As a father of two kids, a 5 year old bot and an 8 year old girl I have a lot of experience in trying to get my kids to sleep at night. I know that I have done many things wrong and I know that I have done a few things right so in this hub i really want to let you know what works for us and why to help get our kids to sleep at night.

Have rituals. One of the biggest things that you need to do is to have rituals. Living in Canada means that the sun sets in summer at 10:00 and in Winter at 5:00 so the sun is not a very good indicator of what time sleeping time is. Have an evening sleeping ritual of having a fruit snack, brushing and flossing teeth, having a drink of water, and peeing. You can make up your won system but this works for us.

Sensory Derivation. Kids will devour information. This means that if the TV is on, if you are having a conversation, if there is noise from another room, it will all keep the kids up. Try to make sure that if you read the kids a book that it is quiet, you are quiet and not too dramatic and that as much as possible the kids are quiet. If they talk you need to stop them from asking too many questions.

Lights out except the nightlight. We have a small light in the kids rooms. I am not sure if they would be scared of the dark but after we kiss the kids goodnight I want to make sure that they are not going to be scared and have an overactive imagination to keep them going later.

No food after bed. This is one that my wife and I have totally screwed up with one kid but not the other. Our son looks for food all night until he falls asleep and will not take no for an answer. Our daughter on the other hand goes to bed, reads a bit and falls asleep, No Food Necessary! Try to lay off the food after the teeth are brushed.

Finally make sure that you can break the rules occasionally but most of the time the schedule is the same. There are always times that things do not go as smoothly as we would hope. We will go out late, the kids may nap if they are exhausted or in the car too long or maybe there is some kind of excitement in the house. These are exceptions though, the most important thing to kids is an expected schedule and the more that we can give this to our kids the better they will be in the evening for sleep.