Lost in Twins

I’m a big fan of an early bedtime. Me, and the girls if I’m honest. Since they don’t nap and don’t sleep later than 6:30-7:00am they need to go to bed early to get their 12 hours.

Over the winter they were asleep by 6:30pm. It was dark before 5pm and they were begging to go to bed. Barely keeping their eyes open over dinner. This was fantastic as I got an hour plus to myself before Alex got home. You know an hour to myself to tidy the kitchen and pick up toys.

Now that we are transitioning into spring (ha!) and day light savings has kicked in they want to stay up later. But I really need them asleep by 7:00/7:15pm. They take a while to unwind but not before they’ve bounced in and out of bed. You know the drill.

Today I decided to shift my attitude to the bedtime routine. Normally straight to bed after dinner, and then I wait ‘em out. Once asleep I get on with my cleaning and tidying. It’s obvious they need to run off steam so after dinner (which they ate in their pjs, doh!) I told them as much. At first they were confused and then they started running in circles shouting “STEAM. RUN STEAM!”. Given how quickly things can turn on a dime with them when they are tired I kept a close eye. (Last week Nomi ended up fainting after pre-bed chase.)

As I got on with cleaning up after dinner and then straightening up the living room they quietened down to playing with cardboard tubes which switched from being rockets to trains to rolling pins to goggles.

By 6:30pm all my chores were done, and we could start actual bedtime (teeth, potty (optional), story & “lights” out). They were asleep by 7:15pm and whilst they took time to unwind there was no joking out of bed, and I dozed.

This felt more relaxing or as relaxing small children get. Hoping that once we can spend more time outside they’ll be quicker to unwind.