All the books and sites say to have an hour of winding down time before bed - dim lighting, quiet play, nothing super stimulating. Sooo you want me to put my kid down early AND have them wind down for an hour - who is actually doing that?! Our hour before bedtime is spent eating dinner, then the kids running around screaming and playing while I clean up. Then the big one waits in the playroom while I put the little one down. If you're able to accomplish this wind down period, what is your secret??
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we don't have a full hour, but a big part of the "bedtime routine" is reading books in his room and we use only his small lamp for this. then we lay in the dark and i tell him stories and finally he settles down and falls asleep. I guess that whole process is an hour, but i wish it was less
he just won't fall asleep sooner.eta. the books and stories start after we do supper then bath (sometimes bath is skipped though). DH or I will clean up from supper while the other does the bedtime routine. Although, sometimes we are too tired from work or not home or busy with other stuff and the clean up doesn't happen until the next morning or even the next day after work
eta again. This is not really how we would like to do things, it's just that LO doesn't go to sleep any other way. He is not one of those kids that we can tuck in and say goodnight and leave the room. so while i enjoy the time with him, it is really exhausting on a daily basis.
Do your kids fall asleep okay? do you feel the one hour wind down time would help them fall asleep or sleep better overall?
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We got lucky. Our kids seem to be able to go from wild and crazy to lying down and calm no problem. Now I will go frantically knock on wood...
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It's like my toddler hits a second wind after dinner and before bed. From about 6:30-7:00, she is SO hyper- runs around, dances, yells. But she always seems to settle down once bedtime routine starts. But we only spend about 5 minutes reading books, so we don't have a wind-down time for real.
There just doesn't seem to be enough time in the evening for dinner, bath, early bed AND winding down!
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I count the bedtime process as the winding down period. We snuggle up for about 10 minutes with a TV show, then bathtime, then books and cuddles. It takes about 45 minutes total, and then he sits in his cribs and reads a few books and passes out.
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From the time we start pajamas to the time she is in bed is probably 40 min. And before that, we play with lego or colouring or something. I don't do TV or visits to the park or running around after supper because that does tend to get her riled up and overtired. Having said that, LO goes to bed at 8 and supper is at 6, so there's not a big rush to bed these days.
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We keep our wind down routine as short as possible! Dinner, bath & bed is all done in an hour-90 mins max. Storytime before bed if he's extra hyper (often seems to be extra hyper/throwy before bedtime). We dim the lights in his room from post-dinner, but bath is in full light so I guess that's not really followed through. He's pretty good at switching to sleep mode though...we've always just put him down and walked away. Now that he's a toddler there's usually a few seconds/minutes of crying before falling asleep but I'm ok with that!
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Oh I wasn't counting bedtime routine as part of the wind down, makes sense though. We do dinner at 5:45/6, little one starts her routine at 6:45/7, then big brother right after. We do bath, books and a song. I can leave the room right after with the little one but the older one needs me to sit in the hallway until he falls asleep, usually around 8:15/8:30.
he just won't fall asleep sooner.
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