The Four B's

The other night Reilly lead his bedtime routine for the first time. It's so incredible to watch babies develop cognitively, I love watching him figure things out.. like just letting the shower run while he is in the bath and he gets so inquisitive about the water, and touches it, or puts his hands under the bath water to feel the pressure from the shower, the entire time just looking so curious. But the other night he did something that was one of those baby light bulb moments.

When Reilly was two months old we implemented a bedtime routine in order to help him sleep through the night and know his bedtime cues.. Jeff called them the "Four B's".. Bath, Book, Bed, and Boob. The routine starts with bath time, it used to be about ten minutes long and increased as he got older and wanted to play with toys, bubbles, etc, and now when he is ready he tries to climb out of the tub. We're learning cues too. Then he gets a few stories, always ending with Goodnight Moon, nursed or bottle fed if Jeff is putting him down, and put in bed still awake. The other night he got his bath as usual (has recently not been wanting to spend too much time in it), then I placed him on his changing table to lotion him up and put his pajamas on and he grabbed the lotion himself. Once he was in his pajamas I was carrying him around his room, throwing his towel in the laundry, turning on the humidifier, and he was diving out of my arms for Goodnight Moon, just staring at it on the rocker. I sat down to read him his stories and with finishing each one, he would lean forward and reach for the next one in the small pile, and once Goodnight Moon was complete he just turned himself around the nurse!

It was just really excited to see that he knew what to expect and knows his routine, and enjoys his routine.. that is the most important thing, for him to be comfortable and confident and having a bedtime routine and knowing what to expect definitely supports that.