starting Enki-style transitions - any advice?

[AKfamily]

We're planning to start Enki-style transitions (songs rather than verbal) specifically for our bedtime routine (which is why I'm not posting this in homeschooling, where other Enki questions would live) tomorrow and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice.
DS1 is almost 4, DS2 will be 2 in July.
We are noticing too much parental harping and hurrying and child scattered-ness, play and delaying (especially from DS1) as we get our family into bed. DS1 is VERY tied to routines and I think that a consistent structure with developmentally appropriate time frames (example: we hum a song to prep him that it's time to walk upstairs and then sing it as we walk, for example) will work much better for all of us. He has lots of 'requirements' about how things happen, including how we do things (ex. if we just walk upstairs he'll get really upset that he's not walking with us, even if we've told him repeatedly that we're going to go upstairs).
Any thoughts?

[Beth F]

How are transitions going?

Transitions are tough. Beth talked about them during the conference call last month and said that the humming of the transition song starts a while before the next activity started. I tend to want the transition to happen when I start singing. This isn't the intention. After watching the GR1 video on transitions, I got a better understanding of what she meant. During the video, she hummed the song, five, six, or seven times and went about her business. It seemed to me that the enki class had no visible "gear shift" for the first two or three times that she hummed the song. However, there must have been an internal shift in the children because they slowly and sort of chaotically worked toward the change as they talked among themselves. It wasn't until Beth sat down and joined them in the next activity (a meal in the video) did she verbally sing the song with them.

[AKfamily]

hmmmmmmmm, this sounds like a lot of time and intention put into every transition...and I just want to get us up the stairs I love the idea of the transitions working this way and when I read about it in the literature I want to do it and then life is what it is and we don't. Have you tried implementing this in your home? I think at the very least the bigger picture of this, that transitions need to be set up well is something that we need to incorporate into our lives more (I consistently give lots of notice before we leave a group of friends but do I do as consistent of a job with other transitions?). I love the idea of LESS TALKING. DS1 is a constant talker and reason-er (and yes, my mom laughs at me when she hears him - I was exactly the same) and could very much use support to stay in his body/heart/spirit and less in his mind.

[LuxPerpetua]

We are a Waldorf-inspired family so I thought I'd chime in. I think the whole idea of songs for transitions works really well for a group and may work well with some kids at certain ages. I started doing this with dd (now 4.5) at age 2 and had good response until around age 3-3.5. Now? No way. One thing that helped us was looking beyond songs/verses and incorporating imagination. Sometimes I'd come up with a little story like, "Come along, Little Butterfly, let's take off your wings for the night and put on your cozy chrysalis" or something. We do different things that help, including songs and verses but not limited to these and we definitely change them up because dd will get irritated or not respond to them effectively. For our bedtime, we have snack, get ready for bed, light a candle and do a Bible story and prayers, read a book, and then rock to sleep. So really, my advice is to not overstress about this and try and find what will work for your children just by being open to as many creative techniques as you can come up with. I've personally found the tunes of Row Row Row Your Boat and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star are great for adding your own words and also I have really benefitted from the blog Parenting Passageway for ideas. Good luck!

[LuxPerpetua]

Oh, another thing: Sometimes if we need to get dd from point A to point B quickly then dh will carry her in a silly way, like "Would you like to be a sack of potatoes (thrown over his shoulder) or a carrot (upside down)?". We've used this technique a lot.