Shawn Johnson-East Covering Windows With Pizza Boxes So Her Kids Can Sleep Is So Relatable

As a mom of three small children, Shawn Johnson-East knows all about the importance of sleep. Her kids’ sleep in particular. So when her family of five heads off for a little vacation, the former Olympian does her best to recreate her home environment in an effort to make sure her kids get their rest. Including covering their windows with cardboard pizza boxes so they can sleep in a dark room. That’s commitment.

Johnson-East, who shares 4-year-old daughter Drew, 2-year-old son Jett, and 6-month-old son Bear with husband Andrew East, recently shared a video on Instagram from the family’s vacation at a different house. “Momma’s commitment to our kids’ sleep is 100,” Andrew East captioned the Instagram video, where Johnson-East is seen moving through their vacation home with a stool to cover the windows.

The mom of three “makes the room blackout, brings blankets, pillows, sheets” and makes sure the kids’ sound machine is activated. Johnson-East then covered the windows with blankets and then, to really make sure those rooms were dark, grabbed some pizza boxes from the kitchen and taped them to the windows. “This is how @shawnjohnson spends a good portion of vacation- recreating our home environment,” East wrote on Instagram, and it was a choice that had people talking.

One follower applauded Johnson-East’s resourcefulness, writing “A mother will always do whatever it takes for her children,” while another added, “Impressive, but who ate all of those pizzas?”

Some social media users were not as enthused about Johnson-East’s solution. “Omg. Just buy the paper blackout blinds and take them on vacation rather then using dirty pizza boxes,” wrote one person, while another noted that there were other solutions to help kids get sleep. “Pack some eclipse blackout paper shades. Folds easily Blocks the light completely…. And doesn’t get pizza grease on your windows.”

Johnson-East might have chosen an unconventional solution to protect her kids’ sleep schedule, but it’s understandable. Raising three small children brings out the survivalist in all of us, and Johnson-East is no different. Especially since she is trying to get in time with all three of her kids now that she has welcomed baby Bear, something she struggled with in the beginning. Back in January, she admitted that she loved so much about the newborn stage but “the hardest part of this short phase is missing my big kids,” Johnson East wrote at the time, “Daddy is doing the best job in the world showering them with attention and adventures, but this mama misses her big babies.”

Now she just wants all her babies to get their sleep. Behind a wall of pizza boxes.