Samantha Varvel’s Secret for Getting Kids Ready for Bed

Getting bedtime started is our current struggle at the moment given the kids’ ages. They come up with every excuse under the sun as to why they should be able to stay up just a little bit later! 

 

How to reduce bedtime stress with silly games

Making the routine a silly game helps guarantee they’ll get up to their rooms, so we’ve resorted to pretending we’re chickens chasing them up the stairs. We start clucking and they start racing between each other, bursting with laughter, and stumbling on the steps. It’s silly but, hey, it works!

My husband is the bedtime whisperer and sits with them in their room until they fall asleep. They still end up in our bed which means some low-quality sleep, but I cherish the morning snuggles. My daughter insists our cheeks stay pressed together when we snuggle which is hilarious and adorable, though not always the most comfortable. [Laughs]

 

On enjoying every kid phase, even the challenging ones

During the week we try to do one-on-one activities with each of them because that individual quality time is so important. I take Kit to a weekly mommy-daughter ballet class where she loves wearing a tutu. Peter loves treats so after school I’ll take him to get Dole whip, the Hawaiian pineapple ice cream. My daughter is obsessed with the song “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy” by Queen. They both think it’s called “Lava Boy.” Now any time we’re in the car we have to play it on repeat.

A few weeks ago we went to London, and Peter was like, “I want to see those guys with big fluffy hats. I saw them on Peppa Pig.” So we went to Buckingham Palace to see the guards and he was thrilled! We’re going on a trip to Anguilla soon and he also wants a coconut to fall on his head so it’ll crack open and he can drink it. Who knows where he got that idea from. [Laughs]

As a parent, there are times you feel like the challenging times (like having two babies under two) are going to be your reality forever. But once you get into the swing, you find they’re more independent by the day. You will look back and miss those crazy days. Everything is a phase, and that applies to the little delightful things too. Peter would call school “s-krewl.” Suddenly he’s calling it school. It’s kind of sad knowing that little idiosyncrasy is over. Whatever the wonderful or more challenging aspects are, they’re constantly changing. That’s truly the only constant of being a parent—change—so we try to fully embrace each phase.

 

Samantha Varvel is a fashion and home tastemaker. She lives with her husband, Andrew McKinley, and two children, Peter (5) and Catherine (aka Kit) (3), in Connecticut. Their interview appeared in It’s More Fun with You: 36 Families on the Everyday Magic of Raising Kids, a limited-edition book by Charmspring.