So people always ask me - "OMG your kids go to bed at 8:00 pm??! HOW??" Yessir. Every night. Only exeption is weekends. Not including Sunday. Sunday they are sleep by 830. lol How did I do that? Did Angels come and body snatch my children and leave me with perfect little body doubles? Nope. ROUTINE.
Before my husband passed, he and I were likely to be found, every night, anywhere from 11pm to 3 am, passed out on the couch together with then-2 year old Justin, beating us with the remote control, or wandering the house, after wriggling himself free from one of our - now sleepy and loosened - full nelson. It was HELL. The boy never slept. Only ate. And Ate. And ate some more. He was still on a bottle for crap's sake. He was newly -two but they were some TERRIBLE twos. ( Side bar- in retrospect, his threes were worse.. but for other reasons: increased Lung power. SMH) We'd tried co-sleeping, we tag teamed on the midnight feedings ( which were 3 times a night), we tried car rides, and were eventually reduced to letting him stand in the crib and cry while we sat miserably on the couch outside his door. One particular night, around 6pm, as he was screaming about bathtime, I couldnt take it anymore. I got up, packed up the boy, and dragged my husband with me. We went to the library.
We looked up everything we could find from colliky toddlers to bedtime help. Unfortunately back then, Samuel L Jackson had not made a blissfully curse ridden bedtime book Go the F*** to Sleep, lol so our situation was less humorus and more serious mission to find a solution. In all the books we combed through ( while the boy ironically slept quietly in the carseat along side us... Arrrrg...) the main word that kept repeating itself was this idea of a "Routine". The books wanted us to establish an EVERY DAY, no matter what,routine of identical occurances for the boy. Here is an article I wrote on doing that with a baby.
Now that I have two sons, the boy now an 8 year old, and the new boy now a 3 year old... the routine is down pact, and the boys get plenty of sleep. We now do bathtime at 630, Dinner at 7, TV time until 8pm. Things that I've added over the years? :
They have a bedtime song. Its a goofy reggae sounding song that I made up one night, called " Its time to go to bed" that incorporates distracting tactics like stretching and turning around to get the kids to focus on participating in bedtime festivities, rather than on not wanting to go to bed. It makes bed time fun, as goofy as it sounds.
They have bedtime sayings. We say prayers together, and both boys have a saying they will say to me and I have a reply. For example, for my eight year old, Justin :
me: I love you!
Justin: I love you more!
me: You could try...but its impossible!
( and he tries to think of an "infinity" way to answer me in one sentence lol )
It reaaallly makes the night shift for single parents (shoot and two-parent homes too!) easier when you know what is coming next. Same for the kids. They are comfortable and happy when they know what is coming next. If Justin has homework, he knows he must complete it in his room, at his desk, before he can watch TV. My youngest still does not like to go to bed, but distraction tactics work, and the fact that his big brother goes to bed too helps him at least stay in the bed until he monolouges himself to sleep. :)
Good Luck Mommies!
Now that I have two sons, the boy now an 8 year old, and the new boy now a 3 year old... the routine is down pact, and the boys get plenty of sleep. We now do bathtime at 630, Dinner at 7, TV time until 8pm. Things that I've added over the years? :
They have a bedtime song. Its a goofy reggae sounding song that I made up one night, called " Its time to go to bed" that incorporates distracting tactics like stretching and turning around to get the kids to focus on participating in bedtime festivities, rather than on not wanting to go to bed. It makes bed time fun, as goofy as it sounds.
They have bedtime sayings. We say prayers together, and both boys have a saying they will say to me and I have a reply. For example, for my eight year old, Justin :
me: I love you!
Justin: I love you more!
me: You could try...but its impossible!
( and he tries to think of an "infinity" way to answer me in one sentence lol )
It reaaallly makes the night shift for single parents (shoot and two-parent homes too!) easier when you know what is coming next. Same for the kids. They are comfortable and happy when they know what is coming next. If Justin has homework, he knows he must complete it in his room, at his desk, before he can watch TV. My youngest still does not like to go to bed, but distraction tactics work, and the fact that his big brother goes to bed too helps him at least stay in the bed until he monolouges himself to sleep. :)
Good Luck Mommies!
******************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment