Buses and Bedtime

Ryan loves buses. He loves trains, cars, and excavators too (don't ask) but he LOVES buses. Everyday on the way home from daycare, he points out every bus he sees and yells "bus! bus! bus!" until I acknowledge the bus he saw. Then as soon as the bus is out of sight, he wants more buses and yells "bus! bus! bus!" until he sees a new one. He gets pretty frustrated with me for not finding the buses too. I think next weekend we should skip the apple picking and fairs and just head to the local bus depot. The kid would be in heaven.

The other subject of this post is bedtime. Now, Ryan has always been a great sleeper. He's such a great sleeper that when people with kids ask me how he sleeps, I answer tentatively for fear of being hit with something. Part of what has worked for us is establishing a routine. It's not long or too elaborate, but it's very consistent and Justin and I each play a specific role. Here's our basic routine:

One of us dresses Ryan in his pajamas and overnight diaper. We brush Ryan's teeth. We read 3 board books or 1 full length Dr. Seuss book. We do "family hugs" and then we all kiss his little stuffed Elmo goodnight. Justin takes Ryan to shut off the lights, first the hall light, then the room light. Then Ryan gives Justin a hug and kiss and comes to me. He gives me a hug and kiss and I put him in his crib while I sing a song (the same one since he was born). I say "night night" and "I love you" and he does the same. I close the door and we're done.

Tonight, I learned the downside of this consistency. It totally freaks Ryan out when one of us is missing. Although I have to say, he whines when I'm not there, but totally throws a fit when Justin's gone. Luckily this is very rare. Tonight Justin went out and I put Ryan to bed alone. All was fine until we finished the book. Then he started screaming for Justin. I tried to do the Elmo voice and make him laugh, which distracted him for about 30 seconds on the way to the light switch, but when it was me and not Justin helping him shut off the light, he lost it. Screamed for the next 30 minutes for Daddy. Mind you, he didn't ask for him once in the 2 hours between getting home from daycare and finishing the book. But when Justin's specific part of the routine came, and he wasn't there, it was very upsetting to him. Since I'm headed out of town next week for a business trip, I find myself wondering if we should just deal with this anomaly as it comes, or try to switch up the routine every once in a while so it's not SO super consistent and hope it doesn't screw up his ability to go to bed the other 95% of the time. The weird part is that when we put him to sleep at someone else's house and transfer him, he doesn't really care about the routine. It's only when it's in his room.