One of the things that most physically exhausts parents is the theme of the nights, of the dream, of getting them to fall asleep soon and leave you time to have dinner and fall asleep at a decent hour to rest a few hours before getting going For a new day. That's why parents tend to listen to any advice that can be offered about it and that's why they tend to follow the recommendations about guidelines and routines for children to sleep better.
I talk about always doing things in the same order, the time of bathing to relax, a quiet dinner, the story and finally wrapping them up. Yes, we all know this but What is really happening?
Do things always in the same order
The advice is logical. If you always do the same, and in the same order, the child learns what comes after each act and thus prepares for the final moment, which is the dream. However, you do this a few days and then the thing breaks down because mom arrives from work to greet children always at a different time. Sometimes after the bath, sometimes during dinner, sometimes during the story ... and you don't know what happens, or why, but it is to arrive mom, or dad, and lose everything.
It is not that he does anything in particular, that sometimes it is his fault because he puts them as motorcycles with his jokes, is that his presence alone already makes chaos begin to reign at home.
In Babies and more Five-step sleep routine for your baby to sleep better Add that to the fact that sometimes they are so hungry that they do not give you to bathe them first, or that they are so dirty that it is impossible for them to eat like this, or that one has duties and spend more time helping and dismantling the invention: impossible to always do the same.
The bathroom to relax
They tell you until when you are a baby, it is ideal to do it every day, because they relax and they fall asleep right away. But hey, that sometimes it's your turn instead of relaxing, starts playing, or crying, and it turns out that he went into the bathroom with a little sleep and comes out with his eyes wide.
When they are older, then the constant fight: a fight for them to bathe, because the phrase "To the shower!" It is one of those that are not able to decipher, or one of those that you are not sure if you say it or if everything is the result of your imagination. That you say it 10 times and it's as if you hadn't said it, or as if they heard it rain. Going olympically from you.
So you end up inventing games to go to the shower, take advantage of them to go undressing each other. You put one in the shower, you go for the other and when you arrive the first one has left you don't know where. Then you retrieve it and go with the two nudes, one on each arm, and p'adentro. You sigh because you have finally succeeded and you realize the ratazo you take to get them to bathe. Something that is seconds in your case, seems a quarter of an hour ... and the five or ten minutes of the bathroom become endless, because They don't want to leave!
They did not want to bathe, but now they are playing and they do not want you to take them out, and you look at the clock and see that one more day, one more week, one more month, you will not get them to sleep soon. And hey, to relax anything ... that you have more energy than you two together.
They leave, they wet everything, the ground lost of water because they have done I do not know what battle or it has fallen I do not know what storm. You dry them, dry the floor with the towel, send them to put on pajamas and just dry the floor with dirty clothes, if you don't need to go for the mop.
Dinner
You already have them with your pajamas, it's time to have dinner, and one who doesn't want to, I don't know what, the other one that wants to eat, I don't know how many, and you who come, have dinner, it's late, put the batteries that "tomorrow see what face you get up to go to school ", and that since they are not there for dinner the same does not give time or to read the story.
"Let's see if they sit like that, eating, they relax a little longer, because I don't know anymore ...", you think. But one drops the water (again, for the eighth time that week), he gets wet and wet the brother, who cries. Then he turns and shouts at him, one puts one hand in the middle, the other the other, they try to tear off their hair or stick and the other defends itself and while you say Ok! Do not stick! You go for two more pajamas, one for each (three, if you have three children) and change them, while you realize that you have not known how many minutes you have dinner with them, but standing.
When they have finally finished dinner (or so you think, because on the plates there seems to be the same food you put them on), they brush their teeth, or brush their teeth, and in the process of spitting paste or washing their hands because they consider that have them dirty, you wet your pajamas again. But he does not cry… he has only got wet to his shoulder, but it seems to be fine. Then you tell her about "my mother, how are you going to sleep like this", and you choose to change her pajamas. But does not want! He loves it! You explain why it is not even normal to sleep with a wet pajamas and offer the super-fun other pajamas he has (if he has more), or one of the brother, or a long-sleeved shirt, or ... until he accepts. You change it, but hey, "these pants don't hit now, mom" (or dad). So look for the new pajama pants, or add a piece of clothing that does stick, while you sigh again and say "see if with the story ...".
Story time
And you tell them to take the story they want, that now you go, while you try to make some sense in your home in 30 seconds, now giving up the day (I'm going to bed late, one more night), and that they start (In case one of those the elder will tell the story to the little one), because they always catch the same, that you are fed up with explaining it.
But no, they are waiting for you to start, because it is already a tradition. And you get to it. They interrupt you because today you are telling it differently. They interrupt you again because they have realized that you have skipped parts of the story deliberately. They interrupt you again because they want to ask you something about the story. They interrupt you again because they want to ask you what does "sexual" mean?, and when you finally close the lid they say "we want another one". That they want another story, that they are not sleepy.
In Babies and more, early dressing children has benefits for them, and for parents: science says soAnd you put yourself, what a remedy, at the risk of falling asleep before you do, that this semi-shaded position does not see how relaxing it is, and they realize that at times you close your mouth because your eyes close and they tear you off that state of peace shouting: "Dad! What's up now? Keep up the story!"
Bedtime
So you finish it and tell them that you turn off the light, that you all sleep, that you love them very much and that a little kiss. And one says "how hungry, I think I haven't had dinner." The other that "I want water." And the one from beyond that "I think that tomorrow I had to wear an orange shirt to school", which shatters you suddenly because to see where the hell are you going to get an orange shirt at eleven at night ... You go to the mobile, group from WhattsApp "Dolphin Class", and questions about the orange shirt. Yes, that is for tomorrow.
You go for something to eat for the one who has not eaten dinner and prepare the brush to re-brush his teeth. You go for water for the other and pray that from the shadows or at your mother's house, an orange t-shirt appears that you can pick up the next day, very early, on the way to school, for the child to take her. Or that, or happening hey, tell him that you have forgotten ...
And in those, at the end of everything, you lie in bed, exhausted, with your partner, also exhausted, and you feel an absolute disaster, with a life that is a disaster and some children who, at least in school, will say that They are a mess, like their parents.
Well, this, more or less, is the difference between what experts advise and what then ends up happening in the daily life of a more or less normal family, I say.
Photos | iStock, Flickr (Rafiq Sarlie), Flickr (Barney Moss) On Babies and more | A bedtime routine improves baby sleep, Tracy Hogg's method of sleeping: an alternative to consider if you are about to do the Estivill method, What I learned in a "sleep workshop" for babies and children
