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There are a thousand and one things that make parenting a very challenging job. Bedtime is one of those things. My three-year-old son refuses to go to bed on time. It seems that he cannot get enough of his play time. I wonder where he gets the extra energy that keeps him active long after the clock ticks past toddler bed time. Because my wife and I are first time parents, it took us months of using trial and error methods to devise ways to solve this problem. One of the important discoveries we made is that we can make it easier when we follow a routine. We  also found out that when we give him signals like “Okay, it’s five more minutes before we clean up and go to bed” or “Last round, and the toys will have to rest and sleep”, it is easier to tuck our little boy in bed.

But being tucked in bed does not end the day for our toddler because he has this need to hear again and again five or more of his favorite bedtime stories. You know how it feels to tell for the 120th or so time how the three little pigs survived the attack of the big bad wolf. But we also know that reading the same story again and again helps in supporting our little boy’s language skills. Not only that, it also helps his emotional, social, and memory skills. My wife sometimes let our little boy do the story telling because she knows that he has memorized his favorite stories. It gives us a wonderful feeling to listen to our son’s little voice telling his favorite story, with all the details intact.

Singing a nighttime song is also good at signalling to our toddler that it’s closing time.  The nighttime song also creates a bond that becomes stronger each night we sing it just before he closes his eyes for sleep.
The song could be as simple as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, but it can create good memories that will last a lifetime.