From a sleep perspective, bedtime routines help establish predictability, calm our children, and create a relaxing environment that is conducive to the onset of sleep. As a mom, I love having a bedtime routine with my children – I love the snuggle time, I love the one-on-one time, and I love kissing my children goodnight. I also love that the routine induces cooperation from my often challenging 3 year old son, Micah – he knows he gets only one book, he knows that we sing a song, and then he knows I leave and it is time for bed.
What makes for a good bedtime routine? Calming activities and consistency. Calming activities can include a bath, a story, a massage, a song. The what is less important – but the routine should be concise. If it takes you 45 minutes to calm your child and put him/her to bed, consider editing down your activities. The most critical part of a good bedtime routine is consistency. Doing the same thing every single night starts to create positive sleep associations…your child knows that certain things will happen, and at the end of the activities, s/he will be going to sleep. In time, the simple act of going through the bedtime routine starts to make your child feel sleepy!
Our routine is fairly simple – from start to finish, it takes about 10 minutes (a little longer on bath nights). We go upstairs, we use the potty, we brush teeth, we put on pajamas, we take medicine, and then we read a story. For my daughter, Maya (who is almost 1 1/2), we read the story together while sitting in her chair. For my son, he lays in bed and I sit on the floor nearby and read to him. After story time, the lights go off, and I sing a song. We have three different bedtime songs…You are My Sunshine, The Rose, and Free to Be, You and Me. My son usually tries to manipulate me into singing all three songs to him…I gave in once during a moment of weakness while he was sick, and he has pushed me to do it every night since then (for the past 3 months). My solution? I sing one verse of each song…so the total time isn’t any longer. It is kind of like a “mash-up” from Glee (for all you Gleeks out there…), only I sing off-key and without any dancing. I could break him of the habit in a few days, but I love that the songs mean so much to him.
What amazes me most is how my son depends on the routine. If I do something out of order, he tells me “No, Mommy, we brush teeth now,” or “Mommy, sit right there,” or “You turn off light now.” He also loves to choose what book we read (tonight was Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham, but Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Cat in the Hat, Put Me in the Zoo, Goodnight Moon, and Mama Loves Me are some of the other books that currently seem to be in rotation). This week, Maya, too, has become a little particular about her routine. She likes to hold her medicine bottle and play with it while I am changing her and putting her in her pajamas. She insists on getting her lovey and her paci out of the crib to hold while we read a story. We have been going and picking out books to read from Micah’s room (I still haven’t fully unpacked her room since our move a few weeks ago). In the past, the story was always my pick, but currently, she seems obsessed with a Curious George ABC book. She throws a fit if I try to read her any other book! What makes me laugh most of all is Micah with the goodnight songs…he tells me what to sing, and in what order. In fact, if I start to sing before he picks the song, he gets upset. Some experts would say that I am the parent and I should control every aspect of the bedtime routine, but I find that giving Micah a degree of choice and control (that suits me) also calms him down and makes the bedtime routine go smoothly.
For me, the routine is not the difficult part…it is the stall tactics before bedtime that truly test my patience! Micah knows that if we start on the routine, bedtime is imminent. So, he has to go to the bathroom one more time, or he suddenly gets hungry, or needs a drink of water, or he asks to brush his teeth. I am extremely careful to pack in an extra few minutes of battling his stall tactics from the time I announce we are going up to bed. When he starts with the stall tactics, I usually simply tell him no, or I give him one or two reasonable things…like a sip of water, or washing his hands. I have, on occasion, threatened a time out if he continues stalling and I start counting backwards…although one time that backfired and he asked to go to time out instead of to bed. Actually, for a week, Micah stood up during nap time and yelled “I want time out” – he thought it would get him out of napping! Clever child, that one….
What are some of your favorite bedtime activities?