Hush little baby...

Yup, you guessed it! We're talking about sleep today. Let's chat about how I learned to get my child to bed swiftly and maybe you can learn something too.

Got it from pixabay.com

A few years back, when I was pregnant with my beautiful angel, I had a friend stay over at my place. I noticed how disciplined her children were, specially her daughter. She has a girl, 11ish and a boy, 6ish.

They knew when it was time for bed and they wouldn't fuss over it, not even on weekends. They usually went to bed at 8pm and weekends would be 9pm.

It was not only her children, she was also very strict on her sleep schedule as well. Me and my husband would be awake until like 1am, usually until 2am. But, she was in bed around 10pm or 11pm the most.

I was amazed and very much sure that, that's what I want my child to do. I want her to be in bed when she knows it is bedtime without fighting to sleep.

I have seen and heard so many situations where children wouldn't be in bed until 10pm and they still fuss over it even after 10pm. In my family and in my husband's family, we've got children like that and oh boy, that's a chore putting them to bed. I knew I wanted my child in bed around 8pm, without all the fuss and buzz!

I talked to her and was curious how she's done it. She said, we usually have to set a routine for them when they are young, because then it becomes a habit and they know they are going to bed when it is time. Of course, I knew that before; but someone you know does it without any hassle, is like magic!

So when I had my daughter newly born, she was sleeping the whole day. I even had to wake her up to feed her, even in the nights. She was just sleeping day and night. And, was I not happy? :D

Then, as she got older, she started staying awake until 10 pm. I think it was kind of my mistake too, because I wanted to play with her and I just wanted her around. But then, I had some friends tell me that if I keep her on this routine, I would be regretting it later.

So, I decided to listen to them and set up a routine for her. What I did was I started small; first I started putting her to bed around 9:30pm, then 9pm and so on. That way, she didn't feel the difference between the time and I was glad I did, because now we can have some time to ourselves. Now she is happily sleeping at 8pm, now-a-days is heaven, because she is sleeping (happily) around7:30PM.

That's her when she was 1 month and 1 week old.

We'll discuss more about the importance of your and your child(ren)'s sleep in another post. But for now, that's all I got to say. Let me know in the comments when is your child sleeping and it is like a chore or is it easy peasy? :)

DREAM ON!!