Asleep in Minutes… Bedtime the Danish Way

Asleep in Minutes… Bedtime the Danish Way

Hygge has made its way into homes all around the world lately and the Danish way of doing things is widely talked about. Bedtime is no different!

The Children’s Meditations in My Heart by Gitte Winter Graugaard is a collection of meditations designed to help children drift off to sleep within minutes. It became a hit in Denmark straight away and is now available in English here in the UK as a beautifully illustrated hard-back book.

The book contains the secret method that gets kids to fall asleep… The book is a collection of four meditations for parents to read to their children. The book shows parents how to teach their child the importance of self-esteem and self-love, enabling them to drift off into calming, reparative sleep with their hearts full with love.

It’s a lovely idea and the book is very relaxing to read and to listen to and there’s lots of helpful tips in the introduction and ideas for things to discuss with your kids. I think it’s a great book to read with your children to help them wind down at the end of the day and believe it will be especially effective with school age children.

“Now more than ever our children are bombarded with messages, overt and subliminal, wrangling with expectations both perceived and real, which when coupled with the casualties of modern living, stressed and divorced parents, stressed and still together parents, over-scheduling and long school days, can greatly impact on their mental wellbeing: more children than ever before suffer with stress, depression, anxiety and sadness. “

Many kids struggle to fall asleep when feeling like this and generally kids sleep an hour less today than they (we!) did 25 years ago. Sleep is of course very important to all of us but especially for growing and developing children.

Asked why she thinks meditation before bedtime is key to overcoming anxiety in children and the pre-slumber ‘stand-off’, Graugaard draws on her own experiences as a parent:

“When I started sharing beautiful heart meditations with my daughters, I was surprised to see how much they loved the interaction and how quickly they would fall asleep. As different as children are, almost every child delights in hearing about how much a parent or caregiver loves and treasures them. Even teenagers – to my surprise! – seem to be calmed by hearing the meditations in the book read aloud. However, the best part is that your child learns to fill his or her own heart with love. And learning how to turn up their self-love has shown to give children so much comfort long into the following day too, at nursery or school and beyond.”

She saw the positive effect on her own children and decided to write the meditations down to share them with other parents and children.

The Children’s Meditations in My Heart is available from Amazon.co.uk priced £14.95 for a hard copy, £4.97 for a Kindle copy, and £5.09 for a PDF download from www.roomforreflection.com.

The Children’s Meditations In my Heart – Getting Started

“Self-esteem and self-love are invaluable resources in life that we need to teach our children to help them deal with all the messages they receive from society and screens, and to help them recharge,” Gitte Winter Graugaard

Her method is simple: become a present, loving and calm parent at bedtime, bring out the best in yourself, and through inner peace, love and self-love, encourage your child to do the same.

1. Pick a time when you feel good and have energy to help your child deal with a new method to fall asleep.
2. Stay calm and loving in your energy even if your child has difficulties with the new method. Your energy, mood and way of communicating with your child highly affect how quickly he/she calms down.
3. Turn off all screens two hours before bedtime.
4. Lay down next to your child and show him/her you have time to read the book in a calm and cosy way. Snuggle up. And if you fall asleep yourself, you might need just that.
5. Talk to your child about the experience with meditation. Listen – there is a lot to learn. Encourage your child to draw the images or feelings he/she sees or experiences during meditation.

“Enjoy the ride to heartland with your child. My experience is that many children have a much easier time meditating to their hearts than adults. And in many ways children can help their parents turn up the love for themselves as well. I always encourage parents to pay attention to their child in meditation and learn from them,” says Graugaard.

We were provided with a copy of the book for this post. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.