Prepping Other Caregivers for Your Child’s Sleep Routine

Children of all ages are more accepting of sleep when they know it is coming! A series of events in a specific order will trigger it is almost time for sleep and those steps lead to a simple sleep routine.

Having a simple sleep routine will help with allowing anyone to put your baby to sleep. My husband and I live in Texas and have no family here, therefore, we had to be accepting of having multiple people put our children to bed OR we would never be able to leave until after bedtime!

I have always kept our sleep routine short and simple. We’ve never had bath time as part of the routine every night and this has always been helpful in allowing multiple people to put them to sleep. (If you do have bath time as part of the routine, it’s okay to skip it every now and then to make it easier on whoever is caring for your child).

When I have a babysitter come to our house, I have everything prepared:

• lay out the boys’ pajamas

• the night time diaper

• diaper cream

• sleep sack.

I bring the babysitter to their individual room and SHOW/TELL them what to do by walking through the steps. I show them the sound machine and have them practice putting it on as well (one time the babysitter pressed the wrong buttons which kept changing the sound instead of turning it on - so lesson learned and I have them practice doing it).

I also type up the routine for them to have and I keep on hand for every sitter!

If you don’t have time to walk them through it, you can always have the routine made as a visual, so they know what to do!

If you need a template for your caregiver, we have the perfect resource in our Raising Happy Sleepers membership— join here!