Eleven-year-old Phoebe Rothenberg never had trouble sleeping, but when her school shuttered during the initial COVID-19 wave in March 2020, her sleep took an immediate hit. To cope with the disruption, she turned to late-night reading. “But then she’d have trouble getting up in the morning, and it became this very vicious cycle,” says mom Victoria Rothenberg, a fiber artist and mother of three in Maryland.

Once Phoebe’s days resumed a more normal rhythm, her sleep schedule quickly regained ground. But with life still uncertain, it’s an uneasy equilibrium. Disruption to routines, for example, can easily set her back.

And she’s not alone. It will probably surprise no parent that studies show that sleep quality for elementary-school-age children