Bedtime

A few weeks after my eldest was born I started a routine for him for bedtime. This consisted of a bath or wash, a change of sleepsuit and vest if needed, milk and then sleep. The milk was given in a dark and quiet room. In the early days I went to bed too. As he got older I introduced a story in to this routine and that was it for the next four years until my youngest was born.

Adding another child to the routine should be simple? Er no. My youngest would not go to sleep unless the room was dark and quiet, so I could not read a story to my eldest and get the youngest to sleep. I tried various ways of achieving our routine. The best was for my husband to read stories and settle the eldest whilst I nursed the youngest to sleep. That worked fine until my husband started to work away again, which he did after about nine months, and I was settling two children to sleep on my own. I never really achieved this and a some point my eldest stopped wanting a story at bedtime. He wanted to play. As my youngest got older it became clear that she needed less sleep each night than my eldest.

Every now and again I would find a routine that worked and we would follow it for a while, then we go and stay somewhere else for a few nights, come home and the routine was forgotten. More recently we started to watch a DVD before bed. Always a documentary of some sort, as a family. We watched lots of interesting programmes and I learnt loads. We borrowed most of these from the library and friends, once we had exhausted the collection that routine fell apart and so too had any semblance of a routine.

Throughout all of this we have never been rigid about the timings we have had in place. We would start 'bedtime' any time after 7pm and most nights the children were asleep by 9pmish. Recently however with a complete lack of routine bedtime had started to become later and later, my evening had all but disappeared. My me time had gone, I only really had about an hour or less, and it was impossible to do any tidying when my husband was away which is often. The children would play together until late and then be either too tired or too hyped up to settle to sleep.

I needed to come up with a routine that would give both children some time with me, a story and feeling settled and asleep or nearly so by the end of it. My eldest still needs more sleep so I had always felt that it would be better if the children went to sleep at the same time, particularly as my youngest was very noisy in the mornings and would wake the eldest up when he had not had enough sleep. Now that my youngest is a bit older, she understands about needing to be quiet in the morning to allow my eldest to be left to sleep. I had noticed over the last few weeks that although bedtimes were in chaos the mornings were calmer. My youngest woke first, and quietly we would go downstairs and have some time together before the eldest woke up. I also felt that the the bedtime was in chaos as we had all lost our time to connect with each other before settling the day to bed.

So I am now trying a new routine. Bath/wash if necessary/wanted, change into pajamas, story for youngest, nurse to sleep, once asleep, join eldest who has been quietly playing in his room during story and nursing and story for eldest. So far it is working. At the moment I am on my own, this may go awry when husband comes home. That is tommorrow now, so we shall see!

The Journey so far

It started about eight years ago when I became pregnant with my oldest child. At the time I had few friends with children, most were young, free and single. There are loads of books offering advice on raising your children I decided that I would not read any of them, I wanted to trust my own instincts in raising my child.

After a shaky end to my pregnancy and a horrendous delivery my child came into the world.  The whirlwind of the first few weeks seem a distant blur now.  There is nothing that anyone can tell you that will prepare you for what they will be like, but I do remember being supremely happy.  I did not care if the housework was not done, or that I was often not dressed until 2 or 3 in the afternoon.  I spent my days looking after myself and my baby, breastfeeding on demand, baby wearing and co-sleeping and anything else that felt instinctively right.

Sadly for us both, (and for my husband) I became very ill after eight weeks.  I was not able to keep any food or drink down for two weeks and ended up in hospital.  I had to stop bf which made me very sad.  But my child gave me my first lesson in motherhood at that time, it didn't matter, as long as I was there to give unconditional love.

After nine months I made the decision to return to work, three (short) days a week.  My child went to a nursery for those days and we had four days together each week.  My work was busy and challenging and for three years I loved it.  Then a change of management changed the culture of the organisation and my love for the job dwindled.  This was a time of much soul searching, why was I going to work to do a job that I no longer enjoyed?  I loved the organisation and did not want to burn my bridges and leave the job, in case I wanted to return in the future when the culture, I hoped, would've changed.  And then, bingo, my dilemma was answered, I got pregnant!

Around the same time we needed to make a decision about schooling for our oldest child.  I had been spending a lot of time in the year leading up to this researching local schools and the national curriculum.  I went through the school system before the national curriculum so had no experience of this myself.  I was horrified.  The more I learnt the less I wanted to embrace the school system.  But what was the alternative?  I had no idea.

I cannot remember how I discovered the wonderful world of home education.  But I do know that I am so glad that I did, when I did, as I knew that the school system would be totally the wrong environment for my child to learn.  I didn't register my child into the school system.

I had a very easy second pregnancy, went off on maternity leave and had a thankfully, wonderful birth with my youngest child.  I breast fed on demand, and still am, baby carried and co-slept again.

A few months later we 'officially' became home educators for our oldest.  We are now a few years into that journey and it is so exciting.  Every day you get up not knowing quite where the day is going to take you.  What questions are going to be asked?  What games will be played?  What books shall we read?  Where should we go and visit?

Having two children has its ups and downs, they play, they argue, they make up, they play.  Getting out of the house, well that will fill another post!  They are so completely different (apart from one boy, one girl) that they rarely compete, maybe that will change as they get older, I will wait and see.

Oh and I handed in my notice at work nine months after my youngest was born.