On Bedtime.

Now, anybody who knows the sleep struggles Tristin and I have endured and are enduring will take this post with a grain of salt. Obviously, I am no kind of authority on bedtime, since at 9 months of age Tris still isn't sleeping through the night. But this evening, I caught a bit of a glimpse into the importance of a bedtime routine.

Tristin does have a very predictable evening routine. Every evening after supper I give him his bath; he then goes with Dad to dry off and play on the bed for a few minutes while I tidy the bathroom. After he's had about 5 minutes of playing with his Dad, I take him, get him into his PJ's, sing him his bedtime song, read him his bedtime book (almost always Goodnight Moon, unless it's been left in the car), nurse him to sleep and put him in his crib. (Yes, I know the reason he doesn't sleep through is because of that last step. Popular opinion says that babies won't sleep through until they're able to be put down awake in their cribs at bedtime. I don't believe in allowing my child to cry, so that's not going to happen just yet. That's not the point of tonight's post, so I'll carry on.)

Tonight, since we're going swimming tomorrow, I wanted to shave my legs. In the interest of saving water, I figured I'd use Tristin's bath water to do so, and I asked Wess to take over the bedtime routine. Tris cried almost the entire time, and I think I can probably hazard a guess (or three) as to why:

1) Wess skipped the playtime, going straight to lotion/diaper/pj's. Tristin started crying almost immediately.
2) Wess didn't talk to Tristin about what he was doing. I am in the habit of giving Tris a running commentary of everything I'm doing: "And now we're putting lotion on your legs, and on your feet; and now it's time for a big stretch to get your arm in your sleeve." Conversely, when Tristin started to cry, Wess just tried to get the whole ordeal overwith faster, rushing Tris and probably upsetting him even more.
3) Wess didn't sing or read to Tristin; he put him in the playpen with the TV on.

As a result of this, Tristin was very worked up and upset by the time I'd finished in the tub, and took several extra minutes to calm down before getting his song, book, and nurse.

Now, as previously mentioned, I am the last person I'd ask for advice on bedtime; however, I'm pretty sure that tonight illustrates pretty clearly why it's important for both parents to approach bedtime more-or-less exactly the same.