We’ve had Elias’ bedtime routine set now for a long time. It works really well for him. Recently, though, he seems to have added his own final event in the bed time routine. The first few times it happened, I thought it was cute. Now he has been doing it for every nap and bedtime!
Basically it started a few days ago. I sang him his songs, and put him in the crib just like usual. We said good night and bye bye and love you. But then he started to cry and stand up…that wasn’t normal. I thought he was not feeling good or otherwise upset…so I went back to the crib and said, “Do you just need a few more snuggles?” He said, “Yeah.” So I took him back to the rocking chair for a few more minutes, and just sat there with him hugging me, resting his head on my shoulder. We sat in silence just hugging for a few minutes, and then I got up to put him in the crib, and he stayed there happily and fell asleep.
That happened again…and again…and now I guess it’s part of our routine. Both at nap time and bed time today, Elias listened to the songs, was laid in the crib, said bye bye, waited until I got to the door, and then said, “Snuggle more, snuggle more.” The first time it about melted my heart.
This evening when I put him to bed, we said our night nights and love yous and bye byes and I could see he was already going to stand up before I even left the crib side. So I stayed there thinking he would want to snuggle more. He saw me there and laid back down and whispered “bye bye.” Then, when I got to the doorway, he stood up and said, “snuggle more mama.”
I’m not sure why we have to go through the whole charade of going to bed and having me reach the doorway before he wants he snuggles. But I’ll take as many as I can get. I think it’s a fun addition to our bed time routine.