Sleep

I have come to realize that no matter how good sleep is, kids just don't like doing it right away.
My son is a night owl like myself and we always end up watching movies all night. Granted he gets his needed rest but he sleeps most of the morning away. He will play with his cars 24/7 if he could.

Now my niece on the other hand is just wild for no reason. It takes sheer energy to get her to sleep because it takes her a while to settle down no matter what is going on. She could be plain old tired but still won't rest.

Although neither child has the perfect schedule, sharing a room is out of the question when it comes to trying to give two children bed times. So in this house we do staggered bed times and we also do different rooms. My son goes to my room or a couch to start his rest time and my niece has to go to sleep first since she has to get up the earliest for school. So far it works, but it will work better when they each have their own private wind-down space.

I have come up with some things that work for getting children ready for bed:

Drinking a warm liquid like milk, decaf tea( with chamomile), hot apple cider, or hot chocolate; right before bed helps sooth the body.

A warm bath with bubbles and calming smells like lavender

Soothing bed time music like ocean and nature sounds to play while the child is sleeping. I would not suggest the tv as a background noise because the child's brain becomes more active with the tv sounds and signals for awake mode not sleep mode.

A child's favorite toy or book is good to have at night.

And last but not least, A routine...if a child gets used to going to sleep at a certain time (even adults) then their body will normally and naturally start going into sleep mode automatically.

SLEEPY TIMES

Laughter

I hate to shut down a kids laughter but it sometimes there needs to be come control.
Sometimes things aren't that funny. But as an adult we sometimes lose sight of the simple things that make us happy in life.

As my two kids were laughing in the background I wanted to turn around and say shut up but I could not because even their simple little laughter brightened my spirit. I couldn't find it in my heart to say CUT OUT ALL THAT LAUGHING because I could not have seen or experienced what they may have found funny. I could have easily asked the 4 and 6 year old what was funny but I'm pretty sure their brains could not have found the correct words to express what it was that I wanted to hear from them.

So the lesson for today: Let your children laugh, let them laugh long and hard because not all the days of one's life are filled with laughter. So it's best to let them create these memories of laughter to carry them through the rest of their days.

A book

I decided that I was going to write a book about my children because their experiences should be used as documentation for blackmail in the future, during their high school years.