Bed Time!

One thing every parenting book recommends for bed time is to set a routine and to stick to the same routine every night. At this I have failed spectacularly. Maybe because of our work schedules and maybe because of my own sleep issues. But to beat all of the odds, my son is a great sleeper. He started sleeping through the night at a month old. He would go down by nine and rarely wake up before three-thirty. It was great, but it was also luck. We also co-slept with my son by default. By that I mean we all shared the same room living in my partner's parents' house. Seth went from a rock-n-play beside our bed to a bassinette on the other side of the room. Then when we moved to our own place the nursery was too cold in the winter and so his crib was in our room beside our bed. We then had to move again and were only able to afford a one bedroom house to rent. One very large bedroom seemed like a good choice as we could partition off the far end of the room and create two rooms. The first time we closed the curtain, Seth had a full out panic meltdown over not being able to see us. We decided that it was better to cross that border when he was ready and older. It makes me feel better to be able to see him at night too.
However, because of sharing a room and my personal issues, Seth now is used to having a tv playing to fall asleep at night, he is used to always have a dim light on in the room, and he is used to hearing us talking. Due to my job occasionally requiring me to work late hours, sometimes he is in bed at seven-thirty and sometimes he is in bed at nine-thirty. Sometimes he has a bath before bed, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he has nightmares, sometimes he sleeps through the night entirely. But no matter what, every night, he goes to bed with a hug and a kiss and an, "I love you," from both of his parents. He goes to sleep knowing he is safe and loved. Nothing can be better than that.

We all do our best to give our children what they need ot be happy and healthy...and if they end up being completely neurotic, at least we tried!