Maybe a change is needed....

Every night I try to get my younger kids to bed around 7pm, and my older ones around 8. (not counting the 15 year old, of course) what usually happens is that they goof around for awhile before I finally get them tucked in, prayed for, with drinks of water given out. And then they goof off some more and basically ruin my entire evening's plans of watching a movie, folding laundry, or getting any work done. Most nights I go to bed at 10, frustrated that I wasn't able to get more things done.

Although bedtime is running a little more smoothly now that it's getting darker earlier, I'm wondering if maybe I should just shut the whole house down around 8pm and go to bed then myself. I could get 8 hours of sleep and manage to get up at 4am, and then get up and do all the things I would like to get done while kids are asleep.

Years ago I read about "super early risers" who did this sort of thing as a normal course of events. One interesting thing I read was that for every hour of sleep you get before midnight is twice as restful as every hour past midnight. I have no idea if that's true, but it sure sounds cool, eh?