Calgary Expert Sleep Consultants

Our expert sleep consultants work with you to develop a sleep plan, providing guidance, coaching and support to ensure everyone in your home gets the rest they deserve and need.

Our founder, Christine Young is a certified sleep consultant and has spent 15 years working with new parents and families. She has worked with children throughout her career.

Nothing ruins a good night's sleep quite like a series of nightmares.

For your little one, constant nightmares can keep them avoiding bedtime and making your evening routine a daily battle.

Are these nightmares something to be concerned about? Could they be something worse? How can I soothe my little one during these episodes?

When children experience nightmares or night terrors, they can disrupt your sleep routines and be alarming for parents. Healthy sleep is a science and understanding the difference between nightmares and night terrors can help you soothe your upset child to get them back on track and sleeping soundly.

Understanding Stages of Sleep

Sleep is complicated! You might think you fall asleep and thats it, but in reality there are five stages that your brain experiences during the night as you sleep. They can usually be divided as Non-REM sleep and REM sleep.

What is a nightmare?

Everyone gets nightmares, and some people experience them more frequently than others. A nightmare is a lingering thought that has caused the person to become frightened or anxious while they're awake and becomes processed again during periods of deep sleep. These thoughts can be experiences that have actually happened or just a thought that makes your child feel worried or scared. Usually, children can recall their nightmares pretty acurately with a fair amount of detail. Nightmares usually occur during REM sleep, and often happen in the second part of the night.

When adults experience a nightmare, we wake up and can acknowledge that it was only a bad dream and usually settle our minds. Kids however, have a difficult time separating nightmares from reality and the don't quite understand yet that dreams are just thoughts and can't cause them any real harm.

What are night terrors?

Night terrors are similar to nightmares in essence, but night terrors create a different type of response. Night terrors aren't exactly a bad dream, they're more a response of fear as your body transitions from one stage of sleep to another. This transition most commonly occurs when your children are transitioning from the deepest part of Non-REM sleep into the lightest stage of REM. Usually the transition is seamless, but sometimes it causes the person to be agitated or frightened where it can be identified as a night terror. The physical reaction of a night terror is scary for parents because it looks like their child is terrified, thrashing violently, screaming or sitting up with their eyes open. In reality, your child won't even remember having experienced this when they wake up the next day.

These happen more frequently when your kids are overtired, stressed, upset, or sleeping in a different environment.

After understanding more about the different sleep disruptions, you can better handle night time distress to soothe your child and promote better night's sleep.

Because stress is a trigger for both nightmares and night terrors, to minimize the chance of either you should utilize relaxation techniques and affirmations each night before bed. Relaxing with a warm bath and a calm story with gentle pictures can help relax the mind and provide a better foundation for sleep.

If bad dreams are reoccuring, try giving your kids a lavender scented lotion in an unmarked bottle to rub on their feet, face or belly and tell them it's good dream cream and will banish bad dreams. Parents can also give kids a spray bottle with water and a few drops of vanilla extract and let them cleanse their room of bad dreams every night before bed. They might sound silly, but sleep anxiety is very much a psychological obstacle.

Nightmares and night terrors are often a phase for children to outgrow and require a little more patience from parents. Contact us if you are looking to improve your sleep routines and the quality of your family's sleep through every phase and stage.

Sleep is a natural science.

Have you ever wondered why a rooster begins their day at dawn?

Circadian Rhythm is the idea that our bodies are scientifically programmed to wake with the sun rises and sleep when the sun sets. Although most of us don't wake up at sunrise, we are considered healthiest when our sleep patterns are closest to this natural rhythm. In an adult, this biological clock makes the us desire sleep the most between midnight and dawn. This biological trigger is established in the first few months and will create our individual sleep patterns that we will experience throughout our life.

This process is chemical! When exposed to darkness, our bodies begin producing more melatonin to encourage sleep and this chemical is decreased in the morning, causing us to wake up. Many people who are melatonin deficient or need an extra boost occasionally turn to melatonin supplements to encourage a more restful night's sleep.

Circadian Rhythm is instrumental in the process of quality sleep and important in the development of a child's sleep milestones. Quality sleep in children or adults is dependent on the proper amount of sleep, falling asleep at the right time, for the right consolidated period of time.

Circadian Rhythm and New Babies

When your baby is four months old or less, they are still struggling to develop their circadian rhythm and biological clock. Your melatonin levels aren't the only processes affected by circadian flow. Body temperature, blood pressure and hormone release all play an important role in quality sleep. If you're in the process of sleep training your baby, using, be consistent with your bedtime and create a dim and comforting environment to help your baby settle down.

Developing a sleep pattern won't happen overnight and it will require some patience and practice. It's important to progress your sleep routine at your baby's individual pace. Biologically, there's stages of development as your baby is creating a circadian rhythm. To identify where your baby is at this point requires a little bit of recording.

Are You Tired of Being Tired?

Rest easy, Sleep Made Right helps parents with children who have difficulty sleeping through the night find blissful slumber. Our qualified sleep consultants work with you to create a sleep plan that improves the quality of sleep for your whole family. Fully respective of your individual parenting style, we develop a custom plan for you and your child so that everyone wakes up well rested.

Want to learn more? Contact us today for a consultation so that you and your whole family can get the rest you need and deserve.

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