Bedtime Routine

Maddox is officially 4 months old and I don't know where the time has gone! I feel like it was just yesterday that I was giving birth to this perfect little human being. Now he's in the stage where he loves to stick his hands in his mouth and loves making bubbles with his spit. He coos, baby talks, smiles, and loves his bedtime stories. As the time has gone by our routine with him has changed. He no longer sleeps with us anymore he is now sleeping through the night in his crib. He has his nights where he loves waking mommy up and having a full play date with me but for the most part he's a great sleeper. He also has his last bottle around 8:30- 9:00 pm instead of his newborn feeding routine which was every 3 hours. We also changed his night time routine. Before he turned 2 months we would shower him during the day since we really didn't know what time he was going to fall asleep at night. As he grew older we began implementing a night time routine.

This was such a hassle because at first I would just shower him, dry him up, and run around his room looking for his clothes while Christian helped with the diaper. Now we have established a better routine that doesn't include me running around like a crazy person. Instead, we first take out his PJ's (I love babies in pj's! & of course mine has a thousand) we then take out his diaper, hair brush, eczema cream, and sometimes his Cortizone for those rough itchy eczema spots he has. We also make sure the AC is not turned on so that he wont get cold during his shower. I usually lay everything on top of my bed and then I go and get his bath ready.

We shower him with warm water and I learned that the best way to check if its warm enough for his skin is by testing it. I first test the water with my wrist and then with my elbow. It is said that your wrist and elbow are more sensible to hot water rather than your hand (which tolerates the heat more) Once I have the perfect water temperature I tell Christian to place him in his tub. He loves being in water to the point that he'll try licking the water once I start rinsing him. His shower lasts about 15 minutes tops. We start by scrubbing his body with his baby towel. We get inside all his rolls especially his neck rolls where all his milk just sits (if you don't wash their neck and they have milk left in there it can cause their skin to become irritated and the smell is horrible!) We then move on to his little toes where he has all his lint from his socks or pj's stuck. We rinse him down do the same procedure one more time and we leave the baby towel on his body to keep him warn while we move to his head and hair. I leave his head and hair for last because babies get the chills super fast and while I wash it I rinse it right away and then dry it.

Once we are done with his shower I like to dry him with a regular long white towel before I place him in his hooded baby towel ( I think the white towel dries him better than the hooded baby towel) After he is fully dried we transition him to his baby towel and take him to our bedroom to get changed. Usually during this time Maddox loves to do bubbles and stick his hands in his mouth while we get the diaper on him.

I found out really quick after seeing my sister have both the girl and the boy that you have to put their diapers on before you do anything else! If you decide to wait you can have a little pee accident all over your nicely clean sheets (Its happened to me a couple times) After putting his diaper on I comb his hair and we then proceed by soaking him in Aveeno Baby eczema cream. Since his skin is very sensitive and rough we have to apply more than one layer of cream to keep his skin smooth. We finally get his PJ's on and he's ready for his bottle. If hes not sleepy after his bottle I pick out a book from his library and read it to him in his crib before putting him down. If the bottle does the trick he goes straight to his crib without waking up.

I'm sure once he gets older our bed time routine will change again but for now this is what works for us. I love the quality time we spend while showering. I feel like this is our bonding time where we get to sing, make silly noises, and have a full blown conservation while he smiles back and does bubbles with the water.