Keeping some routine in the summer holidays

Pick two anchor points and let everything else float

Before the holidays begin, decide on two things that will not move much. The first is the time your child gets up, give or take half an hour. The second is the moment the wind-down starts. Everything between those two points can stretch. Lunch can be at two. The afternoon can be a long one at the park. Bedtime can drift a little and nobody panics.

Write both down and put them somewhere you will actually see them, because in week three you will not remember what you decided in July. Keep them broad. Up between seven and half past is a rule you can hold. Up at seven twelve is not.

Families with two households, shift work, or grandparents covering some evenings need the anchors agreed out loud, and it helps to keep them few. If your child spends a week at a grandparent's house and comes back on a different rhythm, that is not a failure of the plan. You are aiming for a shape, not a timetable. A shape can be redrawn in a day. A timetable makes everyone feel behind.

The wind-down stays the same even when the clock moves

Children this age cope with a later bedtime far better when the steps before it are familiar. The order matters more than the time. In our house it was bath, teeth, stories, light off, and that order survived every late night of the summer.

Keep the last twenty minutes quiet and roughly the same each night, whatever time it starts. If screens are off before the wind-down in your house, say it once at the start rather than negotiating it five times. A sentence like, we are late tonight, so it is stories and straight to bed, no bath, gives a child the whole evening in one go. They settle better when they know what is coming.

A calm story at the end is a useful signal that the day is finished, and it travels well. The same book, or something from a collection of shorter bedtime stories, does the same job whether it is eight o'clock or nine. When the evening has been long and everyone is frayed, a fifteen minute story gives you a landing place that does not depend on the clock on the wall.

Late nights work better when you plan them out loud

Friday we are staying up for the fireworks works far better than a bedtime that quietly slides because nobody said no. Pick the late nights on purpose, tell your child when they are, and let them feel a bit special. Hot chocolate, a film, a walk while it is still light outside.

Two things make a late night easier to recover from. Try not to put two in a row, and keep the wind-down steps in place on the night itself, so the later bedtime still ends with something familiar. Then plan the morning: a slow start, a quieter hour after lunch, an earlier bath.

Expect the day after to be wobbly. That is the cost of the treat, and it is usually worth paying. What makes it worse is treating the wobble as naughtiness. A child who is overtired is not giving you a hard time on purpose. Keep the day small, get outdoors if you can, and put the next bedtime back to the usual time rather than pushing it later to make up for a difficult day.

Keep wake times roughly steady and bedtime looks after itself

This is the anchor that does most of the work. Bedtime can move. Getting up is what holds the rest of the day in place. A window of half an hour suits most families, so out of bed between seven and half past, rather than a fixed minute.

Open the curtains when you go in, have breakfast at roughly the same time, and set an alarm for yourself if you are the one who needs it. Summer mornings are bright and early, and plenty of children wake with the light. Darker curtains help a little, and so does a clock that shows when it is morning.

If your child sleeps until nine some mornings, that is not a disaster. Just do not let it become the pattern for a week, because the evening will move later by itself and you will feel it by Friday. After a late night, allow the lie in, then go back to the window the next day. Weekends drift, and that is fine. The aim is that Monday still looks something like Tuesday.

Long days outside, then a slow last hour

A day with plenty of running about, water, sand and grass tends to make the evening easier. Many parents find that children who have spent a good chunk of the day outdoors settle more readily at bedtime. It is not a switch, and it will not rescue a bedtime that has already drifted by two hours, but it helps.

The other half is the slow hour. Summer evenings are bright, the whole street is still out, and nobody wants to come in. Decide on a time to come indoors and keep it the same where you can. Then make the house boring: lights low, screens away, something quiet to do. Drawing, building, a bath with no rush.

If your child is wired after a big day, a story can slow things down when your own patience has run out. That is what the fifteen minute stories are for. Try to spend that last hour in the same room, doing the same thing, so the shape of the evening is predictable even when the day was not. Predictable is what does the work. Early or late matters less than the same steps in the same order.

Shifting back before school starts

Start a week or two before term begins. Earlier if your child has drifted by several hours, because you want small steps rather than one big jump on the night before.

Move the wake time and the bedtime earlier by fifteen or twenty minutes every few nights, and keep everything else the same. Put the wind-down at the new time too, so the whole evening shifts together. If your child is coping well, move a little faster. If the days are hard, hold at the same time for a few nights before moving again. Children notice small changes far less than big ones.

In the last week, add back the school shape: bags by the door, clothes out, breakfast at the school time. Two practice mornings help more than a talk about the first day.

Do not expect the first week of term to be smooth. It rarely is, and the wobble passes. If your child is still struggling with sleep several weeks after the start, or you are worried about how much they are sleeping, it is worth talking to their doctor.

When it has all gone sideways

Every summer has a stretch where it falls apart. A heatwave, a holiday, a run of late nights, and suddenly bedtime is ten o'clock and getting up is a battle. You do not need to fix it in one evening.

Pick a day with nothing much in it. Get everyone up at the anchor time, even if the night was short. Go outside in the morning. Keep the wind-down at the usual length. Put the lights low an hour before bed and let the evening be dull.

The next day, do the same. Two or three of those days usually bring the shape back. If the first attempt does not take, look for what is pulling against you: a bright bedroom, a sibling still up, a screen that keeps getting handed back. Fix one of those rather than trying to fix everything at once.

It also helps to say the plan out loud to your child in the morning, not at bedtime. Something like, tonight we are back to our usual wind-down, and I will read to you after teeth. A child who has heard it once during the day argues less about it at nine at night.

A routine that can survive the holidays

The routine that works in summer is small. Two anchors, a wind-down that does not change order, late nights chosen in advance, and a story at the end. That is enough to hold the shape of the day together when the days themselves are long and shapeless.

None of it is a promise that every night will go well. Some will not, and you will start again the next day, which is what everyone does. The point is that you know where to start again from, and it takes a day rather than a fortnight to get back.

A calm story at the end of a summer evening helps, whether it comes from a book you have read forty times or from something shorter off StoryChoose, which has free bedtime stories and can write personalised ones if your child wants to be in the story. Either way, you get a quiet ending, and so do they.