A couple of weeks ago I blogged about how our kids’ early bedtimes work for us. Today I thought I’d share how we manage to keep early bedtimes when we are away from home.

My husband and I lead a weekly small group, which meets at another family’s home. This one area alone makes bedtimes a challenge – do you keep them up and hope they don’t completely fall apart every week? Do you get a sitter? (We can’t afford to do that… and unfortunately don’t have family nearby.)

What has worked for us is getting them used to sleeping in other places – as soon as they had a regular bedtime, we would put them down wherever we were! We made the pack-n-play our good friend and always have it in the car. Now that AG is older, she has graduated to a sleeping bag. (We have a child-sized sleeping bag from LL Bean, which we really like because it came with a zippered carrybag.)

How does this work? Here are my biggest pointers.

1. Keep your bedtime routine simple at home so that it is doable away from home. We change diaper/ go potty, sing one song, and lights out.

2. Have a “lovey” that you take with you wherever you go, even before they really care about it. I think having something familiar with them is helpful. (We like “My banky” blankets)

3. For us, the same rules applied somewhere else as at home: if it’s bedtime, it’s bedtime. Don’t be afraid to let them cry for a while – being in an unfamiliar place will take them a while to adjust to, but you want to set the precedent that they will go to sleep there, not that you will come get them if they cry. We would warn our friends that they might cry and that they were ok.

After three years of doing this, our kids rarely have a problem going to sleep wherever we put them – AG, being a 3 year old who loves routine, actually gets upset if we decide to keep her up and she doesn’t get to go to sleep at small group!

It has been great for us – we have rested children, we can have small group without them being a distraction… and we can go to friends’ houses and have a social life while they sleep upstairs! Beauty!

People are always amazed and say that we are lucky and that their kids would never do that… but if you never do it, of course they won’t!! It has really worked for us!