Nighttime Routine

No matter which method you use to get your kid to sleep well at night, most stress the importance of developing a nighttime routine to lead up to bed time. Lately I love going through the routine. We start out with bath time. Even if he's crying, once Brady hears the water turn on, he calms down immediately. 

Here he is waiting patiently for the tub to fill. This is my little corner in his room. It's where I find myself in the wee hours of the morning.

 He looks so little in the chair...kind of like Goldilocks in Papa Bear's chair :)

Brady LOVES his bath time. I think I've mentioned it before. He kicks his legs like crazy while he's in there and after a minute his whole body will have scooted way down, so I'm constantly lifting him back up into the proper position on the tub seat.

This is what his face looks like when he's kicking. He takes in a big gulp of air and then kicks and flings his arms around. Then he'll stop and rest before taking in another big gulp of air and kicking again. He also does this throughout the day, mostly on his play mat or when he's laying on our bed. I noticed the other day that it looks kind of like he's doing a river dance :) He's a wild one. 

Anyway, after bath time, we get dressed and play for a bit before going back to the rocking chair to eat and fall asleep. I'd like to read him stories, but he never seems to want to sit still for them. I rock him to sleep every night and then ever so gently transfer him to his crib before tip-toeing out...crossing my fingers the whole time that he'll stay asleep. Hopefully soon I'll quit rocking him to sleep and teach him to fall asleep in his crib on his own, but right now, this is working for us (though, what 'works' for us when it comes to bedtime seems to change a LOT). 

The past few nights he's slept pretty well and instead of waking up crying in the morning, like normal, he's woken up cooing and smiling, which I LOVE. Morning time seems to be his happiest time of the day, so after changing him, we lay on the floor in his room and play for a bit. 

So that's our routine. It's not very exciting, but it's a big part of our life right now, so I figured I'd document it to remember forever and ever :)