Creating summer routines can get complicated, especially with the longer days, lack of structure/end of the school year routines, and all the fun vacations and summer activities that are often planned during the warm weather.
With a solid summer night routine, you can help make transitioning into bedtime easier for everyone, even though the weather is warm and everyone would rather play outside than go to bed. 😉
Cool off the bedrooms (and your kids)
As the summer rolls on, it can get too hot to sleep.
Make sure your child’s bedroom is a cool temperature before you put him to bed. You may need to get creative to cool your child’s room if you do not have central air.
A great way to do this is to use a fan to pull hot air out of the room.
If the temperature outside has dropped lower than inside, you can turn the fan facing inwards to pull in the cooler air after pushing the hottest air out first. If the room has more than one window, you can use two fans to do this at one time.
Having your child sleep with a frozen bottle of water at the foot of the bed can help keep them cooler at night. Wrap the bottle in a small, thin blanket to keep it from being too cold on their skin. This will also prevent the bottle from “sweating” and getting the sheets damp.
plan some family time before bed
Spend some time in the evening as a family.
This can be simply sitting around and chatting, cleaning up together, or playing games.
Light exercise, like a family walk in the evening, is a great way to spend some time together and help burn off any extra energy your child has that can help keep them from sleeping easily.
For more fun summer activities, get the free printable summer bucket list below:
Follow your school year routine
While it can be fun to occasionally throw out the normal routine, you should strive to follow the same routines you used with your child during the school year.
This means the usual basics like taking a bath, brushing teeth, and dressing for bed.
By keeping these routines intact over the summer, you make it easier to transition back to school when the fall rolls back around.
You can use the summertime to fine-tune issues you have during the school year, so when you are making small changes, they do not affect your child in school. This is the perfect time to try things like a later bedtime to see how your child reacts.
Ditch the screens before bedtime
The blue light from screened devices like TVs, tablets, and cell phones has been proven to make it harder to sleep.
Within an hour of bedtime, have everyone put devices away, so their eyes and brains have time to adjust to normal light and calm down from the over stimulus of these devices and the programs they run. This can make it easier to fall asleep and improve the overall quality of sleep.
However, you may find that even with the “hour before bedtime” rule, your children are STILL spending too much time on their devices. Try planning more activities during the day to keep your kids active and reduce the amount of screen time.
Get more summer screen-free activities in the Systems to Organize Summer bundle. You’ll get chore charts, daily planning pages, and fun printable activities to keep the kids entertained without the use of a screen.
Darken the room
In the summertime, younger kids often go to bed before the sun has fully set.
To make this easier on your kids, use black-out curtains to darken the room and make it seem later to help your child fall asleep.
During the day, you can keep these curtains closed to help keep your child’s bedroom cooler as well.
Change bedtime to make your summer night routine easier
Even if you do not want to bump up your child’s school year bedtime, you may benefit from a bit more freedom.
If your child does not need to get up in the morning, you can take advantage of this to help give your child a bit more freedom with a later bedtime in the summer.
While later bedtimes may not be best for young children, it can be one of the best parts of summer for older kids who need a break from early bedtimes and waking up at the crack of dawn to start a new day.
Give aromatherapy a try
Aromatherapy is a great way to get more sleep.
Going to sleep after a long, exciting day can be difficult. Aromatherapy is one way to help even things out for your child.
A linen spray of lavender or mandarin are both amazing ways to help calm your child down for bedtime.
However, avoid using a diffuser in the summer as this will raise the humidity and make it feel hotter, making it harder to sleep well.
How do you enforce a bedtime routine?
Enforcing a bedtime routine can be challenging if your kiddos do not follow through.
Instead, look for something that can be a natural consequence for the next morning, like getting a fun treat for breakfast for a child who slept in after staying up too late the night before.
Another great way to enforce a bedtime routine is to use a visual schedule like this one to help make it easy for your child to see what they need to complete in their nighttime routine. This can help keep your kids on task without you having to nag them to follow through with their routines and chores throughout the day, including your summer night routine.
You can also get my nighttime routine checklist below, although this is more appropriate for moms. 😉
Download my free printable evening routine!
Overwhelmed by everything you need to do as part of your nightly routine?
This printable worksheet will help you stay focused and save time as you get ready for the next day.
Sign up to get a free copy of the evening routine checklist!
Enter my free resource library for my latest files and printables! The password is ‘TTWsimplelife’ — please copy and paste that in at the link above. Thanks for being a subscriber!!!