The night time diaries -Guest post from the unlikely dad

Please could you tell me a little bit about your blog the unlikely dad and where we can find it?

How many children do you have and what are their ages?

One  boy, aged two and a half.

What is your normal night time routine

I am very proud of the night time routine in our house. We have it nailed. (Not to brag!). I get in from work by 5:30 and take over (my husband works part time at a school Mon-Wends so most days he has our boy in the day. I get in and take the reigns, usually while my husband is tidying up from the mess of dinner time. We just play, watch some Teletubbies or he’ll come with me upstairs so i can get out of my work clothes.

Bath time usually kicks off about 6:30 and he loves it. By 7pm we’re getting dressed for bed, he’s all dried off, we moisturise/massage and have some quiet time in his room. We then read a book (at the moment it’s the same book EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. He’s obsessed with Pip and Posy!). After that we head downstairs to say ‘night night’ to Dadda and back upstairs with his bottle (yes he still has his bottle!) and off he goes to sleep. Nearly every night he’ll be gone within 5 minutes. I don’t know how, or why, but it works.

Every night is the same. We do have the odd break in routine where we’re out so he doesn’t get to bathe or whatever… and i like those breaks because it mixes it up for him. But i am terrified to remove the bottle and change his cot to a big boy bed because it could ruin our harmonious bed time routine. But we do know we need to change it soon, so we plan to make the transition to the big boy bed in December… #prayfordaddies

Have you purchased any products to help your child sleep (night lights, dream sheep) and have your found them to be effective?

Does your little one sleep in a cot/ bed or do you co-sleep?

What lengths have you gone to, to get your children to sleep?

I don’t think we’ve had to go to crazy lengths to get him to sleep, he just loves sleep! But to begin with we were incredibly anal about the routine and not even messing it up by a second. We’d tip toe around the house after putting him to bed… but now we are a lot more relaxed, and he’s slept through a lot of noise before now, so I think we’re good.

Do you find night times as bad as you expected before becoming a parent?

I can’t say I have. We laugh to ourselves at times how easy we have found night times.It sounds so smug… but don’t worry, we have a VERY active little boy, so the waking hours feel like a triathlon at all times!

If you have older children does it get any easier? 

Would you change anything about how you have done things at night time?

No way… it kept us sane in the first few months knowing whatever the day threw at us, he would sleep through from 7pm to 6pm… that was our time to wind down and sleep ourselves!

What piece of advice would you give to a parent struggling with night times?