Even before we got rid of bottles, I had moved up her bedtime by a half an hour from 8:00 to 7:30 because she was exhausted by this point in the night and just plain cranky. So we certainly weren't going to change that just because we changed her routine. But we did need to start the bedtime process a bit earlier, which meant we were starting at about 7:00.
The first step is her bedtime snack.
We found a great yogurt that she loves, which is great for bedtime. If we give her something to feed herself then that alone could last a half and hour alone. So feeding her ourselves gives us more control. For anyone that curious, we use a yogurt called Yo Toddler, which is a organic yogurt that comes in four different mixed flavors.
After snack time, we head upstairs. If it's a bath night then this is when we do that. We don't do a bath every night for her because she has incredibly dry skin and we don't want to make it worse now that it's getting drier. Then comes teeth brushing time.
She's a big fan of getting her teeth brushed. She just opens her mouths when she sees the tooth brush and waits. She spends a lot of time trying to grab the tooth brush herself and biting down, but she does have about six teeth coming in all at once. That's just how we roll around here - it's all or nothing.
Next comes lotion.
This is when she puts up the most fight. She doesn't mind so much on her body but when we need to put some of her cheeks, she fights and gets upset. Some night she takes it pretty well, but other nights it results in crying. A lot of it depends on how tired she is.
It's pajama time!
Most of the time she takes this pretty well. Better than she used to, but if she's tired enough and upset because of the lotion then there can be a lot of crying and screaming. It also tends to depend on who is actually doing it. She gets really upset with Rob when she has to get out of the bathtub, but when I take her out she's just fine and even smiling. Sometimes it's the same with pajamas.
And finally, the final steps...
This last part hasn't changed from the old routine. We read her a couple books then read her The Going To Bed Book (a lot of people go with Good Night, Moon, but I found that this one was shorter and I liked it better). Then we turn on her radio, turn off the light, and sing her Rock-a-Bye Baby. Then it's to bed with my sleepy head. We lay her down, kiss her, tell her good night and that mama and daddy love her then we walk away.
Then normally we hear nothing else from her until the morning. It's pretty awesome. When we had to change our plan, we decided that it was going to be a little trial and error to figure out what would work best now that bottles were out of the equation. Luckily we got it the first try out of the gate. Maybe we know what we're doing after all...
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