Have Sippy Will Travel

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My son LOVES the Pajaminals- he just can’t get enough of them. Really. It’s almost maddening. From the first time he saw the show, it has been a favorite. He even painted a Squacky pumpkin for Halloween.

Halloween Pumpkin

He’s so proud of himself, LOL.

Just as your kids were getting back into the regular routine, here comes the end ofdaylight savings time! Although the early arrival of darkness due to the time change on November 4 can often help in getting children to settle into healthy sleep-time routines, there may still be some transition time required. That’s where THE PAJANIMALS can help, with their new and super cute nap mat. Hey- anything to get them to sleep, ay?

The new PAJANIMALS Snuggle Up Story Mat from TOMY is really adorable, and has all the Pajaminals featured on it. It is lightweight and fun to play camping with. While I would not use it for a real blanket, and it is super-super thin in the mat, my son loved it and we used it nightly during the hurricane to get Little Man to go to sleep. It was a fun object that he enjoyed, and we just put a sleeping bag under it and blankets over it (it was COLD, man! No heat with no power to start it, LOL). It was great to have that around as a bribe to get him to sleep when he was pretty freaked out.

The PAJANIMALS features four cuddly “loveablepuppets” -Cowbella, Apollo, Sweetpea Sue and Squacky (Little Man’s favorite), who have a new DVD and a TV show that airs nightly on 24-hour preschool television channel Sprout during The Good Night Show as well as on NBC on Saturday mornings as part of the NBC Kids programming block.

The foursome go on exciting imaginary adventures, filled with music and new friends in every story- with themes like vacationing, singing to the sky, and how to share. PAJANIMALS teaches the skills that preschoolers need to move through their days successfully, especially getting ready for and going to bed.

Here are some ideas from PAJANIMALS’ sleep time experts, Jennifer Waldburger and Jill Spivack from Sleepy Planet, offer these four simple steps:

Step One: It’s the Clocks! On Saturday, November 3, put your children to sleep at their normal bedtime. If it’s typically 7:30 p.m., stick with that. Then before you go to sleep, move every clock in your house back one hour.

Step Two: Early Wake Up – Your child will most likely wake up at the normal time, only you and your clock know it’s an hour earlier. No easy work-arounds here, so you’ll just have to take one for the team and get up early with the kids. It’s not realistic to ask them to stay in bed an extra hour so forget about going back to sleep.

Step Three: Stick to the Schedule – As difficult as it may seem, stay with your regular schedule. If you normally serve lunch at noon, then eat at noon. Your child will likely be ready to eat earlier, at 11am, but a midmorning snack will help stave off hunger. And the same goes for naptime. Keep your child busy until it’s time to nap, even if they start to slow down an hour earlier.

Step Four: Keep ‘em up – Bedtime should be at 7:30 p.m. as usual (or whatever time it is in your home), eventhough your child may feel sleepy earlier. They may be cranky and tired, but do your best to go by the time on the clock. And hopefully their little internal body clocks are adjusting to the time difference without them even knowing it.

It may take a couple of nights, but if you try to continue with your routine as usual, you and your child should be enjoying regular sleep patterns in no time at all.

Another valuable tool that might help at bedtime is to offer a transitional object and a brief cuddle before leaving the room. In childhood development, a transitional object is something, usually a physical object, which takes the place of the mother-child bond. The transitional object enables the child to have a fantasized bond with the mother when she separates for increasingly longer periods of time, such as in the evening. This transitional object serves as an important defense against fear and anxiety.

To thwart your child’s worries about going to sleep alone, try using a transitional object, such as a small stuffed animal, starting around the age of one. While what the child ends up choosing is up to him or her, recognizable objects can help provide a high level of comfort.

PAJANIMALS fans can access a number of fun and FREE ageappropriate activities and games on the Sprout website, http://www.sproutonline.com/shows/pajanimals.

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