Bedtime Wind-Down
Activities for Bedtime Wind-Down.
These are the last half hour of the day: dim, slow, repetitive and predictable. Nothing here has a winner, a timer or anything to finish, because a child who is trying to complete something is a child who is waking up.
Breathing games, shadow play, back-drawing, torch-under-the-duvet looking at books, and very slow stretching all appear here. So does simply naming three things that happened today.
The same one, in the same order, every night, works far better than variety. That is the opposite of the advice everywhere else on this site, and it is deliberate.
Activities
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Making Bedtime Shorter
Most bedtime trouble is a routine problem, not a sleep problem. Fewer decisions, same order, clear last thing.
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A Quiet Box for the Difficult Hour
One box, five or six calm things, brought out only when everything is falling apart. It works because it is rare.
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Goodnight, Everything
A slow bedtime story that says goodnight to one thing after another, and gets quieter as it goes.
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Big Dog, Little Dog
For the youngest listeners. Very short, very repetitive, and about dogs, which helps.