We parents today have demanding schedules, and we juggle multiple tasks all day long. There’s too much to do, and never enough time to do it. The bedtime routine often gets slotted as one more “thing to do” after which we can get on to yet another task on our never-ending to-do list.

I’d like to present you with a new way of looking at your child’s bedtime routine: as a wonderful opportunity for a nightly ritual of quiet connection and bonding. Sort of like a forced savings account – a daily slice of time out of a busy day, given to you so that you can bask in the joys of parenthood and build the foundation for a close lifetime relationship. Pretty heady stuff, when you look at it this way, isn’t it?

Simply said, you must get your child ready for bed each and every night. The time will be spent, one way or another. Would you like it to be peaceful, nurturing and bonding – or rushed and stressful? You have the power to set the tone of your evenings, so why not choose a pleasant routine? You will enjoy it more, and your child will no longer resist bedtime –won’t that be marvelous!

Begin your routine earlier
If you are starting your child’s bedtime routine fifteen or twenty minutes before you’d like him to be asleep, it will inevitably create problems. This provides barely enough time for the essentials, little time for pleasure, and no time at all for the inevitable dawdles and delays. As a parent, you’re watching the clock move forward, stressing over the time, and trying to rush things along. Your child, who senses your tension and feels pressured, reacts by dawdling, or fashioning new requests that simply must be met, but of course, there’s no time, so a meltdown occurs. Following this pattern, night after night, makes both parent and child dread bedtime, further increasing the stress, and making things even worse. So goes the cycle, from bad to worse, night after night.

The answer is to avoiding all this turmoil is to allow plenty of time for the pre-bed routine. For most families this means allocating at least an hour from the time the process begins to lights out. While an hour or more may seem like a lot to spend on a bedtime routine, most families with struggles end up spending more time than this dealing with a fussy child who won’t cooperate. And said fussy child gets so worked up that once in bed he’s wide awake and takes a long time before nodding off.

Decide in advance on the best bedtime for your child, and then identify a specific time that you will begin the getting ready for bed routine. You may have to work backwards from this time to be sure that dinner and post-dinner activities are completed by the time you wish to start your pre-bed plan.

Once you understand the power of a long-enough routine to ward off the problems, and if you look at this time as an opportunity to spend some peaceful time connecting with your sweet child, then this hour can be something wonderful to look forward to each night.

Excerpted with permission by McGraw-Hill Publishing from The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers & Preschoolers (McGraw-Hill) by Elizabeth Pantley http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth

About the author:
Elizabeth Pantley is the author of several books, including Gentle Baby Care : No-cry, No-fuss, No-worry — Essential Tips for Raising Your Baby, The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night, Kid Cooperation (with an introduction by William Sears, MD), Perfect Parenting, as well as her latest The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers and is also president of Better Beginnings, Inc. She is a popular speaker on family issues, and her newsletter, Parent Tips, is seen in schools nationwide. She appears as a regular radio show guest, and has been quoted in Parents, Parenting, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, American Baby, Working Mother, and Woman’s Day magazines. Visit Elizabeth’s web site http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth.

Did you know that cooking with your kids is a natural way for them to develop motor skills? If you’ve never looked at cooking that way before, think again. There’s a reason why kids have a universal love for cooking – just like for stacking blocks and banging!

Cooking is especially good for preschoolers and here’s how:

1. Two year olds are developing large muscles in their arms: They will enjoy stirring and stirring and stirring . My two year old is always asking to stir; and her subconscious knows why! At 2 years old, a child naturally imitates circular strokes as part of their normal physical development. So, let them stir at every opportunity.Here are some ways to encourage arm muscle development through cooking:
   • stirring: flour, eggs, pancake batter, gelatin making, etc.
   • scrubbing potatoes and vegetables
   • cleaning the cutting board: Give them a washcloth and some lukewarm water with the cutting board in the sink. They’ll have a blast rubbing the wet washcloth up and down the cutting board to clean it.
   • pouring from large measuring cups into a bowl

    

2. Two year olds are developing the ability to turn pages: Another motor skill developed during the preschool age is the ability to turn pages.So – just pondering here…is it the story they love so much or just turning the pages of the book? Well, actually both. They need the motor development of turning the pages; and the pictures and vocabulary improve their intellectual development.

    

3. Two year olds love “patting” and “pressing”: From being fascinated with “patty-cake” chants at an early age, preschooler’s still love to pat and press.I’m sure you’ll recognize your preschooler doing this at the park: scooping up rocks or sand, piling them up, and patting the top into different shapes.

   Well, here’s some suggestions to bring the “patting” inside:

   • packing down brown sugar in the measuring cup
   • gently pressing a fork on top of peanut butter cookie dough on the cookie sheet
   • patting to level off the top of a cup of sugar
   • patting and pressing on pizza dough
   • pressing down with a cookie cutter on rolled sugar cookie dough

    

4. Two year olds love to dip – and this develops arm muscles skills too!: it takes a lot of coordination to dip! Getting the food in the dip, then moving the arm and somehow getting it into your mouth. If it wasn’t difficult, they wouldn’t get food all over their face! So, unless your 2 year old always has a clean face when he or she is done eating, here’s some dipping opportunities:
   • carrots in salad dressing
   • french fries in catsup
   • dipping a spoon in the emptied batter bowl to clean out the goodies
   • dipping fruit in a fruit dip or chocolate (like frozen bananas or strawberries)
   • dipping chicken or fish in a batter for you to cook
   • dipping the bread in French toast mix

    

So, instead of “shooing” your preschoolers and 2 year olds out of the kitchen, let them dive in with these simple tasks that not only give them great pleasure, but help them develop their age appropriate motor skills.

About The Author
Laura Bankston is author of Internationally selling Cooking with Kids Curriculum: “Homeschool Cooking in a Box” and the “Homeschool Cookbook”. She currently home schools her three children, maintains home school support websites, and manages their family-owned service business. For information on her curriculum and free home school support services, please visit www.homeschoolcookbook.com.  laura@homeschoolcookbook.com