Could a weighted blanket help kids with night horrors, pre-sleep fears and staying asleep?

There is a plethora of information and advice on pre-sleep rituals for anxious kids and their equally anxious parents. Generally, it consists of a regimented routine that builds a sense of security for children as they prepare frazzled bodies and minds for sleep.  These have been highly effective for some children but others revert straight back, like a rubber band, to the persistent fears that hound them. 

Among the numerous sleep therapies, (we have even tried animal therapy where we pile a bunch of animals onto the bed - our family joke), is a weighted blanket, which sandwiches a child between the mattress and the blanket.

These medically approved, weighted blankets are filled with plastic poly pellets or metal beads that are distributed into little compartments. The weight of the blanket tucked around the child creates an environment similar to baby swaddling. Essentially the child is cocooned in gentle pressure; something akin to deep touch therapy. 

The sensory system, which includes half a dozen types of touch sensations and proproception (the way the body is positioned), can become non-reactive and settled. This in-turn, calms the sympathetic nervous system and the child's brain releases a chemical called serotonin; generally referred to as 'the calming chemical'.

So the weighted blanket has become a popular complementary treatment for  sensory-integration issues including ADHD, PTSD, Parkinson’s disease, bipolar, neurological problems, cerebral palsy, autism, and other anxiety related disturbances.

Scientific research conducted on weighted sleep blankets can be found in the 2014 issue of Pediatrics.  They found that despite no actual difference in sleep behaviors of autistic children, there was agreement that the children preferred the weighted blankets. 

If anything a weighted blanket might be less inclined to roll off the side of the bed in the middle of the night and at best, your anxious child might feel safe and settled at bedtime.

Yet at the forefront of my mind is a saying my mother in law mentioned fleetingly, 'children will grow despite our best efforts'. And they do. All too fast.

Perhaps at the end of the day, we all need to relax our poor nervous systems, take a break from the daily grind and trust that our children will find a way to be in the world, will connect with themselves, find a way to stay grounded and also trust that everything is going to be OK.