Posts Tagged ‘Books’
Braving the Bedtime Battles!
Tara:
Bedtime has always been hard for me personally. I am a total night owl by nature, as is my entire family. My husband however, has a very healthy sleep-at-night-and-wake-up-with- the-sun thing going on. This has been cause for some tension. I can’t get myself in bed on time, let alone two wild, whining rug rats – at the same time. And right now my husband wakes up at five and sometimes is not home until after ten. So the evenings we have together are more precious than ever. And even more precious when without little ones. This gives a big incentive for us to get them in bed at a decent hour, but I still am really bad at it!
I stay up late, which means I am not much of an early riser. So, my confession: I absolutely do not want them in bed too early! My husband would really prefer they were in bed by seven or eight. I’m okay with ten or eleven!! What ends up happening is my hubby just goes to bed before us and I end up putting both kids to bed by myself. This is bad for two reasons. 1. My husband is in the habit of not helping with bedtime at all. 2. Someday, we will come to the terrible crossroads of going to school and being night owls. From experience, the two do not mix. So we have some kinks to work out in our routine!
It’s not all bad though. We have a pretty steady routine that happens around the same time every night, even if that time is too late. We pick up his bedroom to wind down from playing. Then we get pajamas and a nighttime diaper on. We take turns brushing his teeth. We wash his face. Then we climb into his tiny toddler bed (never ever buy a toddler bed if you ever intend to sit or lay in your child’s bed with him, just a heads up!) to read books – three if he is incredibly well behaved, and he loses one book at a time for any stalling. Of course Isaac joins us for all of this unless he is crashed out with Daddy!
Robert has lots of favorite books. We try to read a lot! He loves the interactive books in which he can push buttons for sound effects that match the story. He has a Thomas the Train book we read almost every night that has about twelve different sounds. He also loves lift the flap books. But the books with the really engaging story lines could never be beat out by those cheap tricks!! He loves “Are You My Mother,” “Goodbye Mommy,” and “The Napping House” the best. He also enjoys “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Caps for Sale,” “On The Night You Were Born,” “Love You Forever,” “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See,” and “Harold and the Purple Crayon.” My favorites are “The Napping House” in which a little boy climbs on his grandma to sleep followed by the dog, the cat, a mouse and a flea, and “Love You Forever” about a mom and son throughout all the fun and difficult stages we all grow and are loved through.
All in all, bedtimes aren’t too bad around here. I love sitting down and reading with my boys every night and then cuddling them to sleep. I really love them when they’re sleeping! I have found that as long as we have a routine and stick it around the same time every night, my boys are calmer all day and sleep better. (We had trouble getting Robert to sleep through the night until just recently. Getting and staying consistent has really helped.) We just need to move our whole schedule about two hours up. That has been really difficult. But I am trying to get there little by little so we can think about starting preschool next fall!
Teresa:
I have been VERY fortunate not to have any bedtime battles with Delaney. She’s always been a good sleeper and we keep her on a pretty consistent schedule, which I think helps. The other day at naptime though, she did have a “terrible two” moment. It was a Monday and on Monday’s my husband and I watch our nephew Cohen. My sister-in-law had come to get him at about 12:30 as usual. This is lunchtime and then onto nap time for Delaney. Laney had been play with some hair pretties on the floor and was excited to see her Aunty when she came to get Cohen. My husband announced to Laney that it was time for nap, to which her instant response was “NO!” This is unusual response for her although it is becoming more frequent as she starts to voice her independence! So my husband repeated his request and she again said, “NO!” One the third try, she looked at him and said, “FINE! Then I’m taking this with me!” grabbed one of her hair pretties and stormed off to her room, leaving my husband and sister-in-law laughing hysterically.
Now, back to last week’s question: Potty Training…WE’VE HAD SUCCESS!! It took a lot of patience, but last Saturday, Laney was running around the house in her birthday suit when she said she needed to go potty. Normally this leads to a long stint of her sitting on the potty with no actual results produced. This time, she asked to read a book while she was pondering whether or not she wanted a Hershey’s Kiss bad enough to actually pee in the potty. I read through the story once and she asked me to read it again, so I did. About half way through the story the second time, she started to giggle. I looked at her and smiled making her laugh some more, and FINALLY she peed in the potty!!! Woohoo! We yelled for Daddy and shared our success with anyone who would listen. Then, the following week at daycare, she went all day, including nap, without an accident! Now we just have to conquer #2 and we’ll be good to go! We went straight to the store and let her pick out more big-girl underwear, which she now proudly (much to my dismay in the grocery store) shows it off when she has the chance. It is slightly bitter sweet though as Laney is my baby and this is one of the last milestones to getting out of babyhood and into pre-school. But, I will say I’m ecstatic not to have to pay for diapers anymore!
