Bedtime Routine

A very old picture of my little squidge!

For a long time 'bedtime' used to be a bit of a stressful episode. We have always had the same routine, Dinner, Chill out time, Bath, chill out time with a book or bed time songs (The Winnie the Pooh song from the Disney channel is a personal favourite!) and then milk in bed whilst her music soother is on. 

The times of this process varies. Me and Jamie both work full time and so our schedule sometimes doesn't allow for a strict routine - not that that bothers us. Most of the time, if we time it right, Darcie will fall asleep after her milk at a reasonable time usually between 7-8:15pm. She will then wake at around 4am and come into our bed where we co-sleep till morning. 

This has worked for us, but it is not something I really wanted to happen. I was dead set against co-sleeping, I always felt it was unhealthy to encourage babies/children to become attached, I know many parents who say "well they are not going to be in bed forever" but I have known children to stay in their parents bed until the age of 10 (I know....). I this was certainly something I didn't want to encourage. But at the same time, me and Jamie became desperate for sleep and soon came round to letting her sleep (only ever in the early hours of the morning - no sooner) in our bed in between us. If she is happy and we are happy we can't see the problem with it, though if baby number two comes in the near future I can't imagine four of us in one bed!!!

The only other thing that can make bedtime stressful is nap time. Darcie has seemingly got to that stage where if she does nap she doesn't want to go to bed at her normal time and if she doesn't nap she gets grouchy in the evenings. We are learning to just go with the flow. For example, tonight (its now 7pm as I write this) she is snuggling with her daddy whilst they watch The Rescuers Down Under (one of his favourite kids films) because she had a nap at nursery today and she is completely not interested in sleep. By 8pm she will be ready and much more settled and sleepy. Whats the point of forcing someone to sleep when they are not ready?

Whats your bedtime routine? Do you like to keep to a schedule or are you a 'go with the flow' parent?

Mummy B xoxox