Back to school: helping your child find a sleep rhythm again

Summer shifted everything: late bedtimes, lie-ins, naps whenever the day allowed. And then school looms, with its fixed-time wake-ups. To re-establish a rhythm, the watchword from authorities comes down to one simple idea: regular bedtimes and wake times. You go about it gently, a few days ahead, without rushing.

Why does my child's sleep go off track in summer?

Because all their markers of time have loosened. During the year, a child's body settles into stable hours. In summer, those hours fall away: dinner is later, bedtime comes after sunset, mornings are for sleeping in. Nothing serious, but when school starts again, the shift is paid for in hard mornings and evenings that drag on.

The key to setting it right is regularity. The French national health insurance (Assurance Maladie) is clear on this point: to give a child markers in time, you need “regular bedtimes and wake-up times, even on weekends”. It's these fixed hours, more than anything else, that help their body find its rhythm again before school starts.

How to re-establish regular hours without drama?

Above all, you don't change everything overnight. Bringing bedtime forward all at once is a guaranteed failure and an evening battle. Better to go in small steps, over several days. Here's a framework to adapt to your child:

1. Start a few days before school, not the night before.
2. Bring bedtime forward in small touches, ten to fifteen minutes each evening, until you reach the target time.
3. Bring the wake-up forward in parallel too: a regular morning rise helps anchor the evening bedtime.
4. Lean on light contrast: very bright by day, dim in the evening, as the Assurance Maladie advises.
5. Bring back the evening routine well before the day itself, so it's already well rehearsed by the time school starts.

The routine, in fact, is your best ally. The Assurance Maladie recommends: “Set up a little routine that marks bedtime and helps your child fall asleep: reading a story, having a cuddle, listening to soft music or a song, etc.” Repeated each evening, it tells the body that night is coming, even when the bustle of the new term throws everything off.

How many hours of sleep for my child at the start of term?

It depends on their age, and above all on them. The Assurance Maladie gives average markers: sleep time is around 13 hours per 24 hours around age 3 and 12 hours around age 6. But it immediately points out that “some children are light sleepers and others heavy sleepers”. These are guides, not targets to reach at all costs.

As for naps, the change is natural: according to the Assurance Maladie, the early-afternoon nap “is needed until the age of 2 to 5, depending on the child's way of life”. At the start of term, some little ones still need it, others don't. Watch your child rather than a chart: it's them who tell you what they need.

And screens, in this return to rhythm?

During the holidays, screens often made themselves at home. The return is a chance to bring the last hour of the day back to calm. On this point, the authorities are aligned: the Assurance Maladie suggests asking your child to “turn off their mobile phone, computer and television one to two hours before going to bed”, and reminds parents of the youngest: “no screens before the age of 3”.

The logic is simple: the last hour before bed is better kept dim and soothed. A screen wakes things up at the wrong moment, a story soothes. Replacing the evening tablet with a gentle routine means giving a child's body the right conditions to slip toward sleep, and to get back into the right rhythm faster.