Night Time Routine With Svea

I've always loved putting Svea to bed at night. It's one of my favorite time of day with her because she is the most snugly and wants to be close to me.  I had a hard time during her first year being gone during that time.  I literally hated missing even one night.  She's getting to be a little less snugly these days so I wanted to document our routine.

 We change her diapers and put her jammies  and sleep sack on.  Give her milk, paci, and bunny and she will say goodbye to whomever is in the living room and walk down to her room all by herself.  Once we get there she goes right to her books and we let her know how many she can have (depending on how on time we are for bed).  We read books and most nights she interacts with them pointing out animals or making noises for them.  If she is really tired she's silent and just listen as she leans her head into your shoulder.  After books we sit in her rocking chair and I turn the lamp off.  We say a prayer together and at the end she says her own.  I used to be able to sing one or two songs to her and she'd slowly drift off to sleep, but lately she isn't too interested in my singing.  Then, I change positions and put her head on my shoulder.  Can I just tell you this is my very favorite thing in the whole world!  To have your little girl lay their head on your should and fall asleep.  I love it!  Now she just does it as a small gift to me because it only lasts about 15 seconds.  Then, she usually points to her crib and wants to go in.  She is 99% of the time a dream when it comes to bed time.  "Bye Mama or Bye Daddy....muah, muah, muah," she says. We rub her back for a quick second and walk out.  Sometimes we can still hear her saying "Bye" after we've shut the door.  It's so precious.  Then she is either sleeping in 30 seconds or she'll sit and talk herself to sleep.  Occasionally she cries, but not often.  Our little girl is getting so big....this time is so much fun with her!

I wrote out this draft post about a month ago when we had been home with Kieran for a couple of weeks.  Something has changed now and Svea is having a crazy hard time with bedtime.  I'm glad I did document this in case she never goes to bed easily again.  Now she screams and cries as soon as we put her in her crib.  She wants more snuggle time and more songs.  I suppose it could be because then new baby in the house or just a phase, but man do we struggle not to go back into her room......talk about pulling our heartstrings! It's hard either way because if she goes to bed easily we get less snuggle time, but when she is in this mode all she wants to do is snuggle, which is heavenly for us too:)