9/5: Initial Probe into Bedtime Routines & Associated Issues

After an initial probe into strategies and tools for building a healthy bedtime routine, a few things stood out to me as opportunities for a “technology” solution to help in building, supporting and enabling participation in bedtime routines.

1. Consistency: children crave consistency in many areas of their lives, bedtime included. A consistent routine makes children feel safe and secure, and lets them know what behavior is appropriate. This includes things like setting regular bedtimes, coordinating between caregivers to ensure the bedtime routine is consistent among parents, keeping bedtime activities consistent, and making sure children fall asleep in the same place each night. How might we develop a tool to help caregivers ensure coordinated and consistent bedtime
2. Quiet time: an hour of quiet time before bed (which can include routine bedtime activities like teeth brushing) can help set the mood for going to bed. Making sure to give children that time can help them learn to be sleepy at a certain hour as well as provide the tools for them to begin guiding their own bedtime routine. When considering this pre-bed time, it’s important to ensure that children make it to the bedroom awake so that they can learn to fall asleep on their own, in the appropriate location. How might we design a tool to empower children to own their own quiet time and learn to guide themselves to sleep through a set of staged steps?
3. Bedroom Space: maintaining a comfortable bedroom space is important for ensuring positive bedtime behavior. Most superficially, a child’s bedroom must be kept at a comfortable temperature to facilitate easy sleep (70–75 degrees). The room should be kept dark at bedtime, and a night light can help for children who are afraid of the dark. Additionally, the bedroom should be calm and comfortable, and kept for enjoyable activities (for example, parents should avoid sending children to their room for punishment, ensuring the space has only positive associations). How might we design a tool to help make a child’s bedroom more pleasant, safe, secure? How might that technology control temperature and light to provide physical comfort as well as create positive associations with the space?

In addition to bedtime routines more generally, I also explored a few related issues we felt might be relevant to this problem space.

1. Bed-wetting: bedwetting is in fact incredibly common. Approximately 5 million kids in the US wet the bed. 15% still wet the bed by age 5 and 5% between 8–11. Wetting the bed is embarrassing and uncomfortable. Several tools and methods exist to help parents address bedwetting, from diet and fluid restriction, to fixed bedtime bathroom routines, to bed wetting alarms. Though they help, coordinating these tools and methods poses challenges for parents and kids alike. Restricting fluids around bedtime can make parents feel guilty. Done too restrictively it can leave kids dehydrated and uncomfortable. Remembering repeated bathroom trips is difficult, especially with multiple kids and the stress of getting a household to sleep. Bedwetting alarms might be uncomfortable, and don’t prevent bedwetting, just alert and wake the child when it happens. How might we design a tool to help parents safely restrict liquids without risk of dehydration? How might a tool help empower children to manage their bedtime bathroom routine on their own? How might a tool monitor a child’s bladder at night to prevent bedwetting incidents instead of simply alerting of them?
2. Morning routines: like bedtime routines, successful morning routines have a lot to do with consistency. Getting prepared the night before can also help both parents and children tackle the morning routine with ease. It’s also important to factor sleep into the equation. Making sure kids are getting enough sleep, so they wake up rested, is essential to a good morning routine. Parents should ideally wake up a few minutes before their children, and be ready to guide their morning routine. Morning routines can be more relaxed on the weekends, but not stray too far from weekday morning routines. How might we design a tool to help parents plan and coordinate morning routines? How might the tool help make sure kids are getting adequate sleep, and waking up rested and refreshed? How might a tool coordinate wakeup time between parents and kids, ensuring that parents are awake and alert in time for their children’s routine?