Bed Time

I know that I am a night owl. I live for being up late, watching whatever is on t.v. and working on projects. Before kids I could stay up late and work on projects, clean my house and read. When Nancy was born she came home from the hospital sleeping thru the night. She was the perfect baby! I have a friend that calls her "the perfect baby". She would tell everyone "your baby is cute but you should see my friend Rhonda's baby, she is perfect. She never cries, she is so tiny and cute she is perfect" I had to tell her "umm she is not perfect but she is close".
Nancy would go to sleep at about 8:30 or so and then she would sleep in until about 9 am or so, I mean she was my dream baby. God knew that I needed a child that was going to sleep so I could get used to this whole parenting thing. We would hang out and chill in the evening and she was so relaxed and mellow that it was great, I could work on projects and get stuff done and she would be happy to hang out and watch and play and then she would fall asleep and then I would put her to bed and then work some more and then go to sleep and then when she woke up we would start our day. Life was good!
When I got pregnant with Ron it was great because I was tired a lot and then I was able to lay down relax and sleep and take it easy. Well when Ron came along Nancy decided that she wanted to sleep with mommy and daddy. (I have to admit that this started with nap times because I would lay down with her and we would nap together.) So now Nancy is in her "big girl" bed because she was a climber and I didn't want her climbing out of the crib and I didn't want to spend money on another crib and a friend gave me her toddler bed so I took it and had a bed for Nancy.
Well now she figured out that she could get out of bed and sleep with mommy and daddy and crawl into bed with them.
Well now we had some issues to overcome because mommy was to tired to deal with them at the time now we had to face the consequenses of it. It took a few weeks but we overcame the whole sleeping with mom and dad and now we are dealing with just going to bed. This is an issue for most kids I believe. So now we are into the whole "Bill Cosby" bed time routine. If you have not seen "Cosby Himself" you should it is soooo funny and the majority of it, is about raising kids. I laugh because when it does come to bed time you have to go thru all of the steps. I find that this is very helpful if you tell them what you expect and then they will know what to expect. I laugh because I know as Nancy gets older and starts doing more things on her own, I will have to tell her "turn on the water, use soap and dry off". For now the routine "You will be going to bed in a few minutes", at this point the tears start flowing, and she is crying. After the few minutes she forgets and I say "ok lets go brush our teeth" she replies with "no" not demanding but saying no I don't want to do that now but thanks for asking. When I tell her we are going to bed she starts to cry and she starts up the stairs to go to bed. She knows that she is going to bed but just wants me to know that she is not happy about it. Once she is in bed she pats the pillow as if to say "you need to lay here with me" and so for a few minutes I will.
The amazing thing to me is, Ron loves to go to bed. He starts to get tired and he fusses and I put him down for bed or nap and he is happy as can be that he is in bed. He gives me a big smile and sucks his binky and laughs. I turn on his mobile and say goodnight, as I walk to the door. He smiles and then watches me leave. He will play for a second and then he is out. I hope that this continues, because I would love to have one that is easy to put to bed, but if not maybe they could alternate and one year it will be Ron's turn the next year Nancy's. My friend who says I had the perfect baby, now child her middle daughter will just come up to her mom and say "goodnight" I watched her she was like 9 and we were over for the evening and this happened and I looked at my friend and said "She just decided to go to bed?" My friend replied "Yep she knows when she is tired and decides to go to sleep" To that I reply "Thats the perfect child!"