Day #712 (Fri., Dec 16, 2011) – How To Put A Toddler To Bed (#1)
As is sometimes the norm Katie would not go to bed this evening. I told my wife she could go to bed and I attended to her. Here’s what I did to eventually put her to sleep. I turned off all the lights and put her favorite show on television…Caillou. I then got her some warm milk and a variety of foods and put her on my lap in the LazyBoy. As soon as the ending credits rolled I asked her if she wanted to take the little metal springy ball she was playing with to bed and she walked down to her bedroom door. I put her to bed and that was it.
The reason I think this method was successful is that she got to see that there was nothing exciting happening outside the bedroom. The lights were off and there was “no action”. Once the ending credits of the television show were rolling even Caillou was over…so why bother and stay up? That’s my theory at this point…let’s see if this method works in the nights to come.
Katie didn’t get up til very late this morning so I didn’t get the chance to take her to the park til later in the day. She enjoyed the nearby trucks and front-end loaders of course, but we played in the sand and on the slides as well. One thing that she did today that was different was a long bouncy ride on the toucan at the playground near Lochmere.
The photo to the right shows Katie’s new shoes.
This evening we tried to put Katie to bed before 11pm so at 10:30pm we started the ritual. This evening my wife took her to the bedroom and watched a bit of “Little Bear” and when that was over she took her to bed. I was in the living room with my computer, but the television and lights were off and everything was quiet.
Well, we put Katie to bed and all was well…until she turned over and happened to fall on her squeaky giraffe. This little noise woke her up and she was up for another hour…
WHAT I LEARNED TODAY
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1) How to successfully put Katie to bed.