Ideas for a Bedtime Routine
One of the things we advocate here at Nighttime Heroes is setting up a simple bedtime and nap time routine for your baby. We always recommend creating two separate routines, one for nap and one for bedtime, and keeping them as consistent as possible. This has a bunch of benefits, but the main ones are that your baby will learn when sleep is coming by associating different activities with sleep and your baby will learn to distinguish nap time from bedtime with different routines.
Here are some ideas of activities you can include in your bedtime or nap routines:
1) Bottle/nursing
We always recommend to keep any feeding at the beginning of a routine so that your baby isn’t fed directly to sleep, but this is a great way to top them up on a little liquid before bed. As your baby gets older, you can switch out milk for water instead. Don’t forget to brush their little teeth afterwards, too!
Photo by Lucy Wolski on Unsplash
2) Bath
Some parents like to bathe their kids every night, while others choose to spread out baths a little longer between days. Either way is just fine, a bath is a great way to relax your baby!
3) Massage
There are special baby massages to relax your child even more. Many baby centres will offer classes on how to massage your baby, but any bit of soothing cuddles will suffice.
4) Songs
Babies love music, incorporating songs into your routine is both fun and memorable.
5) Books
Similar to songs, many parents love to include a book in their bedtime routine to encourage reading from a young age. Some parents like to read the same book every night, and some like to switch it up. That’s totally up to you!
6) Pjs or Sleep sack
To get your baby nice and comfy, some parents chose to change their kids into pyjamas for sleep times or put a sleep sack on them. This is not a necessary thing to do for naps (many seasoned parents will tell you no one has time to change their kids this many times a day!) but you can choose to include it if you like.
7) White noise
White noise is a wonderful tool for sleep times. Babies that have white noise machines will associate the noise with sleeping when they hear it and will much more easily get into a sleep mood when they hear it. Another benefit is that it drowns out any other noise in the house reducing the chance that your baby will wake up during their slumber.
For more ideas and help with setting up a sleep routine, contact us over at Nighttime Heroes Sleep Schedule Coaching.
