As I sit here writing this blog it is 8:20pm, my girl has been in bed since 7pm and she has just now quietened down her protesting…

My latest sleep challenge began when Tia turned 2 at the beginning of this month. Alongside the 2 year old attitude she has developed like clockwork which guarantees her answer to every request no matter how big or small is a very stern NO MUM!

She has developed an intriguing perspective of how she thinks bed time should go.

The bed time ritual now begins with absolutely filling her cot with as many toys as possible. When this initially started it was manageable and easy enough to sneak a couple of toys out of the cot without a fuss before she was tucked in however 2 weeks down the track we have this…

On top of this fondness for comfort from multiple soft toys there is the “hand game” where she puts her hands under the blankets, I tuck them in and say “keep warm” to which she replies “keep warm Mummy, kiss, cuddle” but doing this just once or twice is nowhere near enough, this needs to be done 8, 9, 10 times until this Mum’s patience wears thin.

Tonight the toy overload situation took another interesting turn, we went through our standard evening routine, pj’s, stories, milk, teeth, cuddles and bed around 7pm, she was well placed for a good settle to sleep however this wasn’t to be, there were tears of despair at the order in which the toys were placed in her cot and this needed to be 100% perfect before she would lie down and settle over an hour later.

I love bed time rituals, they are an important part of preparing wee one’s for sleep, there is nothing cuter than a 2 year old who want’s multiple kisses, cuddles and tuck ins from Mum it’s just that I need to figure out how to strike the balance and keep these wee rituals without dragging evening settling out to a 30 minute ordeal each night – needless to say tomorrow I will be taking some of the advice I provide to my clients daily and getting bed time running a little smoother!

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