How To Make Bedtime Transitions Easier {+ Simplay3 Imagination Castle Headboard Review & Giveaway!}

This ‘how to make bedtime transitions easier’ post is in partnership with Simplay3.  As always, all opinions are my own.

Is bedtime a struggle in your home?  From infant on, many families find bedtime to be the hardest part of the day.  As newborns, it’s because they just don’t sleep.  But life, and bedtime, doesn’t always get easier as the kids get older.  While some kids are naturally great sleepers, many are not.  My husband and I have been blessed with some of each.  But today, I want to share how to make bedtime transitions easier.

How To Make Bedtime Transitions Easier

While there’s no tried and true way that will work for every child, family, or situation.  We wanted to share some ideas that may be of help.  Nobody wants bedtime to be a struggle, so here are some tips for how to make bedtime transitions easier.

Routine:

Especially important as we make the switch from summer to school year, routines are a must.  Each year, we start inching bedtime up for the last week or so before school started.  Instead of 9:30 or 10pm, the kids are now heading to their rooms by about 8 or 8:15.  Come the holidays, when we break for a week or two from school, we have to again adjust to a more strict bedtime.

Family Time:

But before bedtime, we’ve found it to be super helpful to spend some time winding down as a family.  Around 7:30 or so, we all hang out in the living room and chat about the day, expectations for tomorrow, and whatever else the kids want to tell us.

Read A Story:

After about 10 minutes of family time talking, my husband reads a chapter out of the Bible.  We follow up with discussion.  And then, something new we’ve started with the school year routine is reading a story out of a Chicken Soup For The Soul Book.   (The kids have been LOVING these stories!)  And finally, we will rotate through reading a children’s chapter book or short kids book.

Make Memories: 

Something I wished my parents would have done even more of, is play games with us kids.  So after Bible and the Chicken Soup story, many nights, we actually play a short game as a family.  Sometimes it’s Catch Phrase.  Other times Guesstures.  A quick round of Pictionary is also fun.  But we like to chose games where we can do just one round and it’s something that all the kids can enjoy.  This gets trickier with younger kids.  But the three games I mentioned above have been a hit with our family and our kids are ages 4 to 14.  Lucy, our 4 year old, just gets a little help with reading the words but manages to play along and have lots of fun.

Good Hygiene: 

I think everyone sleeps better after they wash up, brush their teeth, and put on clean pajamas.  So this is a must every single night.  To help everyone settle down after the game, we all get ready for bed by doing these three things.

Bedtime Prayers:

This is again something we do as a family.  Building on our faith is always something we try to work on.  So after everyone is completely ready for bed, we meet back in the living room.  Everyone circles up, holds hands, and someone prays about our day, family, and any other requests that have been brought up.

Comfortable Bed For Each Child:

 We’ve always made sure that every child has their own bed.  While that hasn’t stopped some co-sleeping from time to time, it’s good for everyone to know they have a place of their own if they choose.  Lucy, our youngest, is turning five soon.  So just recently she has upgraded from a toddler bed to her brand new Simplay3 Imagination Castle twin headboard/bed.

Simplay3 Imagination Castle Headboard Review

For the last couple of months, Lucy had been crawling into bed with us or her older sister almost every night.  It was driving me crazy because she wasn’t scared.  Nor did she need anything.  Her reasoning for abandoning her bed was that she is now a big girl and just couldn’t sleep in a little bed any longer.  Even though she technically still fits into the toddler bed, I could see her point.  She’s growing up.  In less than a month, she’ll be five.  Plus, she’s starting kindergarten this year too.  So we all agreed it was definitely time to upgrade to a big girl bed upgrade.

Castle Headboard

Simplay3 to the rescue.  This awesome company has a brand new option that I knew would be perfect for us: their Imagination Castle Headboard!  Lucy loves princesses and castles.  And since this headboard is for twin size beds, I knew she’d be thrilled with her new ‘big girl bed’.

First off, I do want to point out that this product is a headboard only.  However, you can set it up to hold the mattress directly on the floor if you wish to have a lower bed or don’t have a spare twin frame to use.  The mattress and headboard would line up similar to the photo below if you use with no frame.

I was lucky enough to find a great deal on a boxspring and frame on a local selling site the day after her headboard arrived though!  So we snatched it up and headed home to assemble the new bed.

Assembly

Putting together the Simplay3 Imagination Castle Headboard was fairly simple.  The directions were easy to follow and with all our helpers…we had her bed ready to go in about 45 minutes.  (Those helpers may or may not have added some time to the assembly…  But I’m all for every learning opportunity and building the bed was a great one!)  So we all made it a fun learning experience and took our time every step of the way.

The assembly was truly minimal with securing a few pieces together and adding the stickers.

Finished Product

This Simplay3 Castle Headboard is made from a solid plastic.  It feels well made and should be durable as well.  I like that it will be easy to clean.  It’s not too heavy either, which means that rearranging the bedroom will be easier to manage.

I’m happy to report that for the last month, this young lady has been sleeping in her own bed!  There was just one stormy night where she crawled in with her big sis, but other than that, she’s thrilled to jump into her big girl bed each night and snuggle in.

Throughout the day, I will also periodically find Lucy sitting on her new bed playing.  Sometimes, just hanging out.  Other times, bringing characters to play using the castle headboard.  

Overall, we absolutely adore Lucy’s new Simplay3 Castle Headboard big girl bed.  She couldn’t be happier and has been sleeping much better these nights!  So tell me, do you have any additional tips for how to make bedtime transitions easier?

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Looking for how to make bedtime transitions easier in your home?  Then enter to win your very own Simplay3 Castle Headboard!  Open to the Continental US only, just enter the widget below for your chance.  Good luck!