We have a pretty regular routine at our house each night. The kids get ready for bed at the same time every night, we read them some books, tuck them in and then leave. They usually play or read in their room for a while and then fall asleep. On vacation, we could not keep the normal routine and since it was a vacation we let the kids stay up later than normal and overall just got rid of the normal schedule. It worked fine on vacation and the kids had fun but now we are back home and we need to return them back to their normal schedule, but we want to do it with a minimum of fuss. Ah, the joys of parenthood.

Hope, who is 6, has flowed back into the old routine without too much effort, but Piers, who is 3, was finding it difficult to go to sleep at his old time. The first night back, he stayed up until 11:00 before finally falling asleep and then woke back up around 6:30 in the morning. He was so tired that he fell asleep around 3:00 for a couple of hours. Things did not get much better as that night he stayed up to 10:30 before falling asleep and again woke up early the next day.

So how do you get him back into his routine? We gently applied more rigidity to his schedule and also lessened his down time during the afternoon so he did not take a nap. When it came to bed time, he was almost happy to go. It took a few nights of this routine and now he is back to normal and a happy child because of it.

I think there are times in our lives when we need the same kind of gentle rigidity applied to our lives. Piers was not trying to be disobedient, he was just off and did not know how to get back on. At times we are this way. Maybe we stay up to late one night and tell ourselves that we’ll go to bed early the next day. When the next night comes we find ourselves watching a good movie or reading a book and again stay up to late. By the time Friday rolls around, we are exhausted and end up just crashing, trying to recharge our batteries. If you take the time now to make a minor adjustment, it will keep you from having to make a major one later on.

Of course, we have to notice that we need a minor adjustment. Piers just did not understand why he was so cranky during the day, but he is 3 and that is fine. We should notice that we are out of balance but often we are so involved in life that it isn’t until much later that we acknowledge it. So take a moment every few days to make a quick assessment of how you are doing and make any necessary minor adjustments before a major one is required.