Bedtime Routines

I'd say the most challenging part of my day is getting the kids to bed. I try to tire Ellis out, but that doesn't seem to work. So I try to rely on the bedtime routine. Bath, brush teeth, stories then lights out.

That doesn't work either, so I tried letting Ellis read in bed for a bit - it worked the first night. He came and got me to turn out his light. I guess it got boring though as the next night I could hear him bouncing all over his room and when I tried to turn out his light he wasn't having it.

"I'll go to bed when Rowan goes to bed." Hmm. Good in theory.

Well - I tried that. I took Rowan to bed, turned off the TV and all the lights. It seemed to work. When I checked on Ellis, he was almost asleep and didn't protest when I turned out the lights.

This worked again then next night too, but on Saturday Ellis was way too jazzed from the party food table (I'm not sure how many chocolate slices he had, but I think it was a lot) and the clowns.

I decided to let him watch TV with me. The Fantastic Four was on. It claimed to be a Family Movie.

He watched for a while, but seemed to be getting even more wired so I turned off the TV said it was time for bed.

All I could hear from Ellis room was:

"I'm toooooo tired. Mummy let me stay up too late watching adult TV. I'm hungree...... I had too much TV... mummy let me stay up too late." over and over and over again. Eventually the mantra stopped.

When we finally woke up in the morning. Ellis kept telling me.

"mummy - I'm still tired - you let me stay up too late to watch adult TV - bad mummy."

So - you'd think I could use logic on him to get him to bed that night. After all, staying up too late had not been good. Nope. didn't work. We were back to the "don't turn out my light mummy."

Last night he started banging his head on the wall when I finally had had enough and closed his door.

BANG!

"I hurt my head - owwwwwwwwww! MUMMY!!!!!! owwwwww" sob sob sob. " pause. no response from mummy.

BANG! OWWWWWWW! MY HEAD!

Mummy had had enough. He did sound in pain but come on. I went into his room.

"Ellis - you are a goofball. tomorrow you are going to bed straight after dinner. goodnight."

what a sympathetic mummy.

It is 9 am. He is still asleep. Hence my ability to blog. The other one is starting to get rangy.