OUR BEDTIME ROUTINE

Getting Lucas into a bedtime routine was such a massive part of helping sort out his couple of weeks bad behaviour. We became a little stricter on the food he was eating, the way we handled his outbursts, instead of sitting out we ignored the majority of the tantrums, ignored the screaming and hitting, unless it was really vicious or if it involved an object. It seems to have worked and the earlier bedtime and routine has been great too. Except we now have earlier starts... thank god for Peppa pig and a laptop.

I start dinner around 5:30 and usually heat up a meal that was made up the day before, this means that I am not making two meals a night as Brad gets in any time from 7:30-8pm, and we usually have pasta, meat and mash, fish, ect... So I make up extra and plate it up and cover it in the fridge and heat it up the next day, so he always gets a good home cooked meal, occasionally I make fish and chips, fish cakes and chips, nuggets, ect... but most of the time he has a hearty home cooked meal. I just don't fancy making two meals a night. Then its a petit filous or fruit for pudding. 

I usually tidy the lounge and his toys up while he's eating and hoover too, we have no TV on most of the time, so no distractions, and it helps his brain switch off a little. We tried having cbeebies on for a while as a dinner time treat but he pays 0 attention to dinner. So now it's quiet time and mummy tidies. It makes my routine in the evening nice and easy too. As soon as he goes to bed, we make our dinner and relax. No more tidying.

Bath time usually starts around 5:50-6pm We don't use anything over fancy in the bath, just a TESCO own brand bubble bath and a paddy's bathroom shampoo, which can I just say, we were sent to review about 6/7 months ago and it's lasted us for ages, it's amazing. If your little one has barely any hair it will last you ages.
Where we bath every night I don't want to over do it with expensive products, we go through so much. One of those bubble baths does last a month too.

 Once Lucas has had his bath and splashed around and played with his toys for ages, Out he gets and he always runs into the bedroom and puts his little peachy bum onto his chair and laughs at me.

We get dressed and it's pretty standard, nappy, pyjamas, sometimes bedtime massage oil. The time is usually 6:15-6:20 and then we get the books out.

I usually let Lucas chose his book and it's usually the same ones, but his favourites at the moment are "The adventures of Lucas and his magical name," and "What about me?" They are two really lovely books. One is about a boy, called Lucas, helping out his friends with the letters of his name. It came in my goodie bag from the Andrex event I went to on Tuesday and honestly, it's such a lovely book. What about me is a book about a little boy, who's mum and dad bring home a little baby sister, and the little boy is feeling a little left out. Both really cute books.

Then at 6:30 it's lights out and bedtime. Lucas is usually pretty good and the most he gets up is a couple of times but goes off a lot easier with his new bedtime. We used to aim for 7 and some nights by 7:30 he's still awake and it was so frustrating. He would get up so many times, and tantrum, kick and hit and it was just getting too much. we assumed that actually he was over tired by this point and it seems we were right. Earlier bedtime is less of a battle. We have also knocked out his nap too, he never has naps now, it's a lot better for us and him.

Lucas goes to bed with a beaker of water and his teddies and then it's adult time for us! Although we're both so exhausted it's usually just sitting in silence on separate sofas. Thats parenthood for you.

Do you have a bedtime routine in place? 

Let me know in the comments below.