive to the simplest of routines. Our Good Night, Sleep Tight chart with its supportive information sheet provides families with the necessary tool to create the all-important, regular bedtime routine for their child". To save 15% use coupon code VCHART15 at checkout at www.victoriachartcompany.com or www.victoriachartcompany.co.uk for purchases in the USA and UK.

Helping children get healthy sleep

As moms, we all try to make sure our children get a healthy diet. But have you ever thought about whether your child is getting healthy sleep? Sleep is sleep, isn’t it?
The quality of children’s sleep can vary just as the quality of their diets do. Healthy sleep is as important as good nutrition and exercise for normal growth and development. Sleep also impacts daytime mood and functioning. If your child has poor grades or other difficulties in school, it’s possible that could be traced back to lack of sleep.

What makes sleep healthy?
Healthy sleep requires both enough sleep and good-quality sleep. Let’s look at quantity first. There are many reasons your child might not be getting enough sleep. They include childhood fears, sleep disorders such as restless legs syndrome, and environmental situations, such as noise or poor schedules that don’t provide for enough sleep. The recommended amount of sleep is different for each age:
- Newborns: 12-16 hours in total in short sleeping periods.
- Infants, toddlers and preschoolers: 11-14 hours, including naps.
- Kindergartners to 8th graders: 9-10 hours a night.
- 9-12th graders: 9.25 hours a night.
Some sleep disorders fragment a child’s sleep. That means the child appears to get enough sleep time, but the sleep is poor quality and won’t be restorative for the day ahead. These disorders include obstructive sleep apnea and periodic limb movement disorder.
How can you help your child sleep?
Try these steps:
1. Monitor the hours your child sleeps - not the hours in bed.
2. Provide a consistent, soothing bedtime routine, including a "wind down" time.
3. Have your child avoid stimulating activities before sleep such as video games, texting, TV, or aggressive exercise.
4. Caffeine is a stimulant. Limit soft drinks and chocolate in your child’s diet (and coffee, too, for teens).
5. Do not provide a TV or computer in your child’s room. If your teen has sleep issues, insist that the laptop, cell phone, iPad or other electronic devices be used somewhere besides the bedroom. I know that’s not a fun proposition, but your teen will feel better after sleeping well.
If that’s not enough
If your child is unable to sleep an adequate amount night after night, is regularly very groggy in the morning after sufficient sleep, or is difficult to wake up, it may be worth further investigation with your child’s health care provider or a sleep specialist.
Most children and teens with sleep disorders aren’t obviously sleepy during the day but may be hyperactive, inattentive, or have difficulty with focus or memory. Sleep-deprived kids may also show mood swings and aggression. You may discover that your child’s problem behavior can be changed with better sleep.
Dr. Jeannine Gingras is founder of Gingras Sleep Medicine in Charlotte and Concord. A nationally recognized expert in sleep disorders who practices sleep medicine exclusively, she is double board-certified in sleep medicine and is also board-certified in pediatrics and in neonatal-perinatal medicine. Gingras has more than 20 years of experience in children's sleep problems and has also evaluated hundreds of preterm and term infants for sleep apnea and SIDs monitoring. Learn more at jgingras@gingrassleepmedicine.com or gingrassleepmedicine.com.

To help create a soothing bedtime routine as suggested by Dr Gingras  try using our Good Night Sleep Tight Chart available from our website at www.VictoriaChartCompany.com.  It provides a step by step routine with tips and guidelines to help you give your child a healthy nights sleep and for you an evening to unwind.

A great article published in The Charlotte Observer by Dr. Jeannine Gingras founder of Gingras Sleep Medicine in Charlotte and Concord. A nationally recognized expert in sleep disorders who practices sleep medicine exclusively, she is double board-certified in sleep medicine and is also board-certified in pediatrics and in neonatal-perinatal medicine.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/02/27/3051072/helping-children-get-healthy-sleep.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/02/27/3051072/helping-children-get-healthy-sleep.html#storylink=cpy

Children Need a Daily Routine to Succeed at School

We all know how important a daily routine is for our family, but this new study sheds some very interesting information we wanted to share with you. We at The Victoria Chart Company know the importance of regular bedtimes, family meals together, daily routines and we support this ethos in our Children's Reward Charts. Our founder Victoria Ballard has been demonstrating the benefits of routine in her products for the last seven years in the UK and more recently in the USA. 

As Tim Ross, in reported in Children's Health in The Daily Telegraph, UK - Children who grow up without the daily routine of regular bedtimes and family meals achieve worse results at school, a report warns:

The study from the Prince's Trust, the Prince of Wales's youth charity, finds that almost four in 10 pupils who fail to achieve at least five C-grades in their GCSEs do not have a set bedtime.

Young people with lower school grades were also twice as likely as their more successful classmates not to have regular family meal times while growing up.

The annual Prince's Trust Youth Index also discloses growing despair among the jobless generation of young people who have left school or university and are struggling to find employment.

The report underlines the importance of a structured upbringing in children's success at school and confidence in adulthood. It finds that young people who claim to have "lacked structure and direction" while growing up were less confident than their peers.

Martina Milburn, the chief executive of the Prince's Trust, said: "The absence of structure and routine in a young life can have a devastating impact. Without the right support, directionless teenagers can become lost young adults – unconfident, underqualified and unemployed."

Teachers have complained that growing numbers of children turn up to lessons too tired to concentrate after spending the previous night watching television or playing computer games and child development experts have warned that the influence of screen-based technology on the brains of young children can harm their prospects for success at school. 

The Prince's Trust finds that a quarter of the 2,136 young people aged 16 to 25 in the survey claim they did not have a set bedtime while growing up.

This rose to 39 per cent among those who left school with fewer than five A*-C grades at GCSE. Young people with poorer grades were also more than twice as likely as their peers to say they did not have regular meal times.

The study also finds that unemployed young people are losing hope for the future, with 51 per cent saying they were confident of finding work, down from 54 per cent last year.

More than half the young people who were out of work and not in education or training claimed they "often" or "always" felt depressed, compared with 28 per cent of their peers who had jobs or were studying.

Ms Milburn said that the charity ran clubs in schools to give disaffected young people "intense, structured support" to prevent them dropping out of education or being excluded from class.

It also provided after school "one-to-one" sessions with mentors to help young people improve their self-esteem.


Reward Charts from The Victoria Chart Company available for children 1 to 12 years of age to help build their self-esteem enabling them to become confident and, most importantly, proud of their progress.

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