6 ways to calm your kid’s craziness before bed

By Stacie Gaetz

If your house is anything like mine, the half an hour before bed is the most hectic time of the day.

Bedtime even beats the crazy race to get out the door in the morning in its level of chaos for us.

As a parent, this is the time of day when your energy is at its lowest and all you want to do is get them into bed, so you can get some chores done and finally rest your own head on a pillow.

For many parents, there are few things that are more triggering and frustrating than the before-bed amp up.

So how can you keep your cool and get everyone to bed without all the yelling and resistance?

Why do they do it?

The first thing we need to do to find out how to make the bedtime routine smoother is to understand why kids get so “bounce-off-the-walls” energetic right before bed.

During the school day, kids must “keep it together” and right after school, they are often decompressing and need some time to process everything that has happened throughout the day. So, by the time after dinner rolls around, all the anxious energy that they have been holding in while sitting at their desk comes roaring out in the form of screaming, jumping, playing roughly with you or their sibling and defiance.

We often hear things like: “I don’t want to put on my pajamas,” “Why do I have to brush my teeth?” and “I hate that book!”

These refusals to do the things they know are expected of them every night are natural (although frustrating) reactions to being told what to do all day by teachers, parents and sometimes even their peers.

How can you handle it?

1. Get them moving (gently)

Stretching and yoga are wonderful ways to tell your body that it is time to calm down and get ready for sleep.

I have been practicing yoga and meditation for three years and my eight-year-old daughter has started to do my nighttime yoga routine with me on a regular basis.

Many studies have found that yoga improves mindfulness, increases melatonin levels, and helps reduce sleep disturbance in adults and children.

You can find several children’s yoga classes and poses on YouTube. The ones my kids like the most come with some sort of story or goal.

2. Coloring and other calm activities

Coloring books and doing relatively simple activities like easy word searches and connect the dots are a great way to calm down with kids.

Many children love the idea of dragging out an activity book and working on it at any time (like my daughter) but if you have a kiddo that is more like my son, who thinks you setting him up at the table with markers and a workbook is an attempt to be “just like school,” you may have to switch it up a bit.

It can help to have the activity based on a topic they are currently interested in (like Super Mario for instance). You can also think “outside the box” as it were and color something other than paper, such as a cardboard box.

Give your child their very own whiteboard or chalkboard and play tic-tac-toe or hangman with them (the novelty of being able to erase it and do it again can make it more interesting). These activities will also allow you to spend some one-on-one time with your kiddo, while noticing how they are doing with their reading and writing. Who knows, you may even learn something!

3. Breathing

Deep breathing is incredibly soothing and calming at bedtime. There are tons of deep breathing and meditation exercises for kids on YouTube so don’t worry about having to make any up.

My kids’ favorites are the ones where you act out the breath like slowing putting your arms above your head when you breath in and down at your sides when you breath out for “butterfly breaths.”

Young children may enjoy laying on their backs and put a stuffed toy on their stomach to watch it move up and down as they breath. You can also print out a picture of a flower for them to “smell” when they breath in and a candle for them to “blow out” when they breath out.

4. Books or audio books

There is nothing more relaxing (for me) than reading a good book. I have tried to instill this in my kids since birth and we have hundreds of children’s books to prove it. If you don’t have quite that selection at your disposal, make a point to go to the library every now and then, as a new influx of books that they picked out can get even the most reluctant reader interested.

If your child is old enough to read, go back in time a bit and offer to read to them.

If your kiddo often fights the book part of bedtime, switch it up a bit with an audiobook that you can listen to together in a tent or fort or go rogue and make up your own stories about each other.

You would be surprised how much you can learn about what is going on in your child’s life by creating a story about them and asking a few thoughtfully placed questions throughout.

5. Make it fun

This doesn’t mean you are going to do cartwheels or amp them up. There are many simple and calm but creative things you can incorporate into the bedtime routine. These might include:

• picking out each other’s pajamas
• playing music and dancing while brushing teeth all together as a family
• making each “order” you normally bark at them into a Simon says game. “Simon says get a tasty snack.”
• creating rules that you have to do the whole bedtime routine without talking or smiling or while acting like a monkey.

6. Talk about the day

You may have noticed that you often hear more about their day at bedtime than any other time. You can help instigate this even more by getting them to tell you about their day from beginning to end. Let them make it into a story and help it along by asking questions (but not too many as this may frustrate them).

It is easy to get into the before-bed rut. But your nighttime routine doesn’t have to involve yelling and power struggles. Finding ways to inject a bit of creativity and connection into your before-bed schedule can help put everyone in a better mood and set your family up for sleep success.