UAE schools reopen Monday: How to reset your child's sleep and wake them for school

Dubai: Schools across the UAE reopen on Monday, which means somewhere in your home right now there is a child sleeping until 11am who is about to be asked to wake up at 6.30. The good news is that the fix can be gentler and easier than you might think.

Gulf News spoke to a leading sleep expert and two mums, including a single mother, about making the transition without turning your house into a battleground.

"I would take the word dismantled away from parents," says sleep expert Julie Mallon. "You have not broken your child's sleep. You have had a summer. There have been later dinners, holidays, travel and mornings when nobody needed to rush out of the door. Those experiences matter too."

Mallon, a UK-qualified nurse, midwife and health visitor with over 30 years of experience, and one of the Middle East's leading sleep experts, has a simple message for this week. "You do not have to repair summer. You are simply helping your family find its rhythm again."

"Ideally, begin finding your rhythm again seven to 10 days before school," Mallon says. "Bring wake-up and bedtime earlier by around 15 minutes every couple of days, rather than trying to change everything overnight."

The counterintuitive part is where to begin, which is the morning, not bedtime. "Wake a little earlier, open the curtains, get outside into morning light, have breakfast and encourage movement. These are beautifully simple signals to the body clock that help sleep move earlier naturally."

If you have left it late, do not panic. Rhythm "is built through repetition, not one perfect night."

We have all called upstairs for the sixth time while holding a school shoe. Mallon has a better method than flinging off the duvet from your child.

"Light is one of the most powerful signals to our body clock. Open the curtains, gradually bring light into the room, use your voice, perhaps some music, and then get the child upright and moving. Warmth and leadership can coexist."

For teenagers, she offers reassurance. "During adolescence, biology shifts sleep and wake timing later. So that teenager buried under the duvet isn't necessarily being lazy or defiant."

The goal is not to frighten them awake nor to negotiate endlessly. "A calm, confident morning message is: I know you're tired, and I also know it's time to get up."

The broad ranges are roughly 10 to 13 hours for three to five-year-olds, nine to 12 for six to 12-year-olds, and eight to 10 for teenagers. But Mallon resists treating them as targets. "Your child is not a spreadsheet."

The better question is whether they are thriving, concentrating and emotionally regulated, rather than whether they hit an exact number. Tired children, she warns, "can become louder, more impulsive and seemingly more energetic when overtired."

On screens, she is non-judgemental. Her guidance is devices away around an hour before sleep and kept out of the bedroom overnight, but without turning the evening into a performance. "You don't need aromatherapy and twenty different sleep products. Ordinary family life is enough."

Lower the lights, lay out tomorrow's clothes, pack the bag, read together. "I describe bedtime as a runway rather than an emergency stop."

One trap she flags: the weekend lie-in. "A child getting up at 6.30am Monday to Friday but sleeping until 11am at weekends can experience something very similar to jet lag every Monday morning."

She adds that if a child is persistently exhausted despite enough sleep, snores heavily, or has morning headaches, parents should trust their instinct and speak to a professional.

Dubai mum Tabinda Nabil, who has two boys Rayyan Huzaifa aged five and Nayel Huzaifa aged 10, offers the ground truth. "With two children, there's no one-size-fits-all approach. One needs 100 reminders to get dressed, while the other likes to know exactly what comes next."

Her strategy is preparation and low expectations. "I prepare as much as I can the night before, uniforms laid out, fruit cut. Success is getting everyone dressed, bags packed and into the car without a fight."

She keeps a consistent routine, dinner, shower, reading, bed by 9, and eases the boys back gradually. Her biggest realisation is that her own mood sets the tone. "If I stay calm, they're more likely to stay calm too."

What she never skips: "Giving them a hug and reminding them that I love them. If everyone leaves the house dressed, fed and loved, I'm calling it a successful morning."

For single mother Nilufar Yuldash Abdugafarova from Uzbekistan, whose son Kamronbek is in Grade 7, the approach is built around protecting her own mornings too.

"As a solo parent, there is no one else to pick up the things I forgot, so I get everything sorted early," she says, starting in early August. Her secret weapon is time and one firm rule. "I wake up, have my coffee, do my sports and get ready before he needs to get up. And he knows one very important rule: Mum needs her coffee first."

"Children notice much more than we think. By the time he wakes up, I am in a much better headspace, and that sets a completely different tone for both of us." She has also raised Kamron to be independent. "If he forgets to charge his laptop, that is his responsibility. I cannot be responsible for remembering everything for both of us."

Her message to other single mums: "You cannot make everything perfect, and you don't need to. Your child doesn't need a perfect mum. They need a mum who is there, who cares and who keeps showing up."

"Perhaps the person who needs the most reassurance at the end of summer is not the child who has been going to bed too late," Mallon says. "It's the parent who thinks they have done something wrong."

You have not. Start with the morning, bring in light, food and movement, shift bedtime by degrees, and give everyone, including yourself, a little grace while it settles.