Monday, November 30, 2009

How to Get Your Kids to Bed on Time

Children need a routine sleep schedule each and every night to ensure that they're rested for school, organized sports and everyday activities. Children who don't go to bed on time and who don't have structured sleep routines often compromise their abilities. Follow these simple steps to get your kids to bed on time. You'll notice that your kids are able to function more easily with activities.

Step 1
Feed your children a few hours before bedtime.

Eating just before bed isn't conducive to getting your children to bed on time. This needs to be a separate activity because your child's body needs time before bed to metabolize the food.

Step 2
Set up a consistent bedtime each and every night.

A popular bedtime for young children is right around 8 pm. Whatever bedtime you choose, be sure to stick to this schedule and begin winding down with bedtime activities about an hour before.

Step 3
Avoid setting up any activities that can interfere with your child's bedtime routine.

Getting your kids to bed on time means that you may have to miss out some activities.

Step 4
Bathe your child just about an hour before bedtime and give your child time to relax in the tub.

After bath time, give your child a comfort massage to relax his muscles and to get him feeling a bit sleepy.

Step 5
Play some light classical music or soft music with waterfalls in the background while you begin to get your child into bed
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Read some meditations to your child or a favorite bedtime story before bed. This gets your child excited each night to go to bed, and this cozy time together is a great time to connect with kids.

How to Get Kids to Bed on Time originally published on eHow.com

Do you ever have problems getting your children to bed on time? Do you know any solutions or tricks that aren't on our list?

eHow.com is an online community dedicated to providing visitors the ability to research, share, and discuss instructional solutions -- real people succeeding at real projects. More than 45 million people visiteHow.com each month for tips on how to do just about anything.

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From the Community…

Comments 1 of 1
  • miss my family's Avatar
    Posted by miss my family Sun Sep 27, 2009 8:20pm PDT

    My parents did this stuff but just because one of them wasn't accomplished didn't give us an excuse to not go to bed.Whether your child is happy or not bedtime is bedtime. Yes it's nice when they are in a good mood but your kids mood should not change their bedtime. When we were growing up go to bed MEANT go to bed. And our parents didn't play that game that I see parents today doing where the child gets out of bed again and again. It was get in bed and stay there till morning. Unless you have to use the restroom and even then if you got up more than once to use it they'd give you "the look" and tell you that you'd better not be playing games. Even at 2 when they put us in bed we were expected to stay there. But we never doubted that our parents loved us even back then.

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