A shortage of sleep affects nearly everything in your child’s life—it can bring down their energy, sour their attitude, increase hunger levels and even alter their growth. Being big bedtime advocates ourselves, we were delighted to receive a copy of a dreamy new book called “Yawning Yoga.”

Destined to replace “Goodnight Moon” as a the new bedtime classic, this book takes a carefully selected sequence of traditional yoga poses, modified for children’s bodies, and pairs them with pastel illustrations and sweet rhymes to calm children in body and spirit.

“Yawning Yoga” is the brainchild of New York yoga instructor Laurie Jordan. A former social worker, Laurie was concerned by children suffering from lack of sleep (think cranky, restless, hyperactive and distracted) at school. She combined her passion for yoga with her desire to help kids get a goodnight’s rest to create a series of youth-oriented yoga classes in New York. The classes were so successful that she decided to share her proven formula for unwinding children with the release of “Yawning Yoga.”

From a play on sun salutations that she calls “greet the moon” to a variation of the happy baby pose she calls “bedtime bug,” the unwinding sequence helps active children focus on slowly down. So effective is the book that we nearly nodded off to sleep ourselves in the warm glow of the last page:

What a wonderful way to finish the day
with your hands at your heart, say, “Namaste.”
The light in me sees the light in you.
Now bow to yourself,
let your goodness shine through!

It was just the reminder we needed after long day of refereeing sibling battles and kissing boo-boos to release the day’s frustrations and embrace an attitude of gratitude.