If bedtime is a battle — resistance, requests, difficulty switching off — it is rarely about behaviour. More often, your child’s nervous system is not ready. And that is a physiological problem, not a parenting one. Settling requires the body to move from a state of alertness to a state of safety. For children, that transition takes longer than most parents expect.
The Science
Adults can move from moderate activity to sleep in 20 to 30 minutes. Children need 45 to 90 minutes. The bath, the book, the quiet — that whole sequence is not the wind-down. It is the end of it. What happens in the 90 minutes before matters just as much.
The mechanism is hormonal. Emotional stress and overstimulation raise cortisol. Cortisol suppresses melatonin and keeps the body on alert. A child who goes to bed anxious, overtired, or carrying the residue of a difficult day is in a measurably different physiological state than one who does not.
Children are more vulnerable to this than adults because the part of the brain responsible for emotional regulation is still developing. The ability to reframe or talk yourself down is not available to a five-year-old. The emotional experience stays in the body.
Consistent pre-sleep rituals — same order, same cues, same scent — tell the nervous system what is coming. Research suggests three nights of consistent routine is often enough to see a real change in settling time. Ritual is not indulgence. It is neuroscience.
Bedtime is not the finish line. It is the last step in a process that started long before lights out. Give that process the time it needs.
