Tea Time for Toddlers

We are struggling right now with bed time.   Johann has always gone to bed by gathering all of his soft animals together, hearing a story or two, and then listening to some quiet music.  I don't remember him giving me any trouble at all - even as an infant, he seemed to enjoy his time alone.  His quiet time.

Then came -

And our bed time routine was flipped on it's head, and stepped on, and then thrown in the trash.  George does not care for being quiet, or "settling down,"  or snuggling down into bed with a nice book.  None of our soothing rituals seem to work for him, and frankly, I'm grasping at any idea I can get to get him to transition to "sleepy time" more easily.  I'll take any ideas.

I remembered reading somewhere that children are people.  Interesting.  I'll have to write that down.

I'm a "people" and what I do at night is have a hot cup of tea before bed.  Because it relaxes me.  So I figured, why not?  Let's give that a try.

Thus:  "Tea Time for Toddlers" began in our home, every evening after pajamas (again - this concept is loosely translated by George into simply - take off my day time clothes) and right before story time, I'm now serving a nice warm cup of Nighty Night tea (an organic herbal tea made just for children) to both of the boys on their play table in their bedroom.  I bring it up on a special tray, with maybe a little bedtime snack too, and they drink that while we hear our story.

So far so good.  It does seem to be calming George down a bit, though he is still bouncing around quite a bit while I'm reading.  

They both seem to like the new ritual anyway - so I'll keep it up.  It is nice for us to all enjoy something which I had previously done all by myself.  I like sharing my nightly tea with my boys... whether it calms them down or not.  :)