The Easy and Calm Sleep

I have been having hit and miss solutions with Little Man's sleeping schedule, and so I engaged myself into some trial and error procedures to arrive on ways on how to make him sleep faster and easier.  The experiment meant changing old activities and patterns prior his bedtime so the first week was admittedly not easy.  It was hard to change patterns especially since Migo was already faithful to the old one, which by the way I miss so much (yep, I miss the old pattern because that old one had a touch of cuteness on it).  But later on, it became smooth and fine until we found ourselves having no problems at all. 

Did I mention that the last bedtime pattern we had was cute?  Let me tell you why. One of the last things he would do before he hits the bed is to dance to this Toy Story 2 song.  Even if I find the dance so adorable, this too was ejected from the new list of activities before bedtime since dancing is not a good choice to end my toddler's day.  And yes, I miss watching him do his thing.



Now, these are my new successful ways on how to calmly put my Little Man to sleep:

Play Hard

Migo is certified galawgaw. He keeps moving, dancing, playing, and all that. He always moves around and really plays hard. He pretty much has a lot of activities during the day and that works on my advantage since moving a lot is his form of exercise that keeps his mind and body healthy. Also, it makes him sleep better at night. I just make sure that he stops playing or being active before dinner time so to relax his body. That is also the reason why dancing to that Toy Story song before sleeping is not qualified to be on our new bedtime activities.

Shortened Naps
My Little Man needs to recharge himself so a nap for one hour (three hours the most) is necessary to keep him going.  He should not take a nap longer than that because that means struggle to sleep later in the evening. Also, I do not allow him to take naps late in the afternoon for obvious reasons.

Dinner
His dinner is at around 6pm because I do not want him to sleep on a stuffed tummy. He will ask for milk in the middle of the night anyways so I feel it's okay to give him early dinner. And besides, it makes sense that since I am establishing an early bedtime here, dinner must also be served earlier.


Shower Time
The one who takes care of my son gives him a warm bath, or swimming as Migo would call it, at around 7pm and they do that the same time everyday. This also serves as a sign that his playtime is up.

Night Routine
Our activities several minutes after dinner time all lead to the bedroom. Brushing his teeth, washing his bum, a new diaper and set of bedtime wear all tell that he is going to bed any minute from then.

No TV
TV is not allowed at night time since whatever he watches stimulates his  mind and makes it harder for him to go to sleep.  I am also not allowing him to watch scary and violent scenes for it cause nightmares and sleep interruptions.

The Bed
I make sure that his bed is conducive to sleeping. Even us adults do not want to sleep on a cluttered bed, right? His sleeping buddy, Mickey Mouse, must be there already waiting for him. I also make it a point to have his covers changed every so often.

Dark Room
He loves to sleep in a dark room and with the electric fan running so that is granted to him.  No problem with me since I also cannot sleep on a bright room.

The Goodnight Prayer
And the very last thing that we do is say our good night prayer.  We both pray "Angel of God", and he ends it up with "Goodnight Jesus, goodnight Sto. Nino, goodnight Mama Mary...I love you!"  Then he says his I love yous to us, closes his eyes and goes to sleep.



I hope this new list of activities before bedtime helps mommies out there who are having some difficulties putting their sweethearts to sleep early.  Good luck, and hope it goes well!

Established sleeping time

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Bonjour!

From Migo's birth up to his seventh month, I was terribly looking forward
to some quality, deep sleep. That was because Migo was so hyper up to midnight
and some point up to 2 in the early morning. It was really so hard to put him to
sleep. Honey and I struggled to find ways to make him sleepy--- sing to him, dance
him, shake him a little, give him a warm bath, even baby products to invite sleep,
etcetera, etcetera. Once he got his sleep, I already felt so tired and harassed. I had no time to do the things I love doing before going to bed. That meant I had no time to catch up on my reading, no time to go to my fave websites, and even no time to take a shower!! Goodness!! And the sad part of it all, Migo is an early riser. So no matter how late he slept, he would wake up at 5ish or 6ish. And I had to be up by the time he's up. Imagine how short my sleep was.


Good thing our one week of stay with my parents' house helped me to at last
establish his sleeping time. We had to stay over my parents' place for a week because
honey was in Australia. We had no company so dun muna kami natulog sa kanyang
papu and mamu. Peeps there sleep early. 9 in the evening and lights off already. That's because my dad and mom jog in the early morning, plus Migo's kuyas (cousins)
-Nico and Dane- sleep early for the next day's school. Also, my sisters work in a call center so they are not around during night time. My brother naman stays in his room all evening to watch the movies he downloaded from the net. So in other words, there was no much happening come evening time. And though I find it odd, it was a great way to find my baby's sleep time. 9:30 in the evening became Migo's official bedtime.

A week after and we were back to Fairview. I had doubts if I could go with this pattern once back there. Dinner time there is 8ish, some days it could be as late as 9ish. And we still have to do some chika here and there afterwards. And of course, after-dinner is the time they-the uncles, aunts, cousins and even manangs-play with Migo. The time we will be back to the humble pad is like 10:30, and by then we would struggle to put him to sleep. Hyper na sya by that time due to the talking and playing with him made by people around him.

I was really determined to establish his sleeping time. What I did, I snatched my little Migo away from everybody after dinner. That was around 9pm already. And good thing nobody gave me a violent reaction, hehe. I had to explain my plan of putting him to sleep same time everyday and everybody agreed. So far so good. In fact, he would be the first one to show signs that he was sleepy already. I just had to sway him a little, sing any song in a soft voice, give him milk to suck, and after ten to fifteen minutes, he's in dreamland already.

This has been going on for several days now and I am crossing my fingers!!
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