Sleep: Ellen's Bedtime

Ellen and Bedtime (Around 21 Months Old)

1. She takes a bath almost every night. . . she loves them!
2. After her bath, on our way into her bedroom, I switch on the lamp in her bedroom (instead of the overhead light)
3. We put her diaper and jammies on.
4. We read from some of her favorite books. . . she enjoys nursery rhymes.
5. I nurse her.
6. As I nurse her, I pray out loud with her.
7. Then I sing a special song
8. Sometimes she rests on my shoulder, and I rub her back for a little while.

Sometimes she is now ready to be put in her crib, and sometimes she is not! She goes through phases.

It’s really hard to help her go to sleep when she is teething or when her schedule has really been messed up (for example, when we went on vacation).

When it is really hard for her to get to sleep, I have decided the best thing to do is to just let her stay up later. It’s not worth the battle--battling with her about it seems to prolong the problem. Things sometimes start getting back to normal in about a week, but she may not go to sleep easily for even a month or so.

Since my husband goes to sleep early every evening (way before I do!), he will let Ellen sleep with him on the nights he doesn’t have to work. He doesn’t do that on the other nights because sometimes she’s pretty active—crawling, talking, etc.--until she actually falls asleep.

When I go to bed at night, Ellen usually wakes up and then I bring her to bed to spend the rest of the night with us.

Bedtime Update for Ellen! (22 Months Old)

1. We lay down on her bed and read a book.
2. I turn off her lamp and turn on her little moon night light.
3. I nurse her and pray with her.
4. That's about it! :) Sometimes she sleeps with a dolly.

She usually wakes up at least once a night, but quickly and easily goes back to sleep. :-) If she wakes up while I am still on the computer, she just trots into the computer room, and we go back together to her room, and I nurse her! Then she contentedly falls back asleep! No problem!!!!! :-) If she wakes after I have gone to bed, then she comes in our bed. Easy!

Bedtime Update for Ellen! (30 Months Old)

Now our routine usually (we're flexible) consists of the following:

1. She sometimes takes a bath.
2. After we get her jammies and diaper on, she sits in my lap, and I read to her (tonight we sang some songs together, too; that was really fun!)
3. I turn out the lamp and turn on the little moon night light.
4. I nurse her (usually lying down, sometimes in the chair) and pray with her. Only when she is really tired (perhaps because she didn't take a nap--something she often skips lately) will she fall asleep nursing.
5. Sometimes I sing a lullabye to her.
6. Sometimes I'll scratch her back for awhile. When I stop stratching her back, she usually says, "More," and then I do it a while longer and then she is ready to let me leave.

About five or so months ago, Ellen went through a period of time when she didn't want to stay in her bed. Instead she wanted to go to sleep on the couch in the same room with me (the room where the computer is). I let her lie there with a book or little toy, but if she wanted to stay in the room with me, she had to stay on the couch. Her choice was to go back to her room or to stay on the couch. Since my husband goes to bed before I do, on the days when John didn't have to work the next day she was also welcome to go sleep with him.

When she would stay in here with me, she would ask to nurse often, and it sometimes annoyed me. I guess I thought that perhaps she asked so often to get out of staying on the couch. But perhaps she needed me to hold her or maybe she really needed to nurse. I do know that she realizes that nursing helps her go to sleep, and perhaps she was having trouble going to sleep. You know what, though? I shouldn't have been so annoyed! It was just a stage she was going through, and I can see so clearly now that she is growing into independence, and I sometimes miss not being needed so much.

For the last few months, Ellen has slept through the night. For some reason she naturally stopped nursing at night. I guess she was just ready! She goes to bed well at night (although sometimes she stays up to 11 pm or even later--I am a night owl, and I guess she might be too). She doesn't wake up until around 8 am or so, and then she comes into bed with me. I nurse her, and we sleep for awhile longer. If she wakes at night, it's usually because she doesn't feel well or perhaps she had a bed dream. She is always welcome to lie on the couch if she needs to, but now she rarely does.

I am so glad she still comes in my bed in the morning. I will miss that so much when she stops. At least every couple weeks or so she will choose to go to sleep with her daddy (he goes to bed much earlier than I do), but she really seems to enjoy sleeping in her own bed.

I can't believe how quickly she is growing up.

Bedtime Update for Ellen! (30 Months Old, almost 31 months) Night/Early Morning of July 6-7

Then a little over a week ago, Ellen wouldn't go to bed. I figured it was because she had taken her nap so late in the day. Normally, I wouldn't have minded her staying up so late, but since we had to get up early the next morning for church, I tried a little too hard to "get" her to go to sleep, and we both ended up getting stressed out. :-(

She also had a hard time going to sleep another night last week, but I think she probably took her nap later that day, too. That night went better, and we both stayed in her room and looked at books until finally she was ready to go to bed.

Since she had been going to bed so easily for such a long time before these incidences, I thought that maybe they wouldn't become common occurrences. Well... now I am afraid she might be going through a "stage."

Tonight she stayed up until almost 12:40 am! Yes, I admit, I tried to "make" her go to bed, and it turned into a battle that I knew that I couldn't win (she can be verrrrrrry stubborn sometimes). So finally, I gave up the fight, and I turned on the light in her room, gave her a bunch of books, and told her to go ahead and read for a while. Then I left the room. (Ellen loves to sit for long periods of time by herself looking at her books.)

I went into another room and read some great advice about bedtime in Dr. Sears' The Discipline Book. Soon, I might put a short excerpt from that book here, so you can get an idea of the great stuff there is in that book. Well, it made me see even more clearly the mistakes and bad choices I made tonight and gave me ideas for what to do in the future.

When Ellen called my name, I went into her room. I asked her if she was ready to nurse, and she said yes. We put her books away; I got her a drink of water; we laid down, and I nursed her. She got drowsy and then finally was able to go to sleep!

Just listen to this great advice I read tonight, "When it is really hard for her to get to sleep, I have decided the best thing to do is to just let her stay up later. It’s not worth the battle--battling with her about it seems to prolong the problem." I wrote that about 10 months ago. Why, oh, why, is it so hard for me to learn from my past mistakes??? Why is it so hard for me to follow my own advice??

I'll keep you updated...

Bedtime Update for Ellen! (33 Months Old, September)

1. I stopped making her lay down for a nap in the afternoon. I guess she was ready to drop her naps, or at least was nearing that time, and that is one reason why she often found it hard to go to sleep at night. Plus, I feel that her negative feelings toward daytime naps carried over to bedtime.
2. I changed our little bedtime routine. I stopped insisting that she fall asleep in her bedroom or even on the couch. I tried to let bedtime become a "non-issue," but I did try to give her an atmosphere that I felt might help her get to sleep. Since she seemed to really feel negative about going to sleep, at bedtime we avoided her bedroom, and instead I held her and rocked her in a rocking chair in our family room with the lights off, and we nursed a little bit and watched some tv. We watched the same show every night, and it seemed to be a cue for her to go to sleep. When the show came on, she often went to sleep within ten minutes.

Anyway, things are back to "normal," at least for now. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. But if I have to go through it again, or whatever new exciting twist the days in a life of my toddler bring, I am convinced that "this too shall pass."

And, by the way, she now usually sleeps the whole night through and wakes up asking for breastfast instead of asking to nurse. I really miss our early morning cuddles.

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