I’ve been quite humored by Addison’s evolving sleep routine lately.

All three of my boys’ sleep routines went like this:

*get cranky

*breastfeed

*fall asleep on my bed or in my arms

*unlatch baby (if I’m lucky)

That’s it. No amount of trying to encourage another routine seemed to matter. I didn’t sweat it too much, it was easy and usually pretty fast. And now all three of them are fantastic sleepers whose sleep routines consist of a kiss and a hug while they run off to bed. Sometimes Noah needs an extra “ridding” of bad dreams/thoughts that involves whispering sweet (or silly) nothings in his ears and forcefully blowing bad thoughts out of his head but otherwise, long gone are the days of nursing to sleep.

Addy is so routine-oriented about her sleep. And she has an entirely different routine with her Daddy (who puts her to sleep at night and on weekends) than she does with me. This is how it typically goes….

3pm: naptime! She isn’t tired but I drag myself away from what I’m doing to get her to sleep.

I pick her up and she has to give hugs and kisses to everyone present. Then she has to walk, herself, up the stairs. USUALLY this involves some contorted stall-tactic type walking like bumping up backward on her butt. Sometimes I get tired of waiting and pick her up, sometimes I’m more patient. Doesn’t seem to matter on her end.

I take her potty (which also involves a routine where she tells me to shut the door and sit down and then she has to get off the potty herself and we all clap at that new skill and then I wipe, she flushes, I try to pull up her pants, she wigs out and tells me “no no no no no” in her usual “you got it all wrong” tone and does it herself and then we wash hands but I can not dry the hands, she has to use the excess water as “lotion” for her face and then we are DONE with that routine).

Then she walks into her room and I fix her blanket, turn on her Vietnamese music cd and sit in our chair. She flits around the room finding any excuse to be engrossed in ANYTHING but sleep. Sometimes she plays with her dolls or rocks on her elephant. Once in awhile she just goes right to the chair.

Once she climbs in my lap she has a drink of water from a sippee which SHE has to put back on her side table *exactly right*, in the same place facing the same direction.

Then she gets her brass Buddha statue and goes through a routine with him. This involves trying to pull off his head and exclaiming “Heavy head!” and then trying to pull off MY head and HER head. Then she tries to pull off his hands and feet and the bowl he holds. Then she kisses the top of his head, each hand and his lips. She hugs him and if I’m not quick, she’ll start all over again. I tell her Buddha is taking a nap now and she puts him down, also in exactly the same spot (although once this week she laid him down in the sleeping position).

Whew! Finally. Now she settles in. I have to hold her in, you guessed it, exactly the same position. I have to cradle my right arm under both knees and my left arm up around her neck and side, meeting my right hand on her hip. If I don’t do this, there will be problems! She sucks her left thumb and puts her right thumb up my sleeve so she can pat my skin on my upper arm. I *love* this, it is so sweet and precious. She finds it VERY VERY secure to do this and isn’t real happy if I wear a tank-top or short sleeved shirt. Sucks to be her since it’s hot here! I pull her close onto my chest and rock.

Usually around this time she will ask about the silk lanterns that hang above our chair. I have to name them and their color a few times. Then she talks about the dragonflies on her wall. Then she goes back to sucking her thumb. This is when I know the end is near.

When she gets down to business she is usually out in a minute or two flat. As soon as she closes her eyes, I can lay her in her crib, cover her with her blanket and guarantee myself 2 hours.

 The whole routine doesn’t usually take more than 10-15 minutes although it probably sounds longer. It actually makes me laugh, how serious the whole business is to her. But after 12 years of nursing babies to sleep, it is pretty fun to have a different routine.

Today she was particularly tired so she skipped all the formalities and went straight to sleep. I was actually really sad - I guess it is my routine as much as it is her’s.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 10:32 pm and is filed under Parenting, Things I Love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.