Quiet activity time
Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.
It's no secret that we're a device heavy house. The kids get more screen time than they probably should but HEY, I am pretty bad about it myself sooooo.
But in order to get the kids headed towards bed, devices are down at 8:30; it's a half hour of quiet activity time, and then reading time. It's doing some good things for the kids; they're definitely relaxing more before trying to get to sleep, which is a good thing.
It's working well enough for R that he is getting upset when he *doesn't* get quiet activity time. In fact, he's started asking if he can put his device down sooner and have quiet activity time.
Quiet activity time is stuff like coloring, playing with toys (also means at least 5 minutes of cleanup time), other small non-messy crafts, etc. Last night I pulled out one of the puzzle mats one of the kids got at some point, and got out an easy jigsaw puzzle. Apparently this was a GREAT IDEA. It was the right size to take about a half hour for the kids and I to put together (mostly because they still don't grasp the basics of how jigsaw puzzles work.)
I may have to keep doing puzzles - maybe one night a week or something. We have puzzle storage mats! We can store uncompleted ones and everything!