"Just go about your daily routine like I'm not wearing the hat."
In the battle to convince children to go to sleep, routines are supposedly a big help. They provide comfort while warning the child that bedtime is fast approaching so get all orneriness out of the way now. Routines are certainly a big help in my day; Ellie can vouch for the dire consequences if I miss my 11:05-11:31 morning nap. I hear Gary Sheffield has similar issues after missing his morning nap. Abbie has a complicated routine that I feel compelled to detail here, using as much space as needed to fill a post.
We start a little after 8pm with a bedtime milk snack. This is the remnants of the days when she still woke up hungry overnight, and we would feed her right before putting her to bed in hopes of coaxing her to sleep as long as possible. Once she started to reliably sleep through the night, I worked to reduce the quantity of milk while moving the feeding earlier. The idea was to slowly drop this feeding completely, maybe merge it with supper, but I haven’t been able to do it yet. Part of me still fears that if I remove her last feeding, she’ll start waking up hungry in the middle of the night again, and then I’ll need to nap until 11:53am to make up for lost sleep. I’m sure I could eliminate this final feeding without consequence, and I probably will just as soon as she’s old enough to tell me she doesn’t need it anymore, which should be some time around her teen years.
Some time around 8:30pm, we start moving toward the bathtub on bath nights, which come every other day. Until then we sit in her room reading or quietly playing and generally trying to avoid too much stimulation while I listen to and curse at the Cubs game on the radio. When she looks ready for the bathtub, as defined by the point where she stops entertaining herself and starts insisting on my involvement, I strip her down and throw her in the tub. For a thrilling account of the bathtub experience, see yesterday’s post. If it’s not bathtub night, then she just sits on the floor a little longer, playing quietly while daddy whimpers softly because another Cub left the game due to injury.
Finally, around 8:50pm, the magic event arrives that the whole family has been waiting for, the event that gives everyone in the house the opportunity to relax in peaceful quietude: The Cubs fall so far enough behind that I quit caring. Also, we begin the final drive to Abbie’s bedtime. This is nice for me because I follow set list of activities instead of having to think of new ways to entertain her (read the opposites book, read the alphabet book, stay out of the dishwasher, play with the musical tractor, chase the dog, go ahead and play in the dishwasher just don’t grab anything sharp, climb on daddy while he rests on the floor…). I strip her naked, if she’s not already naked coming out of the tub, and attach the nighttime diaper, which is just like the regular diaper except it’s 15% more absorbent and 23% more expensive. I dress her in pajamas, which differ from normal clothes in that instead of having pictures of princesses and flowers, they have pictures of sleepy princesses and sleepy flowers and possibly a moon. I brush her teeth, which too often involves sweeping her teeth with a wet toothbrush while she holds her mouth open to scream. I read her two bedtime books, “Peek-A-Boo,” an exhilarating expose that definitively answers the question “where’s the baby?” and “Olivia,” a book about a pig, a pig named Olivia. I sing her bedtime song, which is “My Little Buttercup” with the word “Abigail” substituted for “Buttercup.” Finally, I set her in her crib and escape the room. I then have free time to pursue my interests, like blog or check the Cubs game to see if they’ve cut the gap. Nope.
We start a little after 8pm with a bedtime milk snack. This is the remnants of the days when she still woke up hungry overnight, and we would feed her right before putting her to bed in hopes of coaxing her to sleep as long as possible. Once she started to reliably sleep through the night, I worked to reduce the quantity of milk while moving the feeding earlier. The idea was to slowly drop this feeding completely, maybe merge it with supper, but I haven’t been able to do it yet. Part of me still fears that if I remove her last feeding, she’ll start waking up hungry in the middle of the night again, and then I’ll need to nap until 11:53am to make up for lost sleep. I’m sure I could eliminate this final feeding without consequence, and I probably will just as soon as she’s old enough to tell me she doesn’t need it anymore, which should be some time around her teen years.
Some time around 8:30pm, we start moving toward the bathtub on bath nights, which come every other day. Until then we sit in her room reading or quietly playing and generally trying to avoid too much stimulation while I listen to and curse at the Cubs game on the radio. When she looks ready for the bathtub, as defined by the point where she stops entertaining herself and starts insisting on my involvement, I strip her down and throw her in the tub. For a thrilling account of the bathtub experience, see yesterday’s post. If it’s not bathtub night, then she just sits on the floor a little longer, playing quietly while daddy whimpers softly because another Cub left the game due to injury.
Finally, around 8:50pm, the magic event arrives that the whole family has been waiting for, the event that gives everyone in the house the opportunity to relax in peaceful quietude: The Cubs fall so far enough behind that I quit caring. Also, we begin the final drive to Abbie’s bedtime. This is nice for me because I follow set list of activities instead of having to think of new ways to entertain her (read the opposites book, read the alphabet book, stay out of the dishwasher, play with the musical tractor, chase the dog, go ahead and play in the dishwasher just don’t grab anything sharp, climb on daddy while he rests on the floor…). I strip her naked, if she’s not already naked coming out of the tub, and attach the nighttime diaper, which is just like the regular diaper except it’s 15% more absorbent and 23% more expensive. I dress her in pajamas, which differ from normal clothes in that instead of having pictures of princesses and flowers, they have pictures of sleepy princesses and sleepy flowers and possibly a moon. I brush her teeth, which too often involves sweeping her teeth with a wet toothbrush while she holds her mouth open to scream. I read her two bedtime books, “Peek-A-Boo,” an exhilarating expose that definitively answers the question “where’s the baby?” and “Olivia,” a book about a pig, a pig named Olivia. I sing her bedtime song, which is “My Little Buttercup” with the word “Abigail” substituted for “Buttercup.” Finally, I set her in her crib and escape the room. I then have free time to pursue my interests, like blog or check the Cubs game to see if they’ve cut the gap. Nope.
posted by Matt at
9:31 PM
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