Routines should be routine

I am a huge fan of routines to help children learn good habits. A bedtime routine is one of the best, most effective ways of helping your child to get a good night's sleep. It may seem really weird to start early, but at around 2 months babies can be introduced to a calming, winding down bedtime routine. You can change the elements of the routine as they grow but keeping the main idea and sequence of events- going upstairs, having a bath, getting into nightclothes and then sharing a close, relaxing activity with your child. When my son was a baby, hubby and I learnt baby massage, it was a lovely way to feel close to him and he loved it. We had the same song every night so that it 'cued' sleep. He loves bedtime even now- stories, him reading to us, a chat and cuddle have replaced the massage and song.
But routines are good for loads of other things too- getting dressed, mealtimes, homework- the key is the sequence rather than the exact timing, content, and location.
And on the subject of sleep a new study suggests it's good for children's school readiness too (an Australian study- see http://bit.ly/Ap38Dc) Not surprisingly children concentrate better when they've had enough sleep.
Seeing the rapid decline in my son's behaviour when he's not had enough sleep (and it only has to be a couple of later nights to do it) is astounding- he turns into a screaming, intolerant irritable mess- and I wonder if lots of so-called behavioural problems are down to not enough sleep. In my clinical practice I routinely ask about sleep and tackle that first if it's an issue.
Sleep well!

Sometimes the theory works!

So how do I stop the psychology intruding into my parenting? Does it matter if it does? Two examples-when my child was a baby I was driven half crazy with sleep deprivation- not that he was a tricky baby, he just woke up for feeds and went back to sleep, but I don't do well on reduced sleep. So I realised in my daze (and it really was a daze, once I couldn't even think of the word 'box') that I could use my professional knowledge to sort this out. I did use a fab book to help me written by a couple of health visitors which fitted the research rather than being supernanny-driven. Now the name totally escapes me and I lent it to another friend.Self soothing and understanding your child's sleep cycles were the key as well as enlisting the support of my also weary husband. Within three nights we were all sleeping through and I mean ALL night! So that was a success and sleeping has never been a major issue since then.
Another one: where it didn't work so well was potty training. All was fine but my toddler did not like to use to loo for poos. At all. Trying to put into practice all my skills, we tried: reward charts, imagination, distraction, reading books about it. Didn't work. My wise friend (also a psychologist) said to me just leave him be and it will come in good time. So when he went off to nursery aged 3 and a bit I was dreading it. Within a week he was using the loo. Why? They had mini-loos there, he saw the others using them and we took the pressure off completely. So the bit of psychology i should have been applying was there all along- the developmental bit which says all kids are different, they usually get there in their own good time, plus a bit of peer 'pressure' (hardly!) and less anxiety all round.