By Matt | March 16, 2020

The older I get, the more I realize how important sleep is. My kids need it. I need it. My wife definitely needs it (sorry dear, but you are not fun to be around when you don’t sleep).

Over the past few months, my wife and I have been focusing on getting enough sleep and also making sure it’s quality sleep. Now that our youngest child is 9 years old, we don’t have as many sleepless nights due to kids trying to escape closet monsters or teething toddlers.

Instead, they’ve been replaced by random nights of insomnia, staying up way too late getting lost in Seinfeld reruns or just having life’s thoughts bouncing around in our heads.

So I’m teaming up with Circle Parental Controls to share what my wife and I have done to help make sure we get the best sleep possible. (My wife is sharing what we’ve been doing to help our kids get great sleep, so be sure to check there for tips on helping tweens and teens get better sleep.)

Tips for Better Sleep Habits for Parents

Exercise

One of the most important things I’ve found for my own sleep is finding the time to exercise at some point during the day. Ideally this means at least an hour of intensity at the gym, but some days, that’s just not possible. Some speed laps around the work campus or a quick 30-minute jog after work are better than nothing and can have a significant impact on my quality of sleep at night.

Sauna (or Self Care)

A few years ago, I bought my wife a sauna for her birthday. (It’s amazing what you can find at Costco). It sits in our basement, and most nights we take turns sitting in the heat for 30-40 minutes. Whether you sit in the sauna, meditate, take a walk with the dog or just find some time to read a good book, taking time for yourself during the day can help you sleep better at night.

Make a Connection

My wife and I are a lot like everyone else. We value family time, but we can also find ourselves lost in our phones or devices all too often. With Circle Home Plus, we have been able to pause all internet during important family times (like dinner or when I dominate everyone in a game of Sorry). Spending quality time with my family (even if time is limited) helps me to destress from my day.

Set a Stop time for Work

Between my day job and writing, I often hop online after the kids are in bed to get a little work done. This actually helps me feel less stressed when I head to bed, but there’s a fine line between finishing a critical assignment and spending too much time trying to organize my never-ending inbox. I’m fairly disciplined about working for a set amount of time (and my wife is good at reminding me to shut things down), but I can also use the Circle Parental Controls app to limit my evening work time.

Put Down the Devices

For me, personally, the number one thing that has helped my sleep the most is consistently getting into bed every night at 10pm. It’s amazing as parents how structured bedtime is with our children, while being an exercise in randomness for us adults. This used to be hard to do, but once I started getting in bed at 10pm, my body and mind were able to follow suit. The Circle app has helped reinforce this. I have my own bedtime set at 10pm (You can create a profile for everyone in your house and link each device to a person. With my profile, I have it set to put all of my devices to bed at 10pm. It works like a charm.)

Do whatever you need to do

My wife is into weighted blankets and diffusing essential oils, taking a nightly shower before bed and making sure our bedroom stays nice and cool all night long. Find out what sleep aids help you the most and use them consistently.

Why Our Family Loves Circle

When my wife brought Circle Parental Controls into our house, I was not overly enthusiastic about yet another gadget.

But I have to say that I’m impressed.

Circle Home Plus is an easy and automatic way for us to manage content and time online for Wi-Fi devices at home and mobile devices across all networks – all from one simple app.

We can pause the internet on all devices, set time limits for our kids (and ourselves), set bedtimes for our devices and even create rewards for our kids.

We set everything up quickly and were able to assign devices to each of our kids with corresponding time limits and clear parameters for what they are (and AREN’T) allowed to do on their devices. We can even see what websites they visited during their screentime.

I’ve even noticed that our kids are much more willing to help out around the house when they can earn some extra screentime as a reward (which can be managed through the Circle app.)

We’re enjoying quality time as a family and fighting less about screens thanks to Circle.

Click here for more information on Circle Home Plus to see if it would be a great fit for your family too.

Sleep Tips for Tweens and Teens

Looking for more great sleep tips? Visit my wife over at My Life and Kids where she’s sharing what we’re doing to help our three kids sleep better (and how Circle is helping us too). Click here to read it all.

This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.