3 Evening Routines to Get Kids to Bed Without Whining

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Sleep Number for the Mom It Forward blogger network. All opinions are 100% my own.

Sleep.

As a mom to three little ones and a blogger to boot, I don’t often get enough sleep.

But it’s one thing I always make sure my kids get plenty of. So many decisions I make as a mom are made with my kids’ sleep needs in mind. From deciding which extracurricular activities to participate in and at what time, to what temperature to set our thermostat (too hot or too cold can be uncomfortable)!

I try my best not to overschedule my kids, and I also take care in choosing their beds and bed linens to ensure a good night’s sleep.

When Sleep Number asked me to take a look at their SleepIQ Kids™ line of beds, I jumped at the chance. I’ve been meaning to check out their beds, so this gave me the perfect excuse!

SleepIQ Kids™ Beds – So Much More Than Meets the Eye!

I went to my local Sleep Number store and chatted with a lovely salesperson named Beth. She told me all about the high-tech features that come with a SleepIQ Kids™ bed.

I was fascinated by all I learned about these beds. Here are some of the features I loved:

• Adjusts with children as they grow – as children’s bodies change, their need for firmness changes…they can change their sleep number setting over time to accommodate their growing bodies and changing weight.
• Equipped with SleepIQ® technology that tracks sleep patterns and lets you know if your child is resting well or tossing and turning throughout the night
• Head tilt feature allows them to reading in bed comfortably or sleep at an incline when they have stuffy noses
• Parental alert feature – you can find out if/when they get out of bed.
• Remotely operated night light – you can put them to bed with the light on, then turn it off remotely without going into their room later on.
• Soft underbed light turns on when they get up in the middle of the night

In addition to these features, I got a kick out of the rewards system that lets you award your kids for sleeping soundly in their beds.

And the monster detector! How could I forget! The SleepIQ Kids™ bed comes complete with a “monster detector” that lets you scan the room for monsters before bed. 🙂

Sleep Number is committed to helping families sleep smarter by providing parents and kids with knowledge to get the most out of sleep. It starts with adjusting the bed for comfort and support of each stage of a child’s life and also teaching them to take control of their sleep patterns.

For my kids (7, 5, and 3), this means I’m still at the stage of establishing good sleep routines on their behalf. As they grow older (up to age 9), they can begin to manage their own bedtime routines using smart devices. And when they get a bit older (10+), they can use the SleepIQ technology to track homework, exams, and other activities against their sleep patterns. This will help them figure out how stress, activities, and food choices impact sleep.

Because I’m at the stage of motherhood where I am guiding my children to good sleep habits, I thought I’d address a hot topic among moms.

Taming Bedtime Fussiness

Nearly every day at playdate I hear moms talking about it. The fight to get their kids to bed in a reasonable amount of time without a big fuss.

You’d think it would be easy. Parents say it’s time for bed, everyone complies, all are drifting away to sleep within 30 minutes.

But….NO.

This might happen in my favorite classic movies, but it does NOT magically happen in our household by any stretch of the imagination! 🙂

Three kids and eight years into this thing called motherhood, I finally feel like I’m grasping what it takes to get the kids to bed fairly seamlessly.

It all starts with routines and timing.

3 Evening Routines to Get Kids to Bed Without Whining – #StoptheStall

My husband travels quite a bit, so I have to work hard to keep our schedule static when he’s there one night and not the next. I try my best to make sure our routine stays the same whether or not he’s there to participate. It makes things easier on me and the kids, and when he returns, he just jumps right into the routine. 🙂

In the past year, I’ve found that three things greatly impact my ability to get the kids to bed on time and without much fuss. It all starts with what we do right after school.

1. Get homework out of the way early

When my oldest went to Kindergarten two years ago, I was ill-prepared for the burden of homework. I swear we didn’t have any homework in elementary school when I was little, but now – oh my! There’s something due every night! Now that I have two in school, homework can sometimes take us about 45 minutes to an hour.

I’ve found that getting our homework tasks out of the way right after school allows for a more relaxed evening. I’ve made the mistake of letting them play after school, thinking they need a break before doing more work. But every single time I’ve done that, we inevitably get to dinnertime and realize the work isn’t done, then it’s a mad dash to get it all done right before or after we eat. And because the kids are tired by that time, there are almost always tears involved. Not exactly how I want to lead into our bedtime routine. So homework is now ALWAYS completed right after school, before they play or visit with neighborhood friends.

2. Eat dinner at the same time every day

School starts for us at 8 a.m., which means our kids have to be up no later than 6:30 a.m., which means they need to be in bed no later than 7:30 p.m. (lights out no later than 8 p.m.) so they can get 10.5 to 11 hours of solid sleep. I’ve found that if we don’t start eating dinner by 6 or 6:15 and head upstairs around 7 p.m., our bed times are thrown off. Every day we eat dinner at 6 p.m., give or take 15 minutes.

I would probably do this even earlier – perhaps 5:30 or 5:45 – but my husband doesn’t get home until just before 6 every day, so this is what works for us. Your times may line up differently, but the general idea is the same…allow enough time for eating so you can get to bed at a decent hour without feeling rushed.

3. Get ready for bed in the same order every night

What I mean by this is it takes the guesswork out of bedtime if you start the routine at the same time every night and do things like brush teeth, change clothes, and tuck the kids in the same way each night. Before we established a bedtime routine, it would be normal for one or more kids to fight us by whining when we announced it was bedtime. Then whine again when we said to brush their teeth. Now that we have a set routine, we rarely hear objections.

Our bedtime routine is simple and fun. Around 7 p.m., we head upstairs, singing the “Ants Go Marching” song as we march. 🙂 After we sing our Ants song, my oldest brushes her own teeth while my husband helps the little ones brush theirs. (I usually stay behind to clean up after dinner during this time). Then the girls head off to their room to change clothes while my husband gets our youngest changed and in bed.

The girls let me know when they’re ready, and I head upstairs to lay with them and scratch backs/tell stories/sing songs. Then my husband and I switch! I go to my little guy’s room while he heads to the girls’ room to lay with them. I sing my little guy a few songs and then tuck him in for the night.

Finally, my husband and I head downstairs for the evening. If it’s bath night, we add that in right after going upstairs. And if my husband is out of town, I wait to clean up after dinner until bedtime routines are done.

Our evening routine sounds cumbersome, but it’s really not once you get used to it and fall into a groove. The kids respond well to these after school and evening rituals because it lets them know what my expectations are every single day. They never change.

Some of this will vary for you based on the number of kids you have and your family’s schedule. I hope my example gives you some ideas!

I would love to know what you think about a routine like this and if you have one or your own. I’d also love to know if you’ve ever tried a Sleep Number bed! Believe it or not, we ordered one and are waiting for it to be delivered right now!

If you’re interested in learning more about the SleepIQ™ Kids bed, you can visit any one of the 460 U.S. based stores. This line of beds is available in twin, full, or queen sizes and pricing starts at $799.00.