Happy Thoughts for a Good Night's Sleep
Do your kids struggle with bedtime? Either they don’t want to be alone or perhaps are scared of the dark. There are different ways that we as parents can put our child’s mind at ease when this happens – give them a special stuffed animal to snuggle with or provide a little night light – and hopefully it will help turn bedtime woes into sweet dreams.
It certainly helps to have a bedtime routine with your kids. In our household it consists of bath, brushing teeth, putting on the jammies and reading a bedtime story, followed by quick goodnight hugs and kisses.
Recently our son was getting upset at bedtime, not wanting us to leave his room and saying he was lonely and didn’t like the dark. We helped him by picking out a special night light – it’s a turtle that glows stars on the ceiling (it also comes as a lady bug, which we got for our daughter and it turns itself off after a period of time). While this has helped ease some of the bedtime anxiety, another thing we started doing before saying good night is asking our kids what made them happy that day. We call it our happy thought for the day and we encourage them to think about it as they try to fall asleep.
I’ve really enjoyed doing this with the kids (thank you hubby for coming up with the idea!) I like the idea of ending the day on a positive note and thinking about pleasant things while going to sleep! (Young or old, we all need that at the end of the day, don’t we?) And on nights when the kids are still feeling uneasy at bedtime, taking those few extra moments to share our happy thoughts for the day really seems to help calm them down for a good night’s sleep. Sweet dreams!
