once upon a time, we had a bedtime ritual that was like clockwork:
7:30 p.m. - the family watches mickey mouse clubhouse
8:00 p.m. - brush teeth with mama or daddy
8:05 p.m. - put on a fresh diaper and jammies
8:10 p.m. - kiss mama or daddy goodnight (depending on who was tucking him in that night); blow kisses as he goes upstairs. mama or daddy reads him a story. after the story, we turn off the light and aidan crawls into bed.after about five minutes, he's asleep.
8:35 p.m. mama or daddy comes back downstairs and the little tyke is down for the night.
mind you, the nights were not always this smooth. sometimes aidan didn't want to brush his teeth. sometimes the alternating mama/daddy taking turns didn't sit well with aidan. "mama's turn" he would decree, even it was daddy turn. and, sometimes aidan needed to cry it out for 15 seconds before settling down.
well, now it is more than a year later and aidan has decided to change up the routine. sigh.
7:30 p.m. - the family watches mickey mouse clubhouse
8:05 p.m. - mama and daddy tell aidan it's time to brush his teeth. he says, "no way."
8:10 p.m. - finally getting his teeth brushed, but he takes FOREVER. he decides to play with the water instead. when he's done he might dump water all over the sink. he then runs to daddy or mama (whoever isn't helping him) to "show off his shiny, white teeth."
8:20 p.m. - putting on a fresh diaper puts aidan into wrestling mode. he will not stay still. if you try to pin him down, he laughs his head off. if you try to take off his shirt, he either giggles incessantly or gets mad and cries because he doesn't want to take off his shirt. it takes 2 minutes to calm him down.
8:23 p.m. - kiss mama or daddy goodnight (depending on who was tucking him in that night); blow kisses as he goes upstairs. rather than sit on your lap and take in a story, aidan wants to sit in the chair. or play with a toy, ifyou go thru the list of books to find out what he wants to read, he says, "no." he will then take a book andtell you his own story. sometimes he says actual lines from the book. it is cute and makes for a moment
of pride, but when it's almost 9 a.m., it tries your patience!
8:45 p.m. - lights out-- but now he asks for the light to be on. you finally convince him it's night-night time and the light needs to be off. he will lie down, only to sit up in bed and make random announcements like,"boogies. boogies are in the nose." or "daddy at the hockey game. go,go, daddy go!"
8:46 p.m. - sleep time. or a good one minute cry before settling down.
maybe it's the longer summer days and the light nights. we'll ride out the summer and hope some semblance of the old routine makes a comeback.
3 comments:
Hey girl...the routine will never come back! A new one will emerge! lol!!! jan
It's amazing how quickly they can create very important things to do right at bedtime. Our little one will insist on hugging each of the dogs, picking up a particular toy, kissing mommy or daddy ONE more time, checking on her stuffed dog.... on and on it goes. We used to be 7:30 bedtimers, now we're lucky to hit 8:30!
oh man. tonight was a late one since we were at a birthday party. we started at 9-- i got out of his room at 9:40 and he still needed to cry it out for 1 minute before finally falling asleep. ugh.
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