Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Go-to bedtime children's books for simmering down the day

Here are my go to books for simmering down the day and your little ones when they are restless during their bedtime routine. 

Also I suggest: Dim down the lights in the livingroom or wherever your baby/toddler is playing before the bedtime routine starts. Setting the mood can help, it doesn't need to be drastic but bright lights signals awake and diming the lights down a bit is a way, without even saying it, to calm down the body and mind. Usually before bathtime I like to dim down lights and after bathtime also have just a little light in Phoenix's room while changing for bed clothes/pajamas. Then after brushing teeth, the lights are turned down more to just the lantern.  

If your baby or toddler isn't calming down after a few books and songs here the books I recommend based on creating the "bedtime or naptime tone" that these books have. These are my "go-to-sleep" books and besides being favorites, I also bank on them whenever my monkey is still jumping on the bed or not settling down when it's getting to be way past his bedtime. These longer stories allow one read through, when it's a restless night then 2, and by that time your little one should be in dreamland. The board book of Baby Beluga I co-side with Goodnight Construction Site, etc. And for The Bear Snores On I read it very quietly and slow so some of the more exciting emotions in the book are taken a tone down. These books also have a quiet tone, meaning when you read it your voice will naturally become softer easily and they read sort of like a song or poem, and the flow of the story is soothing and calming. Sometimes
I start reading while my little precious is still restless but the tone of the story gives him the cue. 

A children's book like Caps
For Sale, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and the Otis series are books we love but books involving excitement and surprise, for us, are better for day time reads because they can rile up a little one (and that's great for when it's time to play), or best to read them first before a calming-down and relaxing bedtime children's book. 

After you've been animated and made animal noises and paled and had some jokes, these books might help relax the day down.