First piece of music2work2 from 2001 - Piano lullaby to get small children to sleep.[audio:bosbt2.5.mp3| titles=Boys Bedtime Music|artists=music2work2]
Getting two energetic children calmed down for bedtime is a challenge that most parents would recognize. Like many things that help, we stumbled upon the calming effect by accident; I had been working on this particular piece and had it playing in the background while we were reading a bedtime story. When the story finished and we were kissing the boys goodnight, we heard a little voice asking us to keep the music on because "...the music helps me sleep".
So we did, and not only did it help them sleep, it also helped them recognize when it was time to sleep. We ended up putting a small CD player in their room and when it came close to bedtime, we would play the music in the background and it would have an instant calming effect. With the volume down low, it actually became quite fun to read a story with the background music; it made it sound like a film score! Sometimes the kids would be asleep by the end of the story, sometimes they'd be still awake, so long as the music continued to play, they wouldn't ask for another story, they'd just drift off listening to it. I ended up making a number of CD's with about 45 minutes of music. If we put them on say 5 minutes before bedtime, the kids were generally asleep before the CD stopped. Of course, when it comes to kids nothing works all the time, but on most nights, it was perfect.
Download: Boys Bedtime Music
