Bedtime is easy now!

For the past month or so, Eli has been doing wonderfully when it comes to going to bed at night. Our bedtime routine is pretty much unchanged: a bath if necessary, change diaper and put on pajammas, read a few stories, lights out and rock with mommy or daddy in the rocking chair briefly, and then into the crib for the night.

Although the routine is unchanged, Eli is really making it easy on Missy and I these days! He's now very content to have just a minute or two of rocking once story time is done, and then he quietly lays right down in his crib. Missy and I can leave the room as he falls asleep on his own.

Previously, Eli wouldn't be happy with Missy and I leaving the room before he was completely "out". We'd need to either rock him in the chair until he was asleep in our arms and then stealthily (read: slowly and carefully!) lay him down in his crib without waking him up, or at least lay him down in his crib and then just sit in his room (in the dark) for 15 minutes or more while Eli fell asleep.

So now, while it was nice to be with Eli while he fell asleep at night, bedtime is much less of a "chore" for us -- we have that much more time to get things done around the house and relax after putting Eli to bed at night!