How to Encourage Your Little Princess to Bed
Often times, at the end of a very long day, getting your baby girl to bed can be rather difficult – and sometimes, it can even seem like a chore that burns up your last nerve when you’re already tired out from all of your other daily obligations. When kids are little, their life feels like a never-ending adventure with such an incredible variety of new experiences. They have so many new feelings, and they see so many new things. Once in a while she’ll want to stay up and not go to bed, as she’s just too excited about everything she’s seen that day, and everything she’s imagining for tomorrow.
Our motherly instincts should tell us that we need to create an incentive of some kind to encourage her to look forward to bedtime, just as she is looking forward to playing with her favorite doll and her other thrilling baby accessories. You need to find a way of making her really look forward to going to bed – it will make your job a whole lot easier when it comes to the end of the tiring day.
One of the first things we should do is to create an enjoyable routine, which can be easily repeated. Whilst young minds are looking for stimulation, education and growth, they also value the stability of a routine and if you make it fun, then you can achieve two goals at once.
Try and incorporate the chores that need to be completed before she lays down, into your plan. For example, she may need to have a bath, use the bathroom, brush teeth, say her prayers and then go to bed. Allow her to put some input into this routine and she will “buy into it” better.
Often one of the best ways to make the bed seem more attractive is to make it look appealing. You should be able to identify some of her favorites by now – for example, she could have a favorite character from one of the books that she’s been reading, or a movie, cartoon or TV character she relates to. Why not create a theme in the bedroom, as you can get complete nursery bedding and accessory set themes based on almost every imaginable character.
Whilst you’re thinking about themes, why not make the PJs more theme oriented. Many little girls dream about being a princess and you can set up the room and her bed to project visions of an enchanted castle, to entice her into dreamland.
If you put a little thought and imagination into it and think way back to when you were a girl of her age, you should be able to make bedtime something that she really looks forward to as opposed to fighting against. Creating a special theme with appropriate nursery decoration could be fun for you as well as for her! Add some little games or other routines just prior to lights out and you should both be in for a restful night.