Routine is not a dirty word

DT (Darling Toddler) now has a strict routine.

It only took us 17 months, but we got there in the end.

So why did it take us so long?

We didn’t think we needed a routine other than the one that came naturally to DT… and for a long time that was true.

Call it what you will, I’ve heard naive, hippy herbal, out of our heads ridiculous and everything in between, but believe it or not, ‘going with the flow’ worked for us until DT started on solids.

Not the occasional piece of cheesy pasta in between bottles, but a full diet that saw the bottles binned in favour of real cups and left us momentarily scratching our heads for appropriate dining options.

We promptly stumbled our way through the menus – only to realise our new routine called for DT to eat constantly and sleep a lot more than what she had been doing.

Enter wave of parental guilt: Had we been starving our child? Not giving her necessary rest to support her little body as it developed inline with the medical charts and signed off with each requisite doctors visit?

Of course we hadn’t, she just needed more now.

You see in the life of a baby to pre-toddler (and I suspect beyond) evolution is a daily occurrence and what might work one day, may not be best the next.

So we did as instructed and embraced routine.

I never thought I’d say this, but our new routine has now enabled my business.

Now I can work a solid 3 hours uninterrupted (during business hours) and actually feel and be a productive professional again.

Not surprisingly, I have fallen head over heels in love with our new routine, a good night’s sleep and the daily promise of some Mummy down time.

Evening Routine

With the day down pat, our evening routine is also brilliant in its logical ease and predictability:

Dinner, bath, pj’s, teeth brushed, hair dried/ combed, sleeping bag, lights out, book, cot, ‘night night’.

In the interests of sharing the love amongst other exhausted superhuman parents, doing the best they can each day of the week, here are some of the things that we’ve learnt, discovered, stumbled upon, been told – that has worked for us.

There are a few must dos, good to dos and nice to dos which may (or may not) prove helpful too:

• Make sure DT has a full belly before you start your bedtime routine. If you have a fussy eater, then a cup of milk is a healthy way to fill them up
• Bathtime is a great reset for getting DT to start winding down for the night.
• When you’re stepping through the evening routine, tell DT what success looks like:

‘First we’re going to have a bath, then change you into your comfy pyjamas, brush your teeth and dry your hair. Okay, now’s it time to turn out the light/ shut the blinds/ curtains; read a book and then I’m going to put you in your cot so you can have a wonderful sleep. Does that Sound good? It sure does!’

• Cuddle DT close on your lap (don’t rock or pat) and read DT a story (The very hungry caterpillar is a winner in our house – and only a 3-5 mins read depending on who is turning the pages!)

• When the time is right tuck DT firmly into her cot an if you use a sleeping bag, make sure it’s laid out flat and not scrunched up underneath them. Afterall, now that DT is in the cot, you want to do everything you can to support his/her desire to be there!

We hope there was a kernel or two that you can use to relieve the stress of sleep time in your household.

If you have a newborn, here is some advice from our midwife, the lovely Sarah Tooke, on sleeping and settling strategies.

#GoodLuck