Our Bedtime Bookhabit

Hello, my name is De. I live in Sydney, Australia with my 3 (soon to be 4) year old son. Here’s our Bookhabit Bedtime.

Our evening routine changed last year when I became a single mother. Whereas I had once had the assistance of my son’s dad in the evenings, I was now the only adult in the house. Doing everything on my own meant that by the time evening rolled around, I was ready for bed myself. I could hardly keep my eyes open at 7pm to read together, let alone clean up the house afterwards.

So, I merged our evening routines and now we do everything together, very early! This way, we both have the energy to enjoy story time.

Dinner:

So, we eat dinner together at 4:30pm. 4:30?! I hear you say. Yes, I’m all ready for life as a retiree.

                                               

Clean up and bath

While I clean up the kitchen and pack the dishwasher, my son normally watches TV or plays for a bit. Sometimes he helps me with the dishes. He bathes, I shower and we’re both fed, clean and in our pyjamas by 5:30pm.

The resistance

We get our heat packs ready, brush teeth (with much resistance) and faff about until I’m able to convince him that it’s time for bed, after some yoghurt and strawberries, that is. It’s 6:30 and we’re both ready for bed.

Books

Reading has always been a key part of my life and I view the passing of this gift onto my son as one of the most important parts of my role as his mother. So, to be sure that our bedtime stories are done well, our entire afternoon and evenings hinge around being ready for bed early enough.

My son started sleeping in my bed last year, which means bedtime stories are now shared in our big, comfy bed. Darcy the cat is often involved too, mostly against his will.

We read four books at night. We tend to stick to current faves for a few weeks, then I try to introduce a new book into the mix. We’re currently reading Billions of Bricks, Superman; an origin story, Gaston and Stickman (an old favourite brought back by my son).

At this stage they are all picture books, a mixture of fiction stories about animals and non-fiction. Space and dinosaurs have been hot topics over the past year. My son’s recently shown an interest in comics so that’s an exciting genre for us both.

After stories, we say a prayer of gratitude, then it’s hugs, kisses and goodnights. Whilst he’s drifting off to sleep, I check out what’s been happening on Instagram or read a book for myself and I’m asleep soon after.

The changes we made to our evening routine have made it a much more enjoyable time, because neither of us is beside ourselves with fatigue at this earlier time and sharing a bed means much less nagging and bedtime battles because he knows I’m going to be there.

So, that’s it, our Bookhabit Bedtime.

I have loved reading this post. I think that it is so inspiring to see how De has literally rearranged her daily routines because bedtime stories are such a huge priority for her family. If you’d like to know more about the books she loves and what she and her (supercute) son are reading at the moment, be sure to follow along on Instagram. You can find her at @booksandbabycinos Thanks so much for sharing, De!

Claire x