Comfort and Joy
MyTurn: A few months Eli went through a phase where he was having trouble sleeping. He didn’t want to be left alone in his room and would cry for what seemed like forever until one of us would go back in to him. Since we didn’t want to establish any bad habits or new routines that we couldn’t follow through on, we didn’t let him come to sleep with us and I also didn’t want to keep rocking him back to sleep every time he cried. We’ve had to try a modified “cry it out” method with both kids at least once in their little lifetimes. It’s heartbreaking, but has led to two kids that pretty consistently have no problems getting to bed and staying there all night long. (I am frantically knocking on wood as I type this!)
To prep him for the fact that I was going to leave him, I started saying, “OK, I’m going to give you one more hug, one more kiss, and one more pat on the back and then I’m going to go.” I’d leave and he’d keep on crying. In our modified method I would go back, but I’d extend the amount of time between my visits. He’d cry for five minutes, then I’d go back for a while. We’d repeat the “one hug, one kiss, and one pat” routines, then I’d live for ten minutes. Then fifteen. Eventually, he fell asleep.
The nights got easier until that phase eventually passed. But “hug, kiss, and pat” has become part of our bedtime routine. It’s a sweet little goodnight ritual that we share. The feeling of his little hand patting my back is probably far more comforting to me than my pat is to him. I treasure it each night.
YourTurn: Do you currently or have you ever had any routines or rituals that comfort you?
6 Comments »
Leave a comment
About This Blog
In Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, the central character dies an early death. Emily is given the chance to revisit a day of her life and is advised by those in the afterlife to pick an ordinary day, warning her that she might be overcome otherwise. Still, Emily is overwhelmed with emotion as she recognizes how wonderful the everyday details of her existence were. Her daily routine takes on new significance now that it is gone. Through her tears, she asks:
Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it– every, every minute?
With this blog, I am trying to fully “realize” my life by documenting the things that I love. I want to appreciate and examine my past and present, as well as plan actively for the future.
I hope to accentuate the positive in my life and in the world around me, with the hope that by focusing on the positive, I will draw more positive elements into my life. Or, at least, realize all of the blessings that I do have.
Bob, the author of this blog, is a 33 year old husband, father, son, teacher, Christian, and liberal.
Every evening when I say goodnight to my kids, my youngest son says “Good night and sweet dreams and you look like a rose and you smell like a rose and that’s all true”, except it’s said as though it’s just one very long word. He’s done this for years now, and I know that when he grows out of it, I’ll miss it terribly. Like you say, in many ways these night-time rituals are just as comforting for us as adults, as they are for them as children.
My daughter was little she and I would snuggle in bed and talk for a while at bedtime. I really missed it when she got too old for it, but we still have fond memories of those times.
Around Christmas we always put up a little tree in her room, and we’d lie there in the dark looking at the lights.
Oh boy this is a good one. I will need to think of it but i definitely am going to post on it….hope you don’t mind if I borrow your title
I’ve given it some thought & posted my answer over at my blog. Good question & I like your response ~ very sweet.
my daughter is almost 11 and we still have a bedtime routine - maybe not every day, but i’d say at least 4 or 5 times a week. the routine changes all the time but every time we’re “in” one it seems that that one is the “forever” routine. it’s kind of neat. for a while it was quite involved - we’d start with 4 songs (always the same), then i’d read a prayer or two from a fabulous little world prayer book we have, and then i’d sing a bunch of songs from the taize community, until she’d fall asleep. right now we just say a prayer that my daughter has put together, starting with a gratitude but just this week we started adding a gift we’ve given during the day - something we’ve done for someone else. let’s see what the future brings!
[...] a new step to our bedtime routine. This is fitting in either right before or right after “hug and pat and kiss.” It’s “I Say Something Nice About You and You Say Something Nice About [...]