I usually get questions about Grady’s bedtime routine. Does he have one? What do you do? What time does he go to bed? I thought I would do a post and talk about our routine from start to finish.
We started a bedtime routine at about eight weeks old. He had no idea what was going on at that time, but I wanted to establish a routine as quickly as possible to get him to understand that this is what we do before the LONG sleep. Grady was waking up only once in the night at two months and ten days. By the time he was three months old he was sleeping through the night. It COULD be that I lucked out and have a really good sleeper. BUT, I’d like to think that our “cues” every single night before bed helped him. We did make a trip to Florida when Grady was three and a half months old. He was completely off schedule and was awake every night we were there. When we got back home, it took us a week to get him back on schedule and back sleeping through the night. So when that happened, it made me think that perhaps it WAS our bedtime routine and nighttime cues that helped him. I don’t know. We’ll see with kid number two, right?
Before we get started with routine, lets talk reading material. Two of my favorite books to read about all things baby are The Sleep Easy Solution and Baby 411. Those two books were my baby Bibles and still are! The Sleep Easy Solution really helped me understand baby sleep, how much they should be getting during the day, how much sleep they should get at night and how their sleep changes month by month. It also has step by step directions on weaning your child from nighttime feedings. Baby 411 was helpful in the fact that it was very straightforward, no nonsense and informed me of bad habits that I could potentially create for my child. Yes, some of the things were a little harsh (no rocking the baby to sleep) BUT I needed some sleep and I was willing to do whatever! Both of the books stressed Your baby doesn’t know HOW to sleep through the night. You have to TEACH them! And a well rested baby is a happy baby!
Keep in mind that Grady’s bedtime routine has changed from eight weeks due to his change in sleep patterns and feeding needs. So what we do now is not something we did with him several months ago. Also, these times are approximate. I TRY to shoot for bedtime by 7:30 at the latest. Last, I’m not a doctor, pediatrician, expert mom or know-it-all. These are the things that I stuck with and they worked for our family. As a former teacher, I’m obsessed with research and I’m always wanting to learn. I’m always reading something. I read a variety of things to help put our baby on a schedule and it just worked.
6:30 – This is dinner time! We’ve had all our naps for the day and we are winding down for the night. To this day, we take him upstairs and he gets his nighttime bottle in his room. The lights are dim and the room is quiet. There is NO stimulation. When I was still nursing, I would nurse him in his room. When he’s older and can start to eat dinner with us, that of course will change. For right now, we are still in the baby stage and dinner is in his room. From eight weeks old he’s always gotten his bottle or nursing first. Why? Because we wanted him in the crib awake so he would learn to put himself to sleep. I’ll be honest. I hated it. There were a few times I would break the rules and rock him to sleep. I LOVED those moments. And I’ll never forget them. Yet, when I put him in the crib, he would wake up and start screaming. I learned quickly that HE needed to learn to self soothe. He did. He found his two middle fingers on his left hand.
6:45/7:00 – NAKEY TIME! This is Grady’s favorite part of the evening. I read (in one of my many baby books) that you should let your baby play naked. So after his bottle, I stripped him down to his bare bottom. Before he started rolling around, it was easy. We laid out a beach towel and he would lay and play naked. Then he started rolling back and forth and one beach towel turned into four. Well, now he’s crawling and nakey time has turned into serious rug burn. Usually while he’s playing I do odds and ends such as refill the humidifier, run the bath water, get his towel and lotions and diaper ready, lay out his pj’s, etc.
7:00 – BATH TIME! At this point, Grady is getting a bath every night. He’s crawling around on different floors, drooling, spitting up, covering himself with food and just all around getting nasty. He NEEDS a bath. For the first five months he was getting a bath every two to three nights. On the nights he didn’t get a bath, we gave him a sponge bath. We would still wipe him down with a warm washcloth to let him know, this is the LONG sleep. Now that he’s older, he enjoys his warm, nightly bath. He splashes around, plays with his toys and gets his hair washed. Bath time is followed by the routine baby massage, hair comb, diaper rash ointment, diaper and clean PJ’s.
7:20 – Bath time from start to finish takes about 20 minutes. That leaves around 5-10 minutes to read a few bedtime stories. There have been some nights where Grady has gotten overtired and we had to go straight to prayers and bed. He’s older now and is able to sit through several stories without pitching a fit.
7:30 – Time to HIT THE SACK! The very last thing we do is lay him in the bed, awake, we say prayers as a family, kisses goodnight, we love you, turn on sound machine and leave the room. I will admit, he falls asleep easier at night than he does for naps during the day. Maybe because we go through this whole song and dance every night??? Don’t think we have it easy and we’ve been blissfully sleeping all night every night. Grady has been up at night with a cold, a fever, teething, travel/schedule change, etc.
Someone once made the comment (maybe my husband?) about the length of time it takes to put him to bed every night. I’d rather take an hour for a few months for a bedtime routine than to be up all night. ‘Cause at 7:30 every night, it’s ME TIME!
Do you have a bedroom routine? How long does it take? What kinds of things do you do? I’d love to hear about it!