Precautions to Prevent Sleeplessness
Insomnia is sometimes very troublesome in young children, demanding most painstaking treatment. Most important in encouraging the habit of going to sleep immediately on being put to bed is regularity in the hour of bedtime. Unless the child is put into bed at a certain fixed hour with clock-like regularity, the habit of getting sleepy (which is such an important factor in going to sleep) cannot be normally developed.
Sometimes a subdued, shaded light will sooth a nervous child’s excited brain and so induce sleep. A child who wakes in terror in a pitchdark room may for years be nervous about going to bed in the dark. Any attempt to stamp out this tendency to nervousness by refusing a comforting glimmer of light in the room may bring on a habit of sleeplessness on first going to bed which may be difficult to eradicate. Sometimes a softly-ticking clock, by affording a sense of companionship, encourages the child to drop off to sleep.