Praise God for a good bedtime tonight! After nearly a week of disastrous bedtimes, my little ones were so overtired. We spent the afternoon and evening at a friend’s house. The kids all played outside for 3 hours, and we even had dinner outside. They all played so nicely together, so it was a great break for the mommies.

When we arrived home, the crying began. I decided that we were doing things differently tonight since bedtime for the last week or so has been so awful.

• I let the kids sleep in the same bed for one thing. They both seem genuinely afraid otherwise.
• We also skipped most of our usual routine to shorten the time it took to get through it.
• We prayed that God would help C4 to feel safe and to have good thoughts.
• I recited a couple of memory verses quietly after we prayed.
• C4 has sensory processing disorder, and deep pressure is a calming activity. Basically, I used the stuffed animals (lovies) and squeezed them around C4. Historically, this has not been effective, but when you are desperate, you try anything. What do you know – it worked! I applied deep pressure until both of the kids were asleep.
• While applying deep pressure, I quietly sang some of our favorite songs.

It took roughly 15-20 minutes for both kids to fall asleep. I know that keeping routines is important to kids with SPD, but I think now we are changing the routine based on bedtime tonight.