Sleep

Research-based psychological programme that can help your child sleep like a baby again and be livelier and happier during the day. The programme gives you knowledge and advice on how to improve your child’s sleep.

Pling!

Your child opens their eyes after an hour’s light slumber. They look at the clock: 10.41pm, then turn around to continue sleeping but they’re suddenly not tired anymore…

00.15. For the fourth time your child is turning in the bed, shuffling the duvet around, sticking a foot out but failing to get comfortable. Suddenly all the thoughts come swarming.

00:32. What was that noise at the door?

00.57. “During break, Fred said that my shoes were ugly. The others don’t like me. Oh no! I have to present a chapter from the book in the English lesson tomorrow; they’re gonna laugh at me.”

06:30. “Time to get up”.

Your child gets up after a night with four hours of interrupted sleep. It’s going to be another day of feeling tired, sluggish and unfocused at school.

You probably know it from yourself because experts believe that 10-15% of all children and adults suffer from sleep problems that affect their everyday lives. So maybe you know what it’s like to drag your way through a working day with heavy eyelids and a brain running at half speed.

But sleep trouble affects your child even harder, because your child needs more sleep than you.

Fortunately, your child can work with their sleep problems. Few people are aware that you can significantly improve your night’s sleep by changing your habits and thought patterns.

In Myinnermes’ programme on sleep issues, you and your child can find research-based psychological knowledge and advice on how to improve your child’s sleep. You’ll learn more about what sleep problems are, and you’ll get practical exercises and strategies that make your child sleep like a baby again. Maybe you’ll even get better at sleeping yourself.

The programme may serve as a supplement to current treatment. It may also be for you who are on a waiting list for treatment for your child. Or for those who don’t want to see a psychologist but just want to work with their child’s sleep issues with the flexibility and confidentiality a digital solution, such as Myinnerme can offer.

There can be several reasons for your child’s sleep problems. The causes are typically divided into two categories:

Bodily reasons: Handler om dit barns fysiske behov og fornemmelser. Det kan være, at dit barn skal tisse, føler uro i benene eller har det for koldt eller for varmt. Mange børn og unge oplever at have svært ved at sove, fordi de bruger meget tid foran en skærm inden sovetid. Lyset fra skærmen snyder dit barns hjerne til at tro, at det er dag. Så glemmer kroppen at forberede sig på søvnen.

Psykiske årsager: Are about your child’s physical needs and sensations. It may be that your child needs to go for a pee, has restless legs or feels too cold or too hot.

Many children and young people experience having difficulty sleeping because they spend a lot of time in front of a screen before sleep time. The light from the screen tricks your child’s brain to thinking that it’s daytime. Then the body forgets to prepare for sleep.

Psychological reasons are about your child’s feelings and thoughts: Worries are the most common cause of sleep problems in both children and adults. Worrying thoughts can turn up when your child is about to sleep, and then they can be hard to let go of again.

For many people, sleeping time is the first time during the day when they can’t distract themselves from their feelings and thoughts. When you lie with your head on the pillow, all the emotions come swarming in and the mind starts racing. It can feel overwhelming.

Your child might have a hard time sleeping because he or she is scared or sad; It could be a fear of having nightmares or that there will be burglaries at night.
Your child might also be under pressure or going through a difficult time in their life: As a child or a young adult, you can get into many situations that are difficult and where you need to know some things about yourself and others.

In Myinnerme’s sleep programme, you will learn about how people with sleep problems typically think about their sleep – there are many misunderstandings and ideas about sleep.
Whether the cause of sleep problems is physical or mental, your child can learn different basic methods that they can make use of for the rest of their life.

We have taken everything we know about child psychology, teaching and digital communication to design an effective and flexible programme for you and your child. The goal is to create a nice and safe place where your child, with your support, learns to understand themselves and the causes of their sleep problems.

The programme uses psychoeducation, cognitive behavioural exercises and diary writing.

Through psychoeducation, your child learns what sleep problems are, how they can make them feel and why it’s like that. With cognitive behavioural exercises, which is one of the most widely used psychological treatment methods worldwide, your child is guided to develop strategies to improve their sleep. And through diary writing, your child gets in touch with their inner world and gets to work on their thoughts and feelings.

The programme is divided into 16 sessions based on psychological research results and several years of clinical experience from working with children and adolescents.

Through the programme you learn about issues such as:

• The various psychological and physiological triggers of sleep problems.
• The kind of thoughts that often rummage around the minds of people with sleep problems.
• The pattern of your own and your child’s sleep rhythms.
• What sleep and lack of sleep does to your child’s body.
• How the island metaphor can make you better at talking to your child and understanding their problems.
• The three most common thought traps that can disrupt your child’s sleep – and how your child can avoid them by chewing them over or changing the thought channel.
• How a daily worry time may be good for sleep at night.
• The idea box that can chase off the worry thoughts.
• The four questions for your child’s sleeping checklist.
• Setting the inner sleep watch.
• Your role in your child’s sleep ritual./li>
• Various relaxation exercises your child can do in bed.
• How you can help your child maintain the good results you achieve during the programme.

The programme runs in two parallel tracks. One for your child and one for you, so you can support your child in their healthy development.