Routines

Routines are so important to children. As a teacher, I learned quickly that when children knew what to expect they behaved sooooo much better. The same is true for Blake. Blake set his routine pretty early on, and when we stick to it, he has a great day. Now I realize that he will change this routine as he gets older and needs a different nap schedule, but I again will follow his lead on this one.

When Blake was an infant I went with the sleep, eat, play routine. And this worked for him! He knew when he woke up it was time to eat and then he was ready to play. Granted when he was little the play was short and the sleep was shorter, but it happened all the time!

Now his schedule is... wake up, get dressed, have breakfast, go for a walk (he hates rainy days because that throws off his whole day when he can't go for his morning walk), watch tv for a bit, take a nap. Then after nap we have lunch around 11 (this isn't always right when he gets up because his naps vary), then we play some more until around 12:30/1:00 when he starts to get tired again. Then he takes a nap. When he wakes up we have snack and then play some more (if it's nice we go outside... a favorite for all). Around 4:00 we turn on the tv so Mommy can start working on dinner. He plays/ watches tv until Daddy comes home. We have dinner, go for a walk, come home and have our "shake" while watching the news and Jeopardy then go to bed. Every other night we skip Jeopardy and have a bath... yay! we LOVEEE bath time.

Because this routine has been set for a while, Blake is pretty content in life. He knows what's next and what to expect. I now can ask him... Are you tired? Ready for snoozes (night-night)? and he will stop what he's doing and walk to his bedroom and stand next to his bed. At, bedtime (night-night) he stands at the changing table because he knows he needs to get into his pajamas first.

Yes, it can be hard at times to revolve your life around his routine, but let me tell you... it's sooooo worth it!