Bedtime Routine

I am the first to state that we are not textbook when it comes to Cruz's bedtime routine.

Actually we probably fall more into the 'what not to do' section.

But I will say we seem to be moving in the right direction. By "right direction" I mean that we are no longer letting Cruz sleep in our bed. Every single night.

It also means that one of us still goes to bed with him each night and stay with him until he falls asleep.... where sometimes we fall asleep ourselves and are in his bed the entire night.

Hey, it's not just Cruz that needs to break the bad habit. I love sleeping with him too.

But lately we are getting better about staying in our respective beds. And I think that warrants a gold star for both Cruz and I. Well, at least I think it does.

Besides Nick or I, obviously, there are some things that Cruz can't live without at night:

Sven Plush Toy // Boon Glo Nightlight // Baseball blanket //

 Fan // Dino Slippers (sold out, similar here & here) // 

PJs (ON & Gap) //  Hello Fire Truck Book

The biggest must is his "Sbenny Boy" as Cruz likes to call him. He also calls him "brudda" and pretends he's our new baby and tucks him under the covers each night. It's kinda cute.

Along the lines of bedtime, I came across this "Mommy will you lay with me" article the other day and it really hit home. I obviously lay with my kiddo at night, as previously pointed out, but after the book is read and the lights are off, I spend most of my time telling him to be quiet and close his eyes, because then my head starts running through all the things I need to get done before I can finally go to sleep myself.

One line hit home, but this is when the good stuff comes out and it's so true. This is generally the time Cruz just wants to talk and talk without any outside distractions, about his day and just what's on his mind.

And it's true. The stuff he talks about is just too good to miss.  Like last night:

C: Mama, can we just talk about some stings (things)?

Me: Sure. What do you want to talk about?

C: What about tractors? I like yellow tractors, do you like yellow tractors?

Me: Of course I do, yellow is my favorite color.

C: Mine too. Well and I like blue and green and red and black....actually I think I like all the colors. Can you like all the colors, mama?

Now he is getting really comfortable in the conversation. He rolls over, lays his head on my back and crosses his legs...

C: Mama, I think this is a good idea that we do this, right? I like to talk about stings wit you.

Me: I like it too.

C: I think we should go to Bounce U - remember when we went there? Let's go. Can we go right now...is it closed? Can I bounce there for a long time? Do you think Cole and Morgan can go this time?

Me: Sure. It's closed right now but we can go again.

C: I really like our family, mama. You and me and daddy. Oh, and Sben too. We are a really good family, right?

And it goes on and on and on like this until he gets too tired to keep talking and falls asleep, because I just can't stop him when this kind of conversation starts.

Of course this most definitely results in him being a bear to wake up in the morning for school, because by now it's after 10pm and he just fell asleep.

Oh well...

Linking up with It's the Little Things and Thoughts for Thursday.

Bedtime

One of my favorite times of the day with little man is bedtime. We have finally gotten such a great routine down that even I love the consistency and calmness of this time of night. It seems that with summer has come even later bedtimes. The fact that the sun is out longer, the nights are gorgeous and I just can't get enough of spending time with our fun little guy definitely doesn't help any.

Our normal bedtime is around 8:30pm to 9pm, but lately it seems we're not settling him down until 9:30pm. I don't like putting him to bed so late, but by the time I get home from work, we have dinner - or better yet he eats while I watch him toss food from his highchair to the dog - and then we play, go for a walk, take a bath...it's already 9pm.  Nick made a comment to me the other day, that really made me think broke my heart and it was something along the lines of "when you think about it, you really only get a couple hours with Cruz a day on work days. 2 1/2 to 3 max. Wow, that's crazy."  That is crazy. And sad. But true.

Three hours out of twenty-four.

Generally, I'm long gone before our sweet boy has even thought about opening his gorgeous blue eyes for the day. Depending on the day, I don't get home until 6pm and that is the earliest. No wonder I soak up every minute we have together on our days off. I can't get enough of him.

I think that is the reason I adore our bedtime routine so much. It's the time in the day where it's just him and me. Mama and my babe.

