Day in the Life: Bedtime Routine

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Do you have a bedtime routine you do with your kids? With two kids now sharing a room, two different bedtimes, and one super light sleeper of a baby, the bedtime routine has gotten a little more complicated. Here’s how it all went down on this particular evening earlier this week…

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Photography by Liz Stanley and Sara Albers.

This post is sponsored by Chronicle books

6:00 pm After dinner, Edie and Henry both take a bath together (we don’t take baths every night, don’t judge me!) and this time we made it a little more special with bubbles and glow sticks. We splashed around a bit and before pulling Edie out I made sure to compliment Henry on not pouring water over Edie’s head this time (the hardest temptation to resist!).

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6:15pm Returned to the bath with Edie in pjs who immediately attempted to crawl back in. I washed Henry’s hair and helped him into his towel. Henry insisted on me helping him into his pjs too, “You never do it anymore and you ALWAYS help Edie“. Okay, okay let’s do it, almost 7 year old.

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6:30 pm After pjs were on Henry runs into the living room to grab some books to read together with Edie in bed.

He came back with the three Jeffery Brown books: Goodnight Darth Vader, Darth Vader and Son, and Darth Vader’s Little Princess. Goodnight Darth Vader is the third in these series of NYT Best Sellers that take a funny spin on the classic Star Wars movies. Such a great collection of books based on the hilarious premise, what if Darth Vader were a good dad?  They’re filled to the brim with pretty comic illustrations and clever lines twisted from the films, “If only you knew the power of sleep…“.chroniclebooks9

When Chronicle books contacted me about checking out these books, I knew instantly Henry would love them. He’s just about able to read them himself without help and gets 50% of the jokes. Which is perfect because in a year he’ll get another 25%, and then another 25% a year after that. I think this will be a series he’ll be enjoying for a while. Even Jared and I got a kick out of the books!

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6:45 pm Edie stayed with us on the bed for a bit while Henry read some of the book to her. I love that he can read books to Edie now, although, she’s still more interested in eating books than reading them. He finished up reading all three to himself while Edie and I looked at some baby board books on the floor together.

7pm We hear Jared walk in the door from work and Henry runs to greet him at the stairs. Edie soon starts rubbing her eyes and I enlist the help of Jared to go over homework with Henry while I nurse and then put Edie down in her crib after a couple songs and exactly 2 million kisses on her chubby cheeks.

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7:30pm Teeth brushing, bathroom and one on one reading time with Henry in our bed.  He reads to us and then we read to him. This is one of my favorite parts of the day. I love watching him become such a great little reader. It’s amazing how quickly they pick it up, I swear this time last year he barely knew his letters. So proud of this kid!

8:15pm We tuck Henry into our bed. Lights out, giggles about a potty joke earlier that day (always, always, without fail), and then prayers, kisses goodnight, and some solid plans to meet in dreamland together and fight the storm troopers with Luke and Leia.

11pm After doing a bit more work, some cupboard snacking and catching up on tv shows, Jared and I get ready for bed ourselves. Before we hop in though we have to move Henry out of our bed and into his. He’s such a deep sleeper and always says something kind of funny and nonsensical when we try to get him up that he never remembers the next morning. Last night it was, “What the heck? Something bad is happening!”. Me, “Nothing bad is happening, we’re just headed to your bed. Good night”. 

What’s your bedtime routine like? What books does your family enjoy to read together? 

Room sources: Edie’s crib/Macrame wool rug/Balloon print above rocking chair by Blanca Gomez/ship kite mobile/ side table stool/reading lamp/DIY pom pom rug/vintage rocking chair/Henry’s quilt. More images from Edie’s side of the room here.

Comments

So lovely pictures! We have the 4 Year Old in her own room and the 1 Year Old with us, That Works Great for us. You let her cry at Night? Why?

I’m so glad to see that someone else does not do baths every night. I don’t bathe the kids every night either especially in winter when the dry skin hits.

So sweet. Love the stories at bedtime. These books look so clever, with little Leia and Luke. It’s nice for the parents to have something in the story they can appreciate, too. : )

Such a relief to see so many in the same boat as us : ) We have a 3 year old and a 20 month old. Just until last month, they both had the same bed time. Just recently, the younger one goes to bed around 7:30 and the older one around 8:30. They both sleep great at night except the younger one has started waking up around 5 a.m. crying for milk. So we do a combination of letting the older one sleep with us/bring her to bed in the morning with us etc etc. Still working on trying to make the 20-month-old sleep in until 6:30-7 a.m.

Love the photos! I love documenting day in the life of my kids. A couple of my favorite links : )

http://thirdeyechicstudio.com/sugar-pie-honey-bunch/

http://thirdeyechicstudio.com/a-day-in-the-life-2/

Such a relief to see so many in the same boat as us : ) We have a 3 year old and a 20 month old. Just until last month, they both had the same bed time. Just recently, the younger one goes to bed around 7:30 and the older one around 8:30. They both sleep great at night except that the younger one has started waking up around 5 a.m. crying for milk. So we do a combination of letting the older one sleep with us/bring her to bed in the morning with us etc etc. Still working on trying to make the 20-month-old sleep in until 6:30-7 a.m.

Love the photos!

We have a 1 yo and a 4 yo sharing a room. Our 4yo goes to bed before the baby, usually. But if it is close to the same time we put our baby to sleep in our room. Otherwise they party all night! If our baby wakes up she usually comes to our bed. We’ve tried to let her cry it out but she screams sooooooo load, the whole house wakes up! Heaven help me:) maybe by 2 she’ll be sleeping through the night.

I love this! My children are similar in ages to yours (boy, 7 and girl, 14 months). I too consider the bedtime a challenge – although thankfully my second child is much easier to go down than her brother! Thanks for this snapshot into your day!

Aw they are adorable. We just have the one three year old and the routine is pretty straight forward – Dinner around 5.45, bath around 6.30 (we sometimes skip the bath in lieu of some play time, no judgement here!), read a book in bed around 7.15 and then off to sleep.

Super cute! My two youngest girls (ages 6 and 10 months) share a room but they both have bedtime at 9-ish. Most nights go well but when I have sleep training trouble with the little one I occasionally carry the 6 year old to the couch so the crying doesn’t wake her. Otherwise she says in her sleep “Fiiiiiiiaaaa, sto-o-o-o-o-o-p it!” Which makes me laugh. When she hears her in the morning and pulls her out of the crib to play – makes my heart swell 🙂

Oh sleep training is the worst. We still let her cry it out sometimes at night and end up bringing henry into our bed. no one gets sleep!

This is great! I have a 3 year old terrible sleeper and a 3 month old and am so scared of having to move to baby into my older child’s room. Not to mention my son doesn’t want to give up his crib even though we bought him a new big boy (toddler) bed!!

My sons name is Henry too 🙂 can I ask where you bought his pjs? They’re adorable.

Love this post as I’m very curious how 2 kid households handle these types of things (we have a 3 yr old and 6 month old)! We’re still figuring it out for ourselves with 1 child who goes to bed at 7 and another who goes to bed at 8 (with us all arriving home around 6:30pm which doesn’t allow much time for dinner/baths/etc!).

I know, it’s so tricky- right? I mean, it’s not a perfect system. Henry falls asleep in our bed and when we move him I then have to crawl into his sweaty spot. uggg.

What a sweet post. Snuggly kids in adorable jammies with wet heads. It doesn’t get much better. I have been awaiting a glimpse into their newly decorated bedroom. Did you already do a full room reveal?

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