Late nights, many new faces, presents and sweets that pretty much sums up the average holiday season for a kid. For most families the routine goes right out the window and sometimes the excitement is overwhelming. No matter how good the little darling is too much excitement can cause problems.

Who hasn’t experienced a little kid all nicely dressed for the party bursting into tears, or worse the child who throws a huge temper tantrum right before the party-refusing to get dressed for the party and causing everyone to get all riled up.

With the twins, my husband and I were very very adamant that we maintained a bedtime. No matter who was visiting or whom we were visiting, we put the kids down at roughly the same time (I say roughly because with kids you are never on schedule).

For their first Christmas, my parents were visiting. It was a very low-key visit, just talking and admiring the babies. The grandparents were enjoying the kids, but it was bedtime.

So we bundled the girls off to bed, but the just did not want to go to sleep. After trying numerous things, rocking, bottles etc. We brought them out in the living room and put them in the playpen and they watched and listened for a while and then finally drifted off without a fuss. They just wanted to be part of the conversation.

Yes, a lot of times the kids aren’t ready for bed and end up sneaking peeks or fooling around instead of sleeping, but other times no matter how crazy the kids were acting, no matter how much they insisted they weren’t tired they fell right asleep after we put them down.

So do you do or are you planning to do anything different to keep your kids on an even keel during the holidays? Or do you throw the schedule out for the holidays?