Night-time Routine

Since Miss E was little, we have had a night-time routine set up for bath and bedtime. First it was to help her get to sleep better, than it became a method to manage putting her and a baby to sleep, and now, it is aimed at keeping things as easy as possible in the evening for me. Peter is gone at least 1/3 of the nights, usually more, and I was finding that bedtime was when I usually lost my shit with the kids and the yelling started. So, I took a long look at how we were doing things and made some changes so it was less chaotic and therefore, less stressful on me. Which in turn leads to me not losing my cool and that means less yelling, which is good for all of us.

Because Peter's schedule is so, shall we say, NON-TRADITIONAL, we have to set up everything, all of our routines, schedules, classes and errands, as if there were only one parent in our household. Then, when he's home 2 parents pitch in and do the work together.

Part of our nighttime routine, is free-reading. During this time, each kid is supposed to be in their own room looking at books. This allows me to deal with them one at a time for brushing teeth, hair, etc. and I read them books separately too. We used to read books together, and still sometimes do, but they like different things and I have found that they wind each other up at bedtime so it's better to have some quiet separate time to settle down. Tonight Peter was here and he actually did most of the work since I worked late. When I came home I found he and Mr. T free-reading together. How sweet is that?