How We Got Our Kids to Stay in Bed!

It’s the first week of Autumn! Even though we’re still enjoying warmer days, I know fall is right around the corner with all it’s exciting festivities! We are 6 weeks into the start of school and the kids have transitioned from summer’s lazy life to a solid school routine. It’s been a great change! AND I’m so thrilled to share with you how we helped our kids FINALLY quit my biggest pet peeve surrounding their bedtime routine (insert HALLELUJAH!)!

If I had to pinpoint the times of year that really throws a wrench in our family’s bedtime routine it would be Daylight Savings and heading back to school. Hands down. This year, we did our bedtime routine differently by using smart lights. Our home is full of smart devices and I was all for it when a friend told us about using these smart lights to help our emotions and routines stay in check. Sold! We chose Philips Hue Smart Lighting because they were awesome and super easy to set up.

Lighting can have a huge impact on our emotions and routines. It affects how productive we are, how relaxed we feel and how well we sleep. Lighting is a big deal and I didn’t honestly trust this concept until we took a leap of faith and tried it out for ourselves!

Here’s how we started the Back To School routine: For going to sleep: Everything is controlled easily in the Philips Hue app. I set a getting ready for bed routine: set a specific time of 6pm that I wanted our bedtime routine to begin. The lights automatically switch to the Relax pre-set scene to create the right environment to help the kids wind down. It’s magic, y’all. Well, technically it’s science and proven through studies that lighting plays an important role in affecting how we sleep!

A great new way we’ve found to help the kids fall asleep is to set a timer for lights out. Starting at 7pm the lights will gradually dim down and turn off, helping the kids wind down and remember it’s time to stop wrestling and playing and time to sleep. This has been so fun to rely on! My annoying role of reminding the kids it’s bedtime every few minutes has chilled out because the lights are doing it for me. Once 6pm roles around, the lights are dimmed and warm letting all of us see and understand that the evening is winding down. We pick the school outfits for the next morning, including socks and shoes. We find the backpacks and get them ready near the front door. We brush teeth, clean up bedrooms, and put away the toys. Then, we read scriptures, have family prayers, and then tuck the kids into bed. 15 minutes later, the lights have finally dimmed all the way to off and there has been significantly less getting out of bed or partying until 9pm!

But my FAVORITE thing about this system is the timer that wakes the kids up in the morning. Before the smart light, the kids would come out of their rooms wayyyy too early. We’ve tried everything from the clocks to various forms of bribery. Nothing seemed to work for them. Reminding them to stay in bed during the early morning hours has gotten real old over the years. Especially when we stayed up too late (most nights) and they are up at 5:59… No more!! I’ve set a morning timer and the cooler tones of the Philips Hue Energize light scene turns on slowly every morning at 7:20am. This signals to them its wake time and it’s now acceptable to come say good morning to their mama! We have the lights set up in each of their bedrooms and it helps the whole family feel refreshed and more alert before heading off to school. Since the twins are only in pre-school 3 days a week, their light comes on a few minutes later than Savannah’s to give us a few minutes to make her lunch and get her breakfast. We have the Hue lights turn on at 30% brightness to gently get the kids up, and then turn them to 100% brightness as they get ready and have breakfast.

These colors are known to help improve moods before they even leave the house! It’s been SO helpful to influence the atmosphere by simply controlling the light through these smart lights! There’s even a fun “Read” light scene for story time. Or you can get creative with Hue’s 16 million colors, and bring your favorite stories to life! The kids love to request “pink!” “purple!” “blue!” or anything else they come up with.

With Philips Hue in my bedroom, we set the lights to produce a sunrise effect that helps us wake up naturally. I’ve set the timer to wake me up at 6:30am, to give me time to meditate, journal, and read uplifting spiritual messages. I do this before the kids come out of their room so that I’m ready to do my best at keep the morning rush less chaotic than it needs to be. In the evening, relaxing warm white light helps us relax and unwind.

There is so much you can do with Philips Hue. Using the smart lights can help your family not just adjust to a new school-night schedule but keep up good homework habits, sleep better and more all year long.

P.S. If you don’t have Philips Hue smart lighting, this introductory kit was perfect to introduce us to smart lights!

Here’s the details for all the tech whiz’s. The Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance starter kit includes:

• A bridge, which is the heart of the Hue system. It allows for the app-based control of the Hue lights.
• An Ethernet cable to connect the bridge to your wireless router, and a power cord to plug the bridge into any standard outlet.
• Four A19 standard-size LED light bulbs capable of emitting 16 million colors or 50,000 shades of white light. You can install the bulbs in any standard, indoor light fixture.

Thank you Philips Hue Smart Lighting for partnering with me for this post! As always, all opinions are my own. And thank YOU for supporting the brands that help keep this blog running. 

Have you tried smart lights?! Feel free to drop any questions or comments about Smart Lights in the comments below. Thanks for stoping by!