If I learned anything from my oldest son having colic, it was the importance of establishing a routine. I'm not saying it's the end all, be all of parenting by any means- but I think it's saved my sanity on more than one occasion.
Days where my boys don't want to nap, listen, spend all day throwing tantrums & toys, are the days that I'm counting down until bedtime. I'm sure most of you have felt this way at one time or another, & I've jokingly said that days where we make it to bedtime & we're all alive are successful days in our house.
When Cody was about two months old, he started crying. Obviously he'd been crying prior to that occasion, but he started crying. I must have read somewhere that establishing a nighttime routine prior to bedtime helped kids with colic, & although Cody wasn’t diagnosed with colic, I knew that’s what it was.
So I went out & bought the special Johnson & Johnson bedtime soap. I started giving that kid a bath at the EXACT same time every. stinking. night. Then I’d massage & lotion him up, turn down the lights, & rock him in his room with a bottle. I bought a white noise machine ( & we STILL use it every night to this day!), a nighltight, & I wasn’t playing around, ladies. I NEEDED this kid to stop crying & start sleeping. My husband was gone for four days at a time back then & I couldn’t survive the crying much longer, lol!
After about a week, his crying went from 3 hours a night to about 1.5 hours a night. Bliss.
After another week or so, Cody would go to bed around 630 & sleep. Sleep. Remember that? Sweet, glorious, gift from God himself sleep. He started sleeping through the night & NO MORE crying.
Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe he just outgrew the colic. But I was a believer.
Do you have a routine with your kiddos? When we had our second son, Sawyer, I continued the routine path. By this time I had it down pat, & it wasn’t just sleep. Meals, bathtime, naps, etc., ALL had a routine & a time worked out. I wasn’t playing around.
Very rarely do I stray from our routine. I actually did it tonight & it was a NIGHTMARE. I try not to be overly obsessed with it or anything, but I tend to stick with it so nights like tonight don’t happen- my kids are usually in bed by 7:30, tonight they didn’t settle down until 9:00!
There’s times where I let it slide- we’ll have friends over, we’ll have those oh-so-rare date nights, or now, since our house is on the market, random showings during naptime or before bedtime- & every time I find myself full of anxiety about it, my husband telling me to relax & me realizing it’s not the end of the world if my kids go to bed late, unbathed with peanut butter on their faces. They’re still loved & all will be okay... it’s not an easy thing to learn & it’s a balancing act, this parenting thing! But it’s a true story that we would not have been given these amazing kiddos if God didn’t think we could handle it!
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