"Shhh..dont you make any noise. She is trying to make Nitya sleep", my worried mother said to me as i stepped in to my house from a busy work day. This was like a ritual every night. Every night by the time i get back home by 9pm, my sister would have taken my niece to her room to make her sleep. Then I heard my sister singing the weirdest of lullaby songs to my 3 month old niece Nitya and this went on for an hour. And then it was totally calm and silent. This went on for many days.
This seemed a very interesting sight. But putting a toddler to sleep seemed like a very challenging task a parent has to face. There were days when my sister would put her effort of 1 hour of singing and with great difficulty put my niece to sleep only to see that she has woken up in another 2 hours disturbed by a wet diaper. So it was time for diaper change.
By then you are also almost in half sleepy state. After you change the diaper, you have to spend another 30 minutes putting her back to sleep. After another 3 hours, it is time to feed her and she wakes up again. Ohh my..what a disturbed sleep pattern. The story continues the next day and so on.
Did i miss telling that the lullaby song needs to be changed frequently too :) Yeah !! These toddlers somehow come to know if this same song is sung everyday and continue playing around while you are singing and putting them to sleep with great difficulty. So my sister would plan singing different songs or have a schedule like one song per week and this worked for her to keep my niece guessing and make her sleep.
My brother in law on the other hand has a totally different strategy. He takes my niece to the bedroom one hour before the bedtime and puts her on the bed. He creates a bedtime mood and then its totally dad-daughter time. Its all giggles and cuddles time. To anyone who happens to watch this, it appears as the most interesting conversations happening between them. Sometimes the conversations also turn into funny stories which my brother in law tells her. Finally it works for him and after her daddy time, my niece goes to sleep. It seems a very cute ritual but this is what works for him to put my niece to sleep.
While discussing about these rituals with my mother one day, she happened to tell me that as a kid my favorite bedtime ritual was being rocked in a cradle. My mother would have to keep rocking it until i fell asleep in the motion. In between when the cradle stopped rocking, i would get up instantly and they had to continue rocking it again till i would get back to sleep
I am simply amused at the different rituals each kid has to fall asleep. While these apply to all parents, the strategy of finding the best ritual is still a challenge. As they say to each their own. If it works for you then nothing better.
This post was written as part of IndiBlogger Happy Hours campaign topic on Bedtime Rituals !!
This seemed a very interesting sight. But putting a toddler to sleep seemed like a very challenging task a parent has to face. There were days when my sister would put her effort of 1 hour of singing and with great difficulty put my niece to sleep only to see that she has woken up in another 2 hours disturbed by a wet diaper. So it was time for diaper change.
By then you are also almost in half sleepy state. After you change the diaper, you have to spend another 30 minutes putting her back to sleep. After another 3 hours, it is time to feed her and she wakes up again. Ohh my..what a disturbed sleep pattern. The story continues the next day and so on.
Did i miss telling that the lullaby song needs to be changed frequently too :) Yeah !! These toddlers somehow come to know if this same song is sung everyday and continue playing around while you are singing and putting them to sleep with great difficulty. So my sister would plan singing different songs or have a schedule like one song per week and this worked for her to keep my niece guessing and make her sleep.
My brother in law on the other hand has a totally different strategy. He takes my niece to the bedroom one hour before the bedtime and puts her on the bed. He creates a bedtime mood and then its totally dad-daughter time. Its all giggles and cuddles time. To anyone who happens to watch this, it appears as the most interesting conversations happening between them. Sometimes the conversations also turn into funny stories which my brother in law tells her. Finally it works for him and after her daddy time, my niece goes to sleep. It seems a very cute ritual but this is what works for him to put my niece to sleep.
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While discussing about these rituals with my mother one day, she happened to tell me that as a kid my favorite bedtime ritual was being rocked in a cradle. My mother would have to keep rocking it until i fell asleep in the motion. In between when the cradle stopped rocking, i would get up instantly and they had to continue rocking it again till i would get back to sleep
I am simply amused at the different rituals each kid has to fall asleep. While these apply to all parents, the strategy of finding the best ritual is still a challenge. As they say to each their own. If it works for you then nothing better.
This post was written as part of IndiBlogger Happy Hours campaign topic on Bedtime Rituals !!
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