This little summer bedtime hack is short, sweet and TOTALLY worth sharing.

While I absolutely love these long days with the water play, flowers, sunshine and warm evenings in the backyard, I have also been struggling to get my girls to bed at a reasonable hour. Their bedroom windows face west, which makes for some bright, hot evenings! No wonder they are having trouble getting to sleep. The other day I was lamenting about this issue with a friend and she said that her kids are asleep by 7 or 7:30. WHAT?! How? She blacks out their windows- Flippin’. Brilliant.

When she said this I had a “why didn’t I think of doing that?” moment. So… that afternoon I did it. It was easy, fun and the results have been AMAZING.

Supplies needed- cardboard (I up-cycled some used boxes), measuring tape, a box cutter, tape (both packing tape -to hang up- and clear tape for wrapping) and some wrapping paper (I let the girls pick out their own from the dollar store.)

Step 1- I measured the windows I wanted to blackout.

Step 2- I measured the cardboard to cover the windows and cut it with the box cutter to fit.

Step 3- I wrapped the cardboard with the wrapping paper. I folded the paper and taped it- just like a present! Gloria helped 🙂

Step 4- I used the packing tape to tape the coverings over the window.

Step 5- We all enjoyed!

The total cost here was about $7.00 and it took about 2 hours- including the trip to the dollar store. Not bad, not bad. Both girls were happily asleep by 7:30 pm because their bedrooms were dark and considerably cooler. It was wonderful. I had a glass of wine on the back patio and watched some TV. Now that is what I call a nice end to a long day!

Cheers!