Quiet Time/Time Out

I love when I get inspired to tweak and change things here and there to make family life better.

"Quiet time" used to be a time of day that I looked forward to but for the last year...it's been miserable. I had this idea in my head that nap time was going to be two hours every day... no matter what! but obviously that hasn't been working out very well, for anyone.

I am trying something new. "Quiet time" is now only one hour and they spend 30 minutes in their own rooms the first part and the second part they can play together in a room IF they stayed in their room the first 30 minutes. It's only been two days and so far it seems to be working pretty well. Two hours was too long and honestly...it never really was two hours like I would have liked. I ended up giving up after an hour and 15 min or so because it was driving me crazy with them always coming out of their rooms.

Also... we are starting the bed time process at 6:30 pm. We'll brush teeth, get pajamas on and all that and then for the next 30/60 min they will play in their room and then at 7:30 pm I'll go in (Justin too, if he is home), read a story, pray, tuck them in and turn off the lights.

I desire for bedtime to be more of a calming, happy experience for everyone rather than a rushed...unhappy experience.

Another thing that has been improving is time outs. One of my biggest flaws in parenting is being consistence...which is why we are in the hot mess that we are in. Anyway.... I have finally decided that time out is in the bathroom (it used to be in their bedroom but making their bedroom "the bad place" was not a good idea). If they are fighting and being yucky or saying mean things, then they will get a time out in the bathroom for 5 minutes. If they kick the door and yell and say yucky mean things then they will be in there for 10 minutes. They can not come out until they are ready to be nice so if after the 5/10 minutes are up and they are still being mean, then they will have another 2/3 minutes in the bathroom to work on being nice. It's only been a couple of days for this but I am feeling really good about how it is going. I am hoping that we can just get to the point where time outs are not even necessary but by golly gum, if there are days where the kids having to LIVE in the bathroom then so be it.

I am feeling hopeful that our family is moving in the right direction. :)

I am open for feedback and I'd love to hear what works best for YOU so let me at it! I am ALL about opinions and advice.