After a hard day of parenting, there’s nothing quite like that moment when your kids are asleep at last, and peace finally descends upon your home. You can collapse onto the sofa and try not think about the fact that you have to do it all again tomorrow. The trouble is, in order to reach this blissful state, you have to get them to sleep in the first place.
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Getting your kids to sleep can be a challenge, but if you own an Amazon Echo, you may just have the perfect tool to help. Here are seven ways to use your Amazon Echo to get your kids to sleep.
1Play white noise
White noise is a great way to keep your kids calm as they go to sleep and to cover up any other noises in your home that might stop them from falling asleep. There are many white noise skills available that will play a long loop of white noise that give your kids plenty of time to get to sleep. Just search for ‘white noise’ in Skills and Games on your Alexa app.
Alternatively, you may find a white noise album or playlist on yourmusic streaming service of choiceand ask Alexa to play this album on repeat. You may need to find an album or playlist with no gaps, as the white noise stopping and starting can be enough to wake light sleepers.
2Play sleep sounds
White noise can be a great way to help get your kids to sleep, but it doesn’t work for all kids. If that’s the case with your little ones, you might want to try an alternative to white noise. Once again, there are manyAlexa skillsavailable that can help. The Sleep Sounds skill has a wide range of different sleep sounds you’re able to try, many of which are free. All you need to do is ask Alexa to open Sleep Sounds to activate the skill. You can then say ‘Alexa, ask Sleep Sounds to play Rain’ or the name of the other available sounds.
Free sounds in Sleep Sounds include:
Kids love bedtime stories, and parents love reading them, right up to the point where we have to read the same story eight times in a row, because it’s the only way to get our little ones to fall asleep.
Thankfully, Alexa can take over the heavy lifting for you, and read a bedtime story for your kids to help them fall asleep. There are plenty of third-party skills that can read bedtime stories, but all you need to do is say ‘Alexa, read a bedtime story’ and Alexa will start reading a story from Audible.
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4Use your Echo as a night light
Many kids find it hard to get to sleep because they’re afraid of the dark. It’s possible to use the glowing ring on your Amazon Echo device as a night light to help your kids feel safer as they fall asleep. Just say ‘Alexa, turn on Night Light’ and the ring will start to glow on compatible devices; this won’t work on smart displays such as anEcho Show 5. The ring doesn’t give a steady light, but pulses brighter and darker, and will only glow for up to five minutes. Hopefully, that’s enough time for your child to get over their worries about the dark and start to drop off.
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If you find that five minutes isn’t long enough, you might want to consider investing in an Echo Glow. This is a separate smart lamp that you can control with Alexa, and it works perfectly as a night light for your kids. It often comes bundled with kids' Echo devices on Amazon too, if you’re looking for a bargain.
5Soothe your kids without getting out of bed
We’ve all been there as parents. Your kids are finally asleep, and you’re just about to drop off yourself when one of them wakes up and starts calling out. You get up to soothe them, but by the time they’ve gone back to sleep, you’re wide awake and can’t get to sleep yourself. Thankfully, you’re able to use an Echo device to soothe your kids and help them back to sleep without ever leaving your warm bed.
Either from anEcho devicein your own bedroom, or using the Amazon Alexa app on your phone, you can drop in on the Echo in your child’s room just by saying something like ‘Alexa, drop in on Harry’s room’ or ‘Alexa, drop in on Audrey’s Echo Dot’. This will then allow you to talk to your child through the Echo in their room, and they can talk back to you, too. Hopefully, you’ll be able to reassure them enough that they’ll go back to sleep without you having to get out of bed. You can even sing them their favorite song or tell them a story through the Echo.
6Play music until they fall asleep
According to William Congreve, music has charms to soothe a savage breast, so it should be enough to help your slightly savage kids get to sleep, too. Since you can play music through your Echo, you can create the perfect playlist of songs to help your little ones drop off. Repeating the same routine every night is supposed to be a useful way to help them fall asleep, so you can even play the same playlist every night.
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For the biggest win,create an Alexa routinethat plays the playlist when you or your child says ‘Alexa, night night’ or some other similar phrase, and your bedtimes will get a whole lot easier.
7Use Alexa to gradually dim the lights
Echo devices make greatsmart home hubsto control your smart home devices with your voice. You can also create routines to control them. If you have a smart light bulb in your child’s room, you can create an Alexa routine that will slowly dim the bulb over a period of time, allowing you to put your child to bed with the light still on, and have it slowly fade to black as they fall asleep.
Amazon even has instructions forhow to create a routine to dim your smart bulbson its website, so you can quickly create the perfect sleep routine for your little ones.
