Christmas gift guide for parents struggling with bedtime: Children’s meditations in my heart book by Gitte Winter Graugaard

The "Children’s meditations in my heart" book by Gitte Winter Graugaard (£14.95) has arrived perfectly on time as L was going through yet another developmental leap struggling to calm herself down, getting overstimulated due to lack of day nap and loads more. It was a really tough period for us as no matter how hard we tried to help L with her anger and tiredness nothing worked until this magical hard back book turned up! 

"The Children’s Meditations in My Heart is a collection of meditations designed to help children drift off to sleep within minutes.

A collection of four meditations for parents to read to their children, Graugaard’s book shows parents how to teach their child the importance of self-esteem and self-love, enabling them to drift off into calming, reparative sleep, their hearts full with love".

The book is designed in such a way allowing a parent to interact and read stories (4 stories overall) that help a child to create vivid pictures in their head all related to love, heart, warmth, being loved and sharing the love with others.

The book's paragraphs are divided and mostly start with interaction where you ask how the child's day has been, how's the heart feeling right now or holding hands activity that is helping to send love from one to another and laslty 2 endings to each story for day time story or night time story.

When reading the book for the first time L showed lots of interest and answered all questions I have asked her about her heart and how the day has been. It was interesting to watch but perhaps made L more lively than asleep, so once I have realised that each story involves a question and answer scenario I started to skip them.

I have noticed that L is interested in the book, every evening she asks to read a book about heart, likes to listen to my heartbeat and asks me to listen to hers, she became calmer ( I don't know if this is a coincidence), she follows the instructions from the book telling her to close her eyes, breath calmly and listen to the story. 

I do think this book made a difference in my child which is a sole reason why this book was written on the first place.

I have mentioned this book at L's nursery as one of the stories works not only as a bedtime story but also may help with separation anxiety which L in particular has at drop offs at nursery. I do like this story but try not to read part that involve or mention death or dead people as find in unnecessary at this age plus after losing my father at such a young age I am just not prepared to explain what that means.

In few words the story is about a cloud that lives where the mountain is that leads to L's (your child's heart is) lovely heart, this cloud is full of love-the love from loved ones and every child has it even though they may not be aware of it. The cloud is attached to a string and when I am away from L she can move the string closer to remind her that I'm always there and my love for her will keep her safe and warm, once I am around L she can release the string until the next time she needs it closer. 

It seems a very symbolic story that reminds L that I am always there, as nursery staff mentioned to me it may be a little bit to difficult for her to understand the full meaning of it but I believe the more you read it and the more you mention it, it can make a different long term!

"Children’s meditations in my heart" book is a new, gentle take on a book that will relax or send your child to sleep.

"Now available in the UK “The Children’s Meditations In my Heart” is available from www.amazon.co.uk priced £14.95 for a hard copy, £4.97 for a kindle copy, and £5.09 for a pdf download from www.roomforreflection.com".

Disclaimer: This product was sent for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.