Tips On Getting Your Children Back Into A Routine After Christmas
If you have children, then once the beginning of December comes around it is difficult not to get caught up in the Christmas madness. There is the run-up to the big day itself, which is likely to be filled with Christmas plays, parties and fairs, while the actual holiday period can be a merry-go-round of visiting, hosting visitors, late nights and upheaval for your little ones, with no time to even read a book from a bookcase. So getting them back into a normal routine once Christmas is over will be a high priority. Follow some of our tips below to help you not only get your children back to normality but to encourage them to embrace it.
Healthy Living
Always associated with Christmas is over-indulgence in food and drink that we would not normally be having. One way to pull children back to normality is to start the new year with some healthy eating, but in order for them to embrace the idea, it needs to be fun as well as healthy. If they take packed lunches to school, then try to add a healthy twist by using creative ways of giving them fruit and vegetables. It may be that children received outdoor toys such as bikes and scooters for Christmas. If this is the case, then these are great reasons to get outdoors and get some exercise.Re-introducing a Routine
The re-introduction of a routine, particularly for school, is something that can prove difficult after the excitement of the Christmas holidays. The main thing is getting children used to having a day with some sort of structure, as well as getting them back into the habit of going to bed at their normal bedtime. The routine can be disrupted not only because of Christmas itself but also because you may have had relatives staying over and people visiting, or you might have been away on holiday for Christmas. The best way to restart the routine is to begin a few days before school is due to start. Try to have a couple of days where breakfast is at a similar time as it would be on a regular week day, and then try making sure everyone gets dressed at a decent hour. Follow this by maybe having a day out. This will provide an opportunity to draw everyone away from the television and computer games and get them used to being out of the house. Bedtime will always be the most difficult to get right after a period of disruption. Starting earlier bedtimes in the couple of days running up to the return to school is a good idea, and rewarding good bedtime behaviour once school goes back may be worth considering. A bedtime story is a great way to settle a child ready for bed. Investing in a bookcase for kids from Children’s Bed Shop to fill with imaginative bedtime stories will make bedtime more exciting for even the most difficult of children.Hopefully, this has provided some useful ideas for returning to normality after the Christmas madness.