how long does it take to get LO to sleep at night?
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We have had the same bedtime routine for over a year. After dinner and some play, he has a bath, puts on pajamas, brush teeth, story time, then bed. He knows what comes next and will ask us for the next step if we go out of order for some reason. Even if we get out of routine for special occasions we usually will start with bath time and go from there. By the time thats all over, 9/10 times he's ready for sleep and will fall asleep on his own 10-20 mins after we leave the room. I also always end story time with "Goodnight Moon". Often as soon as I read the title he will lay right down!
@Melissa that's amazing!... and so not our reality lol. in general our world is fairly structured but it feels like sleep is just constantly changing and so all over the place.
@Miriam thanks for the tips! some days it takes us that long too. other days it goes more quickly. the nursing portion of it just seems to be draining me lately. I guess it feels like because she's over 2 yrs old i shouldn't be laying in bed for so long still having to nurse to get her to sleep. I thought she would've learned by now a bit better how to sleep on her own more easily. night weaning is on the radar but feels pretty impossible right now. that'll definitely switch things up for us!
@Heidi you could also try decreasing the nursing time really gradually. When we were weaning off the middle of the night feeds we gradually mixed milk with water and decreased the bottle size. I've heard from breast feeding to gradually decrease amount of time feeding to also work. We've also had a lot of fun (and I think it's been a good bedtime thing) putting all our stuffed animals to bed.
haha, ohhh yeah. we tuck them all in nicely too 😁
@Heidi over and over... I do think it's helping although it's taken a while to sort of make it a quiet, winding down activity. My little one now talks about being sleepy and bed (au lit). But sometimes bedtime takes 2.5 hours. Sigh. Some nights we are still at our wits end. I think what we are trying to move to is the last few minutes saying goodnight and letting him talk and snuggle his stuffies to sleep. And gradually increasing that time. But we aren't quite there yet.
We just got off milk at bedtime recently (although we're weaned off the best awhile ago). Bedtime can still take awhile, but now it is just because he's wiggly and chatty (sometimes bedtime takes like 2 hours). Things that helped us: We switched to after bathtime offering milk and a snack. Then we brush our teeth. And we talked through how after we brush our teeth we can't have more food or drink more milk. That took a bit to push through, but like 3 days? Basically we use the brushing of teeth as the cut off point. It's a clear line for him. Now sometimes he'll ask for milk or food and we say "we already brushed our teeth, remember?" Also, lots of wiggle time before bathtime and quiet time helps! Tire them out!