Do you ever stop and think about how you run your evenings?
They probably look something like this. You eat dinner as a family, clean up, your kids play a bit, maybe there’s bathtime, and then you put the kids to bed. Once they are down, any remaining time in the evening might go to chatting with your husband, making lunches for the next day, doing work, or having some much needed downtime.
You work hard running a household and parenting.
You deserve more of that downtime. Don’t you think?
You’re busy. You have a lot going on. You need time to decompress after a long day.
Consider that if you tackled those nighttime activities differently, it could provide you more downtime each evening.
Case in point: bedtime.
In our house, bedtime has evolved over the last few years. Not too long ago we were in the habit of having each parent put one child to bed. Divide and conquer was the strategy. It generally worked well and did the trick. Each child got some undivided attention, and they each got their own storytime. Both parents were needed for this strategy though.
I don’t know about you, but we don’t always have both adults home every single night. What did this look like with one adult? Well, since we were in the ‘divide and conquer’ mindset, the parent who was home would have the older child play while the younger one was put to bed and then the older child would be put to bed. At the time I recall thinking the older one was allowed to stay up later and that was one driver of the separate bedtime routines. It worked, but it was a lot of energy and it was time-consuming.
Recently we started putting the kids to bed at the same time.
That is – one adult – putting both kids to bed at the same time.
What does this look like? The older one gets their PJs on while we put on the PJs of the younger one. Both kids brush their teeth at the same time. We go into one bedroom and all snuggle. Each child gets to pick a story and we read the stories together. Then the older child goes to his bed. We put the younger one in his bed with a prayer or a song. Then we head to the older child’s room to do the same for him.
Each child still gets individual attention, a few stories and some snuggle time. Only one parent is needed for this process and the whole thing takes about as long as it used to take to put one child to bed. So this means we can trade off and each do half as much time on bedtime duty!
So, will this double your free time? Well, I guess that depends how much you had to start with. If you and your husband both spend an hour each night on bedtime, try this out and you’ll have 3.5 more hours of free time in your week! That’s a signifcant amount of time – and a win in my book.
How will you spend your newly found free time?
More resources:
- If your kids need help sleeping, you can get melatonin in kid friendly doses, like here.
- This is a great essential oil that is safe to help kids sleep.
Let us know in our Facebook group if this idea to have more time works for your family!
DISCLOSURE: SOME OF THE LINKS ABOVE ARE AFFILIATE LINKS, MEANING IF YOU CLICK THROUGH AND MAKE A PURCHASE, I WILL EARN A COMMISSION AT NO COST TO YOU.
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