Diana Rene: 0:00

You're listening to The Decluttered Mom Podcast. a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene. And in 2017, I had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home. Okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom's And I'm here to share all the tips, tricks, and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Decluttered Mom Podcast. 

My name is Diana Rene and I am your host. And today we are going to talk about something called digital bedtime. And this is something that my kids and I have been implementing. We actually started it in the spring and then over the summer we kind of let it go. And that was because they had much later bedtimes over the summer. It's really interesting because I just for as long as I can remember as being a mom. It always felt like no matter how late I let my kids stay up, whether it was for an event or a special occasion or anything like that, they always got up early the next day. And it was like, ugh, we can't do anything late. Even just going to fireworks or something like that, and they go to bed late, and then they're always still up at the same time, sometimes even earlier because they're overtired. And it felt like that would never change well this was the first summer my girls are 8 and 11 this was the first summer that they actually would sleep in which was really nice because I am a night owl and that rhythm would works really well for me and so they would stay up anywhere between like 9 30 and 10 30 sometimes 11 but they would sleep in until like 9 or 9 30 and sometimes 10 like it was just it was like a totally different experience for me so it if you are in the trenches with like babies or toddlers who are always up at like 6 a.m. no matter what, I just wanted to give you that little glimmer of hope that it will not always be that way. They will sleep in one day. 

And I'm sure when they're, you know, like full on teenagers sleeping till two in the afternoon, I might feel different. But for now, like it was a very nice and welcome change this summer. So anyway, so we got away from this over the summer is my point. But in the spring, we started this maybe when there was like probably about two months left in the school year and then we re-implemented it once we hit this school year and it's been so helpful. So what we call it is a digital bedtime and basically it means that at a set time, whether that is a set time like an actual time like 7 p.m. or it's like a set time in your routine, which is kind of more what we've been doing because every evening is different depending depending on what after-school activities or homework levels or things like that is going on. So for us, it's after dinner. So anytime we are done with dinner is when we start digital bedtime. And what it means simply is that we plug in and turn off our devices. I have obviously my phone. My kids do not have phones, but they both have an iPad. And so at digital bedtime, they They plug those in, they turn those off, and then that way for the rest of the evening, we don't have these devices that are stealing our time, attention, energy, all of the above. 

For me, I will some nights get it back out, like after they go to bed, because if I have to work or something like that, then I will need my phone. But I've been really trying to, for the most part, I've really been trying to just let it be off for the rest of the night. Because I I just do just like my nervous system thanks me if I will just read and go to bed earlier instead of getting that back out and working and staying up until two or three in the morning working. And so I've been really trying to do that, but I will say sometimes I do get it back out, but I do not get it back out until after they are in bed so that that way it's just like the whole home environment feels less connected to the outside world during that time. And it's just been really interesting to see what that has done for us. It's kind of silly in a way. It's like, oh, we have to shut down these things in order for them to not distract us and dominate our lives. But I'm just being honest. And that's just kind of where we are. I think all of us have some level of screen addiction. But it's just if my phone is on, I just have an automatic response to picking it up. for like no reason like sometimes I'll like pick up my phone and I'll like start scrolling and I'm like why am I doing like I don't even this isn't even interesting to me right now it's not even fun and I'm still doing it and I don't I don't want them to develop that and I don't really know how to stop that fully just because technology is like such a part of everyday lives in every way at this point but if I can learn how to myself shut it down in the evening and have a more like tech free evening not only model that for them but teach myself how to do that because it's like it's a struggle like it's something I have to learn how to do then hopefully maybe that can be something that they take from it as they grow you know as they grow up they can also continue to do this and it just be something like that they do because mom always did it and that's just what we did so that's my hope I guess so the reason we started doing it is that I just this felt like in the spring it just felt like bedtime was like rushed like it felt like we were just like constantly like I was like come on you guys like do this and this and this and things weren't getting done in time and things were getting forgotten and then like everyone was getting frustrated and there were more like meltdowns and also they were just getting to bed late like every night and I was like what like why is this happening and so I really like sat down to think of And I was like, it's the freaking screens. Like it's, it's, you know, my 11 year old, we let her text with a couple of friends.

We don't let her text just anyone. We, there's like, I think four, four girls that we let her text. And so she will text with them and she FaceTimes with them. And then my eight year old, we don't let her text any friends, but she is allowed to FaceTime a couple of friends and she is allowed to text like grandma and Nana. So. She will do that a lot because they are the people that she gets to text. So but for her, it's more like games or she's really into she has the art for kids hub app. So she will sit there and she could do that for like eight hours in a row if I let her where she just draws. And so she has that. And then my 11 year old is texting friends and I was finding and then me myself, I was getting sucked into either work. or scrolling on TikTok or scrolling on Instagram or, you know, like there's like a bajillion things that I can get sucked into on my phone. And so I would get sucked into it and I would forget about like, oh, shoot, it's 730. I need to like showers should have already happened and they haven't even started. And it just felt like we were letting screens dominate and dictate how our evenings were going to go. And I was sick of it. So we started digital bedtime, everything gets plugged in, everything's off. 

