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. 

New Orleans children's books and Eric Carle at Gymboree

In New Orleans we picked up some books at Nola Tots

and noticed at Gymboree the Eric Carle collection was out! 

Gap features reading outfit for toddlers

Cool that @Gap shared a reading outfit in the toddler section online #toddlers should have books in their life daily life. Read to your baby so that when they are toddlers they will be the one picking out the book to read together and their first word could be Book!

Toddler sorting colors game with cups and a plate

This involves foam fish from craft store and cups and a plate I have at home. I didn't have a yellow cup but it's okay, it made the sorting more to think about for Phoenix when I put a yellow plate down, and he loves this game we will play it a lot tomorrow and onward. We can use different objects or shapes too, to mix it up. Toddlers love having control and making choices and this is so simple to create but can be played over and over again happily.

Reading by the light of the lantern

Steam train, Dream Train

Little frogs as a color teaching tool for toddlers

Phoenix took this picture with my iPhone of his new frogs.

We love Phoenix's new frogs he got at the American Museum of Natural History today. For me I see these little creatures as perfect tools for teaching my little one more about colors. 

10 mins a day toddler motor and logic skills

10 mins a day or less toddler motor & logic skills. Big & small frog stickers put on big & small lily pads, sorting! 

Reading by the light of the lantern

Reading by the light of the lantern tonight and always

Storytime at the MET and rooftop toddler play

I took a toddler to The Metropolitan Museum of Art  and we didn't break anything! We went to check out their free story time, there were a lot of books read, around 7 books, way more than expected and the audience of babies and toddlers actually focused sometimes. Phoenix liked best the books Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Emberly and Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems. I liked it. I think it's a great free storytime and the MET is actually a good-time for both parents and baby/toddler together to have an experience if you are realistic. 

We haven't been to the MET for awhile but I'm trying to break the mold of a museum like the MET being no loud or wild kids allowed because I love art and I think Phoenix can too, especially since we live among beautiful large scale oils by Anthony John Gray and Phoenix and I do art daily, painting mostly. In the winter, not letting him leave the stroller, I did take Phoenix there for a nap once, I figured I'd try to look at art, work on my book, relax, while he slept...until his bottle fell out of his stroller and slide across the gallery I was in. 

And then he woke up soon after anyways. 

This time we got more adventurous. After leaving storytime (we will be back another day, since they hold it every day at 10:30am) Phoenix wanted to walk, so I put on our handy lion backpack that is also a harness/leash to keep him from touching or running into a precious sculpture because we had to walk through the major scary Greek and Roman sculptures to get to the other side of the museum where the Egyptian art was. 

Phoenix had fun emptying my wallet of coins and throwing them in the water that surrounded The Temple of Dendur. We must have thrown $3.00 in change. I hope he made some good wishes. 

We walked up the stairs and down in the exhibit, which he also liked, and then he wanted to eat. 

So we went to the stroller and he sat down happily and had some food. I next tried for us to look at some art with boats and anything that would excite him...a painting of a boat, a pretty landscape, horses, maybe if we were lucky a train, I went to the second floor to the Monet, Van Goghs, and as we strolled among all these beautiful masterpieces I knew Phoenix wasn't in the mood although he did like seeing a horse painting of war horses...uumm...

I took my time for a few seconds and glanced at a few of the beautiful famous works but then we headed to the rooftop!  

We spent almost 30 minutes up there...or it felt like it. We got a snack and sat on the fake grass and (being pregnant it was nice, I relaxed) Phoenix ran around the whole place, climbed chairs, touched the brushes, and I held him up a few times to see the landscape of the city. 

Over all it was a nice morning and worth-it experience. And I'm inspired to try it again. :)

Best Baby Shower Books

A handful of favorites to give as gifts at a baby shower because among the cutest outfits and booties, reading to your baby is a precious and special experience that begins your child's love of books. These books are great for when your baby is an infant and all the way until they are the ones picking out the book to read. Inspire the love of reading. It starts...it can start the day the baby is born, that first night home, and before...in the womb. Give the beautiful gift of life long reading. 

Moms don't give up your beauty routine

A fellow Mom asked me today in our awesome music class, "How do you always look so put together with blush and all?" I told her, while Phoenix plays in the morning I run around back and forth getting dressed in about 10 minutes, because we don't leave until I'm ready for the day... And we gotta get out of the apartment and get busy! I believe you can still keep your mascara and be a Mom, I'm not giving up stuff like cute jeans, my jewelry, my long hair, my beauty routine, it just means learning to be quicker about it and sticking to the basics that work. Good foundation or powder, GOOD liner and Mascara, a stay-on lip gloss, and if there is time, a dash of blush. I usually put on earrings in the elevator if Phoenix is in a good mood I do my makeup once a day, maybe touch up if I'm awake enough to go out for dinner or meet the girls. Another thing, you gotta pick and choose, to have your face means you might not get to brush your hair, to have great hair means you might leave the house without earrings or eyelashes curled.

Books we are loving right now

Perfect naptime reads for babies of all ages and toddlers