Are transitions a struggle for your child?

How music can help establish smoother transitions

It’s Monday morning. Your kiddo was supposed to get up a half hour ago, but they are barely dragging themselves out of bed and now have only ten minutes to get ready for school. Chaos and panic ensue. You are stressed and irritated. Your child is having a meltdown. By the time you get out the door, you both feel like the day has already chewed you up and spit you out…

Is this a familiar scene in your home? When my daughter (who is turning 13 this month!) was little, this was pretty much our every day experience. I have since learned more about our need for cues to help us develop healthy routines and habits.

In this post, I’m going to share with you the musical cues that have helped ease transitions in our home and made our transitional points of the day a whole lot easier! Grab your lukewarm coffee and settle in for a moment.

My 3-year-old son just started going to preschool 3 days a week and I need to get him there by 8:30 in the morning. Our experience of getting ready and out the door in the morning is entirely different from what I had with my daughter all those years ago. And I largely attribute it to the musical cues that have created predictability for my son and eliminated the morning stress for me.

The first thing I did to establish healthy sleep and wake routines for my little guy was simply getting a sleep training alarm clock. I programmed it to start playing a cheerful Mozart tune to signal that it’s wake up time.

Another musical routine we use specifically on the mornings when we need to get to preschool is to simply put on some favorite songs in the background and dance and sing our way through getting ready. Nothing groundbreaking here – just pure joy to drive the momentum forward.

Now, let’s shift gears to the musical routines of the afternoon and evening. My son knows what to expect after lunch each day, whether he has been home, at preschool, or we have been out and about. He has an afternoon movie time. I am including this because music is an integral part of movies and I think that is part of what helps him relax to take a nap on the couch during afternoon movie time.

While the kids are waiting on dinner, sometimes I turn on some gentle, relaxing music that helps bring the high energy down and ease the restlessness of the kiddos. Other times, we have dance parties to favorite upbeat tunes and/or sing-alongs.

I already mentioned our musical alarm clock, but wanted to share how we use it for bedtime. The wind-down tune starts 15 minutes before bedtime to signal that we need to start getting ready for bed, then it changes to the Brahms lullaby for sleep time.

Two other ways we use music during this time are to clean up toys (we cycle through a couple of cleanup songs) and I sing him a special lullaby when I tuck him into bed. His favorite is Golden Slumbers. There are tons of great lullabies out there – find one you like and can manage singing most nights.

A few other ideas for musical transitions are:

• Using musical alarms on your phone for transition points like 5 minutes before you need to leave the house

• A specific song to signal that it is time to move on to a particular task or part of the day

• Making up and singing little songs for tasks like brushing teeth, taking a bath, washing hands, using the potty, etc. – this makes things fun and memorable for young children especially

• Binaural beats for nervous system regulation – especially great in neurodivergent households

Using musical cues have made the bedtime and wake up transitions predictable, comforting, and peaceful in my home, instead of chaotic and stressful.

Do you use musical transition cues in your home? Drop a comment below to tell me what your family does!