If you currently feel like bedtime is a stressful, rushed experience for everyone in the family, there is one easy solution! Simply allow more time for bedtime activities so that it can be a calmer, gentler routine.
You will inevitably face problems if you are starting your child’s bedtime routine fifteen minutes before you’d like your child to be asleep. Fifteen minutes is barely enough time to get through the essentials in the bedtime routine if everything goes perfectly, and we all know that putting children to bed rarely goes perfectly. You will not have the time to enjoy the slower pace of a nighttime routine, you will not have time to be patient with your child’s dawdling, and everyone will feel pressured by the time constraint. Your child will pick up on this tension and will respond with additional requests, more dawdling, and meltdowns.
Following this pattern, night after night, makes parents and children dread bedtime. It becomes a difficult cycle, and you need a way to get back on track.
Plan Your Time
One way to avoid all of this turmoil is to allow plenty of time for nighttime routines. Many families find that they need to dedicate at least an hour to the nighttime routine. An hour may sound like a really long time to allocate to putting your child to bed every night, but if you consider your current situation, you are probably already spending this amount of time struggling and dealing with a fussy child. A child who is worked up will not nod off easily once the lights go out; therefore, extending bedtime even further.
Make a plan. Consider the best bedtime for your child, and then identify the specific time that you will begin getting your child ready for bed. This means that you will need to make sure that dinner and evening activities are completed by the time you will need to start your pre-bed plan. This may take some getting used to, but it could also mean much happier evenings for the whole family.
Enjoy the Routine
Starting a nighttime routine well before bedtime may seem like it cuts into family activities that usually take place in the evening. However, the nighttime routine can be equally as enjoyable and provide unique family bonding time.
Once parents understand the power of a long-enough routine to ward off problems, they find that they have an opportunity to spend peaceful time connecting with their sweet children. The nightly bedtime routine becomes something that is looked forward to rather than dreaded, which quickly makes it all worthwhile!
Tips from The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers & Preschoolers by Elizabeth Pantley
The No-Cry Solution Books
Destiny Falls Mystery & Magic Series
