If there was one thing Mommy learned from the Mommy group she attended in your early days (besides how to unabashedly flash total strangers in a church basement while debating the merits of the Peg Perego Pliko Mini vs. the UPPABaby G-Luxe) it was the importance of a short, consistent bedtime routine in instilling healthy sleep habits in you for life. It was the one principle she fully embraced when she embarked on a mission to sleep train you the minute you turned four months old. And for the year that followed, it worked like magic. A five-minute ritual consisting of reading you Goodnight Moon, zipping you into your Gro Bag, and placing you gently in your crib was all it took to send you off to dreamland before the clock struck 7 pm. Then you became a toddler with the negotiation skills of Gandhi. Now your bedtime ritual is a 2-hour ordeal AT BEST. Mommy always starts the evening with the best of intentions (Lay down the law! Suppress Mommy guilt!) and the highest hopes (You ran around the park for an hour tonight – you MUST be exhausted). Two stall-tactic-jammed hours later she inevitably finds herself reading “one more book!” for the 16th time and panicking because the 43 things on her to-do list (and *sigh* PVR) will remain untouched yet again tonight.
DRINK: The No-Fail Sleep Solution. 1 cup whole milk, 1 teaspoon honey, grated nutmeg. Serve this exclusively to everyone in your household this week and pray to the sleep gods it actually works.
