How I made Bedtime work for us

So there has been a lot of talk on line lately about bed time. Bedtime is definitely up there in the top 5 things all mothers talk about, after coffee, wine, complaining about our husbands and coffee again.

At the risk of angering the bedtime gods and having it all go tits up for me after publishing this, I've decided to share our routine. It works pretty well for us, and it might actually help some other poor parents who are at their wits end.

Let me start by saying Fionn was a terrible sleeper. Like awful. He'd wake every 45-90 mins wanting to be fed, If I got 3 hours out of him I felt well rested. With Shane working three different shifts, we found it very hard to actually get into a routine. We were also refusing to accept the fact that kids were going to ruin our social life, so we took Fionn everywhere with us. Way later than his current bedtime. 

I went back to work when he was 7 months old, had a lot of trouble with the company, PND reared it's awful, ugly head, I stopped breastfeeding to go on anti depressants, and I came out of work again. This is when we decided that if I was going to feel like a human ever again I needed to sleep. 

So we made a plan.

Shane stated going to Fionn in the night.

From the time he was born I was the one to get up to him, I'd put him on the boob and he'd be back asleep within minutes, for another hour. He learned after about 3 days of Shane getting up to him that he wasn't getting fed so he stopped waking up. Why we hadn't done this sooner I'll never know. 

Then we introduced a bed time. 

It took us a while to find a time that suited us. But we learned that no matter what time he went down at, he woke up at 6am. So we settled on 6.30pm that gave us some quality time together in the evenings and gave him a full nights sleep. That in turn reduced the hours of daemon like monster he became the next day.

We made a routine.

As much as I hate them, kids love routines, and Fionn responded to it brilliantly.

Bath every night at 6.30pm, a cuddle and a bottle of milk in our bed, then we'd carry him to his cot, sing some songs and leave him. 

In the beginning he'd cry or whine, we'd leave him 5 minutes, go back up, sing again and leave. Some nights he'd cry again, we'd leave him 10 minutes and go back up, sing again and leave again. 

After a few weeks, the crying stopped and he'd fall asleep straight away. We'd never leave him cry if he got too upset, you can tell when the pitch of the cry changes. It was a gentle way to encourage him to self settle. 

This worked so fantastically for about a year, that I was worried moving him into a new room and a bed would disrupt him and we'd be back to square one. So we did it in stages. We moved the cot into the new room first. Then swapped it for his bunk beds a few weeks later. I am so happy to report that it hasn't affected him at all.

As he's getting older, and since Daithí's come along we're following his lead and adapting the routine to fit us as a family of 4.

We aren't as strict now. 

We tend to try start bed time at 6.30pm, but he can talk back now, and will try to reason with us to stay up later. After a day of negotiations with a toddler, sometimes we all need another episode of Sarah and Duck before bed.  

We don't do baths every night of the week anymore.
But normally manage 2-3 a week. It all depends on Shane's shift and if I'm by myself or not. The saga of washing his hair is also more than I can handle more than once a week.

He's dropped his bottles of milk.
So we climb into my bed and read some books. Fionn LOVES books. He'd sit there all night reading if I didn't put a cap on it. Then he climbs into his bed and we sing the same few lullabies. (I say lullabies, but they include Oasis and Boy Dylan!)

And that's the last I hear from him till morning. The wonderful thing, He wont get out of his bed without me there. I don't know if its that he doesn't realise he can get out of the bed by himself or he doesn't think he's aloud. Either way it's great!!

Now I'm not saying this will work for everyone, or even anyone, but it's what's worked for us. Feel free to share what you do, and ask me any questions.