A nice warm bath or shower before bedtime is a delightful, relaxing, and healthful way of inducing sleep for children as well as adults. Children tend to get quite dirty during the day, and it is important to cleanse the body thoroughly before climbing into bed. Going to bed with unclean skin and hair is not only unhealthy and unsanitary, it is irritating and, therefore, liable to hinder sleep. Still, whether your child is dirty or not, an evening bath has many additional benefits.

A nightly bath soothes the body, cleanses the skin, invigorates the respiratory system, and relaxes the mind. To make the bath even more relaxing, try adding a few drops of lavender oil to the water. The rich aroma is said to induce deep, restful sleep. Adding a little baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to the water may soothe some irritated skin conditions. Traditionally, some Chinese parents add just a little ginger to the bathwater when the child has a mild upper respiratory infection or cold.

I always advise parents to avoid giving their children bubble baths. Bubble baths may have glamorous associations, thanks to Hollywood movies, and they are heavily marketed to children through television advertising, but they irritate and dry out the skin. Irritated skin means a poor night’s sleep. Bubble baths can even cause urinary tract infections.’ I suspect that many cases of bladder irritation and inflammation, as well as urinary tract irritation, are often misdiagnosed and treated as bacterial infections, when, in fact, they are just the symptoms of irritation caused by bubble baths and harsh soap.

These would be more easily and more appropriately treated by simply stopping the bubble baths rather than misusing antibiotics. I might add, for those American parents who have hear otherwise, that male circumcision does not prevent urinary tract infection in boys nor does female circumcision prevent urinary tract infections in girls, as has been espoused by primitive and misguided teachings. The prevention of urinary tract infections depends on proper nutrition and proper hygiene, part of which means avoiding bubble baths and exposure to harsh chemicals in soap or overly chlorinated pool water. Bathe your child in pure, clean, fresh water.

Some families enjoy climbing into the bathtub together as an enjoyable, playful, harmonious, and healthy family activity You can also increase your child’s enjoyment of the bath by adding toys, such as sailboats other floating toys. Naturally, we would not want our children to play the bathtub with battleships, military submarines, or war instruments any kind at bedtime, as we want to encourage a peaceful, gentle, and relaxed frame of mind.

Although the benefits of soaking the entire body in warm water a obvious, showers are an equally valuable alternative. One benefit of shower is that soapy waste water is immediately washed down the drain sparing your child from wallowing in dirty water. If your child is dirty but prefers a bath to a shower, do as the Japanese do: Get into an empty tub, rinse the body with warm water, soap up, scrub off the dirt, and rinse off completely. Then, fill the tub with warm water in which to soak.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Insomnia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.