The last few weeks we have noticed our bedtime routine has taken longer and longer. Being 2 1/2, Baby A likes to do everything now that she can do it. Can you blame her? However, it takes a long, long time. She also likes to put her music on, dance, play a bit, and whatever else she can do. Well, my frustration had seemed to rise each night as I would get frustrated with everything she was doing. I was constantly threatening that we wouldn't read books if she didn't move quicker, or get her pj's on, or stop playing, etc. You can imagine how well that worked. Well, 3 nights ago we hit the bottom. Both Dad and I were upstairs doing the bedtime routine. I was so frustrated, I started doing things for her, which caused a major tantrum, and I finally said we wouldn't be reading any books. Dad was trying to diffuse the situation a bit, but I also believed that she can't act the way she was acting and get away with it. We are the parents, and we make the decisions, not her and I was NOT going to give in. Needless to say, bedtime took much longer now b/c I had to calm her down before putting her in her crib which took awhile. We didn't read books, but we did sing our songs. Once I got her to bed, I had to reflect on what happened. We were both very upset. It is rare that she acts like that and I knew some things had to change.
1. bedtime routines had to be revised a bit
2. I need to find away to keep from getting frustrated
3. We needed to figure out how we can make bedtime go a bit quicker while giving her the opportunity to do everything, but not draw it out
4. Ultimately, we are the parents and we need set the parameters.
Where was I to turn? I immediately picked up our Early Childhood Love and Logic book and looked through the table of contents to find something that I could read that would pertain to this situation. Well I found it and realized what I was doing wrong.
1. I was threatening
2. I was getting frustrated and she knew this
3. I wasn't using our empathetic word we started using awhile ago which is "bummer"
So I discussed a few things with Dad and we realized bedtime needed to look something like this:
1. We need to make sure there is enough time from the end of dinner and before bedtime that she can play a bit.
2. When we go upstairs, we need to give her some time (10min. or so) to play her music, dance and play
3. After time is up we need to calmly tell her that she has 10 min. to get her PJ's on so we can read books. If not, it is a "bummer" and we don't read books b/c we don't have time.
Now I'm not a fan of using books as a leverage b/c she loves reading them so much, but we do read them all the time and she needs to know she does have a time frame.
The next night we went for it. It was great. She had time to dance, play, and she barely made her time limit for reading books. Actually we stretched it a min. or two b/c I think we both didn't want a repeat of the night before.
The next night we did the same thing, only this time, she didn't make it. So I calmly said, "Bummer, we don't have our PJ's on and our time is up, we can't read books tonight." I was very pleasantly surprised at how she handled it. She was very sad and kept saying she wanted to read books, but she truly does know that when she hears the word "Bummer" that means something and we just have to move on. We went to brush teeth, sang our songs and she went to bed. No tantrum. The next morning she remembered what happened and said, "I didn't have books last night and I was sad." Since then, we have had time to read books.
So I would say this has been a great success and it is such a reminder that Love and Logic works. I am not getting frustrated anymore. I'm not threatening, I just say our "bummer" word and then the consequence and she knows that is it.
As I look back, I wonder how I forgot about this b/c we have been using Love and Logic from the beginning, but I guess it happens. The good thing is that we were able to reevaluate what we were doing, knowing it wasn't working, and we are back to our fun, happy, enjoyable bedtime routine.
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