Since S was born I have been struggling to come up with a solid night time routine. I would come up with something that I thought would work, then something else would get in my way or I wouldn't have the patience to follow through until he was all the way asleep. Well, I am saying good-bye to those days. I have found something that works and I am sticking to it.
It all begins with one nap a day. If he takes two naps it's game over, up until 10 p.m.
Around 4:30 S will start getting hungry for dinner so I get him set up in his highchair and make sure he eats enough to get him nice and full, he will not fall asleep if he is even a tad hungry. After dinner we head straight to the bathtub where we will splash around in the water to get our giggles out. S will stand and play with the faucet, then plop down to make a big splash - repeat that about 10 to 15 times :)
When bath time is over I snuggle him up in a big cozy towel and bring him into his room to sing our jammie song, by this time you can tell he's getting pretty tired, big yawns. We get on his jammies and get settled in the rocker to read Good Night Moon, this never changes, we read the same book every night. As he gets older I will make up my own stories, but for now, this consistency is key.
After the book, we rock and nurse. While he is nursing, I sing Home On The Range. Yes, Home On The Range :) it works. Soon after, it's all zzzzzz's. I bask in the moment for awhile then move him to our room to lay him in our bed where my husband and I will join him hours later.
I am jumping for joy over here! The lack of routine has been eating away at me. Consistency is what I have been yearning for and I've finally caught it. I am one happy mama. (By the way, S said Mama for the first time this past Saturday!!)
Great post! I have one question-- since he is mobile how do you keep him from getting out of bed/falling out of bed in case he wakes up before you go to bed??
ReplyDeleteWe put our pillows on each side of him in case he rolls in his sleep. Now this is crazy, but every time he wakes up he just sits there in the middle of the bed and waits until we come get him. Always has. It is the cutest thing. Our house is small so we can hear his moans the moment he gets up, we also use a monitor.
ReplyDeleteInteresting... we started putting Aug in the pack-n-play to sleep if we aren't in bed yet as soon as he seemed to start getting a little mobile bc I didn't want to learn the hard way! lol. Maybe he will be a good little bean too!
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