These natural sleep remedies for kids will help children get the sleep they need. Vitamins, minerals and herbs that can improve sleep for your child.
Does your child struggle to fall asleep?
Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common issue today. Many families struggle with a sleepless child, which typically ends up with an entire sleepless family!
Nature Sleep Remedies: Why Sleep is So Important
Since children are growing so quickly, they typically need a ton of sleep. The National Sleep Foundation has these recommendations for the number of hours a child should be sleeping per night:
- Pre-school children: 11 to 13 hours
- Primary School children: 10 to 11 hours
- Teenagers: 8 to 10 hours
How does your child compare to those numbers?
Beyond just amount of hours slept, many families have a child who takes forever to relax and fall asleep, wake up in the middle of the night many times, or are too restless during sleep for deep sleep.
If your child chronically struggles to sleep, the effects can compound into full sleep deprivation. The effects of sleep deprivation can include:
- Irritability, mood changes
- Daytime drowsiness
- Behavioral issues: hyperactivity, aggression, inattentiveness
- Difficulties with organization, planning, judgment
- Difficulties with new learning & retention of learned skills (memory)
- Decreased safety awareness
And if your child already struggles with sensory or hyperactive issues, sleep deprivation can multiply all issues!
How do We Improve Sleep with All-Natural Solutions?
While medications can help, most families tend to want to use all-natural sleep aids first before resorting to medications that can cause dependencies.
When it comes to all-natural sleep aids, did you know there are some vitamins, minerals, and herbs that have been shown to help support relaxation and deep sleep in children? And a few of them, when combined actually have better effects than when alone?
Here is a list of some of the best vitamins, minerals, and herbs to supplement with to improve your child’s sleep.
These Natural Vitamins, Minerals, and Herbs Help Improve Sleep
MAGNESIUM:
A common mineral that many are deficient in. It has been shown to reduce hyperactivity in children. [1]
VITAMIN B6:
Works best when combined with magnesium. Has been shown to improve behavior in children. [2]
VITAMIN B12:
Vitamin B complexes have a positive effect on the nervous system AND plays an important role in cognitive development. [3,4]
ZINC:
Children in one study saw increases in performance for cognitive and motor skills when supplementing with zinc. On top of that, higher levels of zinc are associated with increased amounts and quality of sleep. [5,6]
L-THEANINE:
The calming agent from green tea, which has been shown to reduce physical and mental stress responses. [7]
LAVENDER LEAF POWDER:
Can induce relaxation and sedation while helping with nervousness and insomnia. [8]
CHAMOMILE EXTRACT:
Another herb that has been shown to help with relaxation, sedation, nervousness, and insomnia. [9]
Melatonin
While technically not a vitamin, mineral or herb, Melatonin is a hormone that regulates the body’s wake and sleep cycle. If someone struggles to sleep, sometimes it’s because the body isn’t producing melatonin properly.
Supplementation of melatonin has been shown in multiple studies to support better sleep in children. [10,11]
However, one of the main issues with melatonin is that taking it consistently can cause the body to not create it naturally on its own. While this can be fine for some children whose body’s struggle to make it naturally, for others melatonin should just be used sometimes to “reset” their sleep schedule.
Ok! That was a lot of information. But how do we actually supplement with all of these vitamins, minerals, and herbs?
This is where Harkla’s new Sleep Supplement for sensitive children comes in!
Introducing Harkla’s All-Natural Sleep Supplements for Sensitive Children
Harkla’s sleep supplements were developed with all of the information listed above in mind along with making it great for sensitive children.
If your child has sensitivities and struggles to sleep, Harkla’s sugar-free, GMO-free, Gluten-Free supplements are your all-natural solution.
As mentioned above, families should be able to choose whether or not to long term dose their child with melatonin, but oftentimes, they still need a supplement to take every night to support deep sleep.
That’s why Harkla created our Nighttime Relaxation Blend and a stand-alone Sleep with Melatonin.
With the nighttime blend, you get all of the benefits of Magnesium, Vitamin B6 & B12, Zinc, Chamomile, Lavender Leaf, and L-Theanine without melatonin. You can use the stand-alone Sleep with Melatonin to decide when and how much melatonin your child takes.
Harkla’s Early Test Families Saw Improved Sleep for Their Kids
The families that have been using Harkla’s sleep supplements over the last 6 months have seen great results.
All of them have seen:
- The time it took to fall asleep improved
- The amounts children woke up at night decreased
- Hours slept per night increased
- Mood & behavior the next day improved
Here’s what they’ve had to say:
The team at Harkla loves the work being done at Views from The Step Stool and has a special discount code for their readers:
Use “Step-Stool” when checking out to save 10%!
Want to Learn More about Harkla and our Sleep Supplements?
>> Harkla.co/Sleep-Supplements
As with every purchase from Harkla, you can always expect:
- Free one-week shipping
- Bend-over-backward customer service
- 1% of your sale donated to the University of Washington Autism Center
- Lifetime money-back guarantee. If your child’s sleep doesn’t improve, you don’t pay.
References
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9368236
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16846101
[3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03256827
[4] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0012244
[5] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13760-019-01181-9
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5713303/
[7] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301051106001451
[8] https://livertox.nlm.nih.gov/Lavender.htm
[9] https://livertox.nlm.nih.gov/Chamomile.htm
[10] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cap.2018.0020
[11] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-006-0116-z
This is a guest post written on behalf of Harkla. For the first 5 years of my parenting journey, my spirited child had a very difficult time calming his body enough to sleep, despite trying just about everything in the book.
We do currently use a very low dose of melatonin to help my son with his sleep issues, and when I say it has changed our lives for the better, I’m not exaggerating. He is getting the sleep that his body needs at night for him to be able to thrive. And, the bedtime battles that were emotionally draining for our entire family is much improved.
In addition to the sleep supplements, we use the Harkla weighted blanket and this mindfulness app to calm down before bed.
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