Night Time Routine for Moms in 7 Easy Steps

In order to have a good day, we need to have a good night’s sleep. A good night’s sleep can happen as little or as often as we let it based on the night time routine we have put in place.

We all have night time routines, whether we intentionally or unintentionally put them in place. Reflect on what your current night time routine consists of and see if you can improve it so you can set up your next day for success.

As moms, sleep is crucial to keep us going each day. Without that nightly recharge, we start running on fumes. We become a person we don’t recognize. Then comes the guilt of not being who we want to be for our kids, worrying about being bad examples to our kids, losing our temper and not enjoying motherhood. 

Prioritizing sleep will help you become the mom and individual you want to become while finding joy in motherhood – yes, even during the hard moments in motherhood. Filling up your cup first is the most important thing you can do as a mom, and that starts with the night routine you have in place.

What are Night Time Routines?

Night routines are habits that you’ve formed to do before you go to bed. By following the same routine every night, your brain starts to associate those habits with sleep which will help you fall asleep faster and let you get the most out of your sleep.

7 Steps to Create a Night Time Routine for Moms

Below are seven steps you can implement to your nightly routine to increase your sleep hygiene. Try one thing out at a time, and build up to having the perfect night routine.

1. Have a consistent sleep schedule

• Go to bed and wake up at the same time, even on weekends. (Give yourself grace if you have a newborn as your sleep will be all over the place.) This helps sync up your circadian rhythm so you can fall asleep faster each night.
• Make your bed first thing in the morning – doing something productive the first thing in the morning sets up the rest of your day for success. It may seem small and insignificant, but doing the small and meaningless stuff is what gives us the big results we want.

2. Turn off electronics

• Get off your phone one hour before bed
  • Set a bedtime alarm on your phone – when my bedtime mode is on, my phone goes grayscale and it bugs me enough that I stop using my phone. Great visual reminder to put my phone away.
  • Set restrictions to stop scrolling on your phone
    • Install an app on your phone and have someone else set the password so you can’t add time to an app after the allotted time.
• Turn on Do Not Disturb mode so you don’t get any notifications that make you want to look at your phone.

3. Brain Dump

• Write down everything that is in your head, so your brain can let go of it.
• Use your brain dump list to create your “To Do” list for the day tomorrow. Schedule 5 things that you will do the next day and one of them has to be something you want to do for yourself guilt free because it’s on your schedule (i.e read a book, do your nails, watch a show, etc)

4. Gratitude Journal/Reflect on your Day

• Think about your day and tell yourself or your spouse what the highlight of your day was and what things you were grateful for. If sharing with a spouse, then you can ask them what their highlight of the day was.
• Write down 5 things you were grateful for that day. When you make this a habit, you will go throughout your day trying to find the positive things that happen to you each day. When we focus on the positive things, instead of everything that went wrong, we feel better about ourselves.

5. Unwind and relax

• Read a book
• Talk with your spouse while cuddling
• Marco Polo your girlfriends
• Listen to music/podcast/book
• Take a bath
• Do your nails while watching a movie

6. Create a Relaxing Bedtime Routine

• Turn on relaxing music while getting ready for bed – create sleepy environment
  • Brush teeth and skincare routine
  • Set out clothes for the next day – workout clothes and normal day clothes so your brain doesn’t have to think about it first thing in the morning.
  • Hug and kiss your spouse goodnight

7. Get in a bed that’s already made

There’s just something about crawling into an already made bed that  makes you feel like you conquered the world that day. The sheets just wanna wrap you up in a big hug and say, “You won today! You showed up and conquered the world! I’m so proud of you. Now let’s get some sleep so we can conquer the world tomorrow!”.

Night Time Routines Set You Up for Success

You can follow some or none of these suggestions. What matters most is that you set up a night time routine that serves you best. It can take as long or as little time as you want. As long as it’s serving you and setting you up for tomorrow, that is all that matters. What step(s) are you going to implement in your night time routine?