If you are a parent with school-aged children, I’m sure you’ve experienced the dreaded back-to-school bedtime routine battle. If you haven’t, consider yourself to be one of the lucky ones because creating a good back-to-school bedtime routine can be a challenge.
I’m lucky, I only have one child I battle with when it comes to bedtime. She is a night owl, like her mother and it’s without a doubt been a struggle. She’s the one who gets up 927 times to use the restroom, get a drink, because she is hot, scared, it’s too dark, and shows up at my bedroom door at 1:00 am to let me know she can’t sleep. I tried just about everything to create a good back-to-school bedtime routine for my little Mattie, and after a lot of trial and error, I think I found one that works. Believe it or not, most of it has to do with lighting!
Lighting affects our mood and behavior. It can affect how productive we are during the day, how we feel and how we sleep. I now use Philips Hue smart lighting in my home. It has not only helped my family create and maintain a back-to-school schedule that works, but it also helped us create a better homework environment, working environment for myself, and enables us to wake up more energized. Philips Hue smart lighting has been one of the best things I could have done for creating and maintaining a good back-to-school bedtime routine, not just for my daughter but for the whole family
Tips to Create & Maintain a Back-to-School Bedtime Routine & Keep Your Sanity
Here are a few tips that helped me not only create and maintain a bedtime routine, but also made waking up easier for everyone in my household.
1.) Set up a bedtime routine
It is essential to create a back-to-school bedtime routine. It helps kids know what is expected of them before jumping into bed. Creating and maintaining a healthy back to school routine and sticking to a certain schedule isn’t always easy but it will help your children get back into the swing of things and start their mornings out with enough sleep to tackle the day.
2.) Take care of anything school related before bedtime
I can’t count how many times I’ve told my kids it was time to get ready for bed and heard, “Mom, I am not done with my homework yet!” or “You didn’t sign these papers!” Over the years I’ve learned to check with my kids several times and make sure I sign all papers, homework is done, school clothes are ready, and anything else school related is finished before announcing “It’s bedtime!” This not only makes our bedtime routine run smoothly, but helps us avoid a chaotic morning.
3.) Lower the temperature
Did you know cooler temperatures can help you fall asleep and sleep better at night? If you have a smart thermostat, you can set timers or control your phone using your smartphone.
4.) Create a lighting schedule that mimics the sun
Toss out those old school light bulbs and grab Philips Hue smart lighting to create an environment that helps you fall asleep and wake up more naturally. You can create a lighting schedule that mimics the sun using the Hue app or you can cheat a little like me by downloading the Sunrise and Sunset app for your Philips Hue smart lights. The app reproduces a sunrise and sunset color and brightness pattern to help make waking up more natural. You choose when and how long you want it to last, and the app and Philips Hue do the rest.
5.) Use the right lighting to promote better sleep
Consider using less blue light at night for better sleep. Blue light should be used more during the day for concentration. If you use a dim orange light in your bedroom, it can help you fall asleep and stay asleep. By upgrading to smart lighting like Philips Hue, you can control the lighting color, color temperature (or tone of white light) and the light level (how bright the light is).
6.) Turn off tech
I don’t even want to think about what would happen if I allowed my children to play with their tablets or a smartphone in bed. I’m sure they would be zombies the following day so I make sure all tech is turned off and not allowed into bedrooms. We turn off tech about an hour before bedtime.
7.) Allow time for children to wind down from their busy day
As adults, we often need time to wind down from our day and we should allow children the same wind down time. To help everyone wind down after the day, stay away from blue lighting if you are trying to wind down for the evening. When you choose a warmer, more amber, toned color it can help wind everyone down for the evening. The Hue app helps thanks to the “Relax” preset scene – turning it on is as easy as the tap of a button on your smartphone.
8.) Ease Children to Sleep
Using the Hue app, select the “Go to Sleep” routine and schedule the fade-out timer. The dimming lights help to ease my children to sleep before they turn off. This is an awesome routine setting ‘hack’ for everyone in the house. I’ve even used the “Go to Sleep” routine when I head off to bed.
8.) Ease Children to Sleep
Using the Hue app, select the “Go to Sleep” routine and schedule the fade out timer. The dimming lights help to ease my children to sleep before they turn off. This is an awesome routine setting ‘hack’ for everyone in the house. I’ve even used the “Go to Sleep” routine when I head off to bed.
9.) The perfect nightlight
Children often sleep more comfortably with some sort of night light. I’ve found Philips Hue helps here, too, with another pre-set for just this need.
10.) Lighting up your mornings
Exposing your children to cool white lighting can help keep them focused. The blue wavelengths may boost attention, reaction time and mood. Cool white lighting is great for doing homework after school and helping the whole family feel refreshed and energized before heading off to school or work in the mornings but not so wonderful before bedtime.
Philips Hue smart lighting allows users to have full control over every aspect of their home lighting. Download the Hue app on your smartphone or tablet, and choose from 16 million colors, including every shade of white light, which is also great for indoor photography. You can set your lighting to match just about any mood, routine, need or activity your family desires.
Philips Hue also works with Amazon Alexa, Siri with Apple HomeKit, and Google Assistant, so you can control your home lighting using your voice.
To get started, I suggest the Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance starter kit, which includes:
- Bridge – The heart of your Hue system that allows for the app-based control of the Hue lights
- Ethernet cable–Just connect your bridge to your wireless router and the power cord, so you can plug the bridge into any standard outlet.
- Four A19 standard-size LED light bulbs–With these bad boys, you can create over 16 million colors or 50,000 shades of white light. The bulbs can be used in any standard indoor light fixture.
Philips Hue smart lighting is an effective choice for creating and maintaining a back-to-school bedtime routine. Plus, there are so many other things you can use them for this back-to-school season, holidays and every day in between. And using Philips Hue as a sunrise alarm has helped the whole family not only wake up easier but also put us in a better mood and made us feel more energized.
How are you getting into the back-to-school bedtime routine?
This post was sponsored by Philips Hue via Momtrends Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions of Philips Hue or Momtrends