Here is what it looks like:
I say, "let's go pick out books to read before night night." He yells, "boots, boots!" Then proceeds to walk around the living room to say good night to dada, Maya, his tractors and his baseballs before he will walk into his bedroom.

Once in his room, I shut the door and Cruz walks over to his Offi dog light to switch it on while I shut off the overhead light and sit in the rocking chair. Then he makes sure his Mobi nightlight is turned on across the room and hits the button to start his dehumidifier. (I never realized how much he picked up by watching us until one night he started doing this on his own.) Then he walks over to his bookshelf and starts browsing through the books, pulling some out, deciding he doesn't want those and pushing them back into their place.

He will bring a book over to me and then walk back to the bookshelf until I ask him to come back to read with me. He will look over his shoulder and say, "one moh?"  How can I not give into that? "Yes, one more," I tell him. He grabs another book, hands it to me, climbs up on my lap and snuggles in while I wrap his baseball blanket around him. We read through the books, while he adds his commentary and makes me laugh, then I lean over and turn off his Offi dog light and tell him it's time to 'rock-a-bye.' He shifts to wrap his arm around my waist and we cuddle while I sing - yes, I sing (sorry buddy, I know it's not pretty) - either Rock-A-Bye Baby or You Are My Sunshine. I ask him if he has his eyes closed and he will reach up and touch my eyes and say "mama eyes closed?"

After some more rocking, he will be close enough to sleep that I will put him into his crib, cover him up and then he gets a good night from each of his stuffed animals - Wally the Wolf (from our Great Wolf Lodge vacay), Owlie the Owl (been part of his nursery since before he was born) and then I will tuck a Mickey Mouse and Spike, his shark from the zoo, under his arms, blow him kisses and close his door.

If we are lucky, he will go right to sleep.

Well...this is a much, much more detailed description of our bedtime routine, but what can I say? Once I got started, I just wanted to write it all out, so I would remember exactly how amazing this time is. Lord knows, it will only go so quickly.

Learning The Hard Way

I sit here typing this post very quietly. The babe is sleeping. Yay for us.

I don't want to jump the gun here, but the past two (yep, two!) nights we have started our form of sleep training...and so far, SO FAR it seems to be working! I know it's early, but we are feeling great about it. (Thanks to all of your for your responses to our HELP US post last week!)

After what we've been calling Cruz's "case of the Mondays" - which entails spending the entire day with Nick and I and being somewhat of a crabby boy all throughout the day, not napping well and being the biggest bear ever getting to bed...and then as if that isn't bad enough, waking up around 3am for a couple hours...we were ready for some change. And to take back the pants-wearing. No more being dictated by a whiny toddler.

On Tuesday night as we were in the middle of yet another struggle getting C to sleep, we decided we were just going to jump into our own "cry it out" method. After a bath, some book reading and some fussing - we laid little man down in his bed, kissed him good night, patted him on the back and then left the room and shut the door. That was 9:11pm. He cried. And he cried. And he cried some more. We made ourselves stay strong - and after much advice determined we needed to let him cry a little bit. This boy made that H.A.R.D.

He successfully cried, screamed, whined, you name it until 9:36pm and then he fell silent. Phew! Was he sleeping or did he just find something to occupy his time? We had to check - more out of fear that something happened. Quietly we opened the door (dangerous I know!) but saw that he was passed out in his crib. And he slept soundly all night long.

Fast forward to tonight...and we decided to try a similar method. No bath was needed, but after I got home from work, I stole a few minutes to play with him, changed his dipe and put him in PJs and then Nick took him to his rocker and read a couple books to him. I heard him shut the door and immediately the crying started. Not again. I don't know if I can listen to this poor boy each night.  Nick pointed out that it was exactly 9:11pm, which was exactly the same time we put him down last night. We decided that it would be a success if we shaved off five minutes from his prior night's crying episode.

Not only did we improve our time, but he fell asleep within 9 minutes! Major win for the parents here.I'm proud of him...and us for being strong and working toward a better schedule for all of us.

Let's just hope he makes it through the night....