Putting Baby J to bed

Since I just did it with good success, I thought I'd write it down quickly.

We started bedtime pretty late, especially since she had not had her afternoon nap, so she was already pretty tired. I made a bottle for her (told her I was doing it, showed it to her) and then we went upstairs. I told her we were going upstairs to read some stories before going to bed. (Oh, by the way, Baby J is 14 months old.)

We sat down in the rocking chair where we normally do and I picked up about 5 books we could read. Normally we only read 3, but somehow I felt like she'd fuss if we didn't read more. Oh, but before we started reading I offered her the bottle. She took about 1/2 oz and then stopped.

So, we started reading. By the third book she was leaning over sideways like, with her head resting on my arm. She kind of pushed the book away and I knew it was time to stop. I repositioned her and offered her the bottle again. This time she took about 3 ozs, which, again, is good for her.

When she was done I stood up, turned off the light, closed the blinds and started to hum. I normally sing to her a lot when going to bed, but my husband and I both noticed that she doesn't seem to like this anymore. It's almost like she knows that means the crib is coming. I don't want her to have a negative assocation to singing, and I sing all day long to her, but I'll have to do more, I guess.

So, I started humming and she started to fuss. As I was humming I was also walking over to her crib, so the fussing could have more to do with that. Once we got to her crib I held her in the cradle position and swayed with her back and forth. She likes a good bouncy sway, so I usually add some bend in the knees as well. I started shusshing rymthically to her and she quieted down. I kept this up for about 5 minutes and then she started to push away and dive for the crib. I put her in the crib on her side and shusshed her about 30 more seconds, really softly. Then I backed away and watched her for about 2 minutes to make sure she wasn't going to be disturbed by my going downstairs noises. (We have super creaky stairs.)

This was a pretty good night. There are nights when I'm up there for an hour shusshing her or when I put her in the crib she is still for 30 secs then pops up over and over again. So, I'm pretty happy about things tonight.