And if you're like, I can't turn off my phone because if there's an emergency and someone needs to get ahold of me, I had the same feeling. So we actually got a landline for our house. And so if it's after digital bedtime and I need to go to the store or something, yes, I'm going to bring my phone and have it on because I have to be accessible if something happened. But if I'm home, then the phone is off and the people in my life my mom and my sister and you know like people that would need to get a hold of me in an emergency know my landline phone number and can call the landline if there's an emergency and that's actually it's nice too because then I can just have my phone off all night because even if it's 2am and there's an emergency like I will wake up to our landline ringing because nobody ever calls it so if anyone does call I'm like what in the world who's calling so we do have that it's I don't remember I think it was like $16 a month. It was annoying to add an extra expense, but also it wasn't insane, like an insanely high number. And I just got the cordless phones. I think we got like a three pack of them for whatever. I don't remember how much, but I just got them on Amazon. So it was pretty simple to set up. And it's just nice to be able to then have a little more freedom with what I choose to do with my electronics based on just having that as like a backup safety net when it comes to emergencies. So all of the devices go off. And like I said, for us, for our routine, it's right after dinner. So when they're done with dinner, everything is turned off. And if they like have one, like if I, if Ms. 11 really wants to text one friend, one thing, like I will let her obviously, then I'm like, okay, do your lot. Like I'll give them like a five minute heads up. You have five minutes. We turn them off. We plug them in. And then that way we have the last for us by the end of dinner. It again depends on the night. Some nights dinner's done and they have like two hours until bedtime. Other nights like there was multiple practices and we didn't even get home until it was time to eat. So dinner was late and like it's dinner. It's like bedtime right when they're done with dinner. And so it just depends on that. But that's why we chose the routine time instead of like an actual set time on the schedule. But if your kids are younger, like it might make more sense if they're not in a bunch of afterschool activities or sports, it might make sense to have like a set time, like 7 PM. 

And so once the devices are off, we have this time to just like spend together or get the things done that we need to get done. And it's just amazing how much quicker things happen when we don't have our devices. Like even just doing like PM pickup, or just them getting ready for bed, honestly goes so much faster because they're just focused on what they're actually doing versus getting distracted or me getting distracted. You know, like they're doing something, they need my help, but I'm distracted. So I say, hold on. And then it's next thing we know it's 25 minutes later, they still need help. They're still stalled in what they're doing to get ready for bed because I had to have them hold on because I got distracted by a work thing on my phone. And so it's been really, really interesting to see how much smoother just like a bedtime and evening routines go like they're able to just like go right through their list they need to get done for their backpacks for tomorrow and for just getting themselves ready and taking showers and being ready for bed and another thing that I have really really enjoyed and just like treasured is that we get way more reading time and we just do it together so like now we just have like this set amount of time before bed, at least 20 minutes, but most of the time it ends up being much longer where the girls and I will sit in my ginormous recliner that rocks and which I don't know if you saw on my Instagram stories, but I have this huge, I got this huge recliner. It's like twice the size of a regular recliner. 

And I got it because as my girls are getting older, I get sad that I can't like sit with them in the same chair anymore because we don't fit and so I took them to a store and we sat in it to make sure that all three of us fit and it's tight but we all fit and it's just been it does not fit my room at all like it does not fit the space it is not like the cutest chair in the world but I'm like I don't care like I want to hold on to them being able to like sit with me as long as possible so we have this chair and we just read together we all have we each have a book and And we just silently read, but we're together. And it's just been a really nice way to end our days. It feels like it's like a connection point. Sometimes Miss 11 will read while Miss 8 reads out loud to me. But it's just been really, it feels like all of our nervous systems are more settled as we go to sleep. I wish I could say I sleep better, but I don't. I don't for whatever reason. Apparently, screens is not what makes me not sleep well, but I sleep about the same. I will say, though, that the girls sleep better when we are consistently doing this. I do notice a difference in their ability to fall asleep, especially. They're able to fall asleep quicker if we do this versus if they're on iPads right up until bedtime. And I don't know that it's necessarily a visually stimulating thing from the Bluetooth light or anything like that. 

I think it's just that they're able to like disconnect and calm their nervous systems a bit more before they go to sleep. And so this isn't like groundbreaking idea. This is not like, oh my gosh, you just turn off your devices a little bit early. It sounds silly when you say it, but it's just not something that we ever did until now. And maybe you do. And maybe you're like, Diana, this is insane that you think this is so great, but it's just been so, so helpful. And I don't know, like now I'm even like next summer, I want to find a way to still do it somehow because it's just been so helpful in so many ways. And so deal my idea, do the digital bedtime. If you've never tried it before, just give it a shot. You might get pushback. My girls, my oldest pushed back a little bit just because, you know, she really enjoys chatting with her friends. But once we start doing it she was good with it like I think she realized she realized she got more time for reading number one which is like she loves to read and so that was helpful but I also think she just noticed how it feels different and my youngest was like all for it so you might get pushback but if you do just try it just you know talk to them about why you want to do it and honestly like something that was interesting to them was the fact that I was doing it with them I think it would have been very different if I was just enforcing it for them. 

But the fact that I was also doing it, I think, made them feel more excited about the idea and also made it feel more fair in their eyes, I guess, which, you know, I just think it was, I think that is an important aspect is like you could just have your kids do it, but I think it adds a new sense of just connection and like teaming up. team and also it's just it's just a different environment in the house like when nobody has their phone or ipad or anything like that connected to them for a couple hours it just feels different than when everybody is looking at screens and not communicating with each other so again i hope this is helpful um but it's been something that i've really enjoyed and hopefully we will continue to do and i will keep you posted if you know we make any changes changes to it that are good or bad or we end up changing anything or tweaking anything I will let you know but it's just been something that has been really great for us 

I hope this was helpful and we will see you next week on The Decluttered Mom podcast thanks for hanging out and listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast if you enjoyed this episode it would mean the world if you could write a review or share this episode with a friend or your Instagram stories and if you're on Instagram be sure to follow me at the I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. I hope you'll come back next week and hang out with us again.