Some favourite bedtime books

Put my son to bed tonight and all went well. See my post on our bedtime routines, it works for us 99% of the time.
This made me think of sharing some of our favourite bedtime stories with you. We have a few that we usually choose from.
One of the best features common to all of these books is that there is some degree of repetition (I guess that is common to a lot of children's books). What our son like about this repetition is that he can memorize certain sentences and know when they are coming up, so reading the book together becomes and interactive experience that he really enjoys.
Here are the books currently at the top of our bedtime list:
1) The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson - recommended for children 2 years and up. This is a classic book with a nice story about a quick-thinking mouse that outwits a fox, an owl, a snake and of course, a Gruffalo! It has good repetition of certain elements, and the sentences in the story also rhyme (in an AABBCC... fashion), so after just a couple of times reading this, our son could already start to complete some sentences on his own as I was reading them.
2) Wanted: The Great Cookie Thief, A Sesame Street book - this one is a bit hard to find but can still be found online. Our copy is actually the copy that I had when I was just a young tike, so reading this brings back memories of my childhood. Our son also loves it because it is about one of his favourite topics... cookies... and it also has some repetitive aspects, so he can predict what is going to happen next.
3) Room on the Broom, by Julia Donaldson - another one by the author of The Gruffalo. We actually bought this one first and liked it so much that we bought the Gruffalo. This is a really nice story about a witch that takes a dog, a bird and a frog with her on her broom, along with her cat, and when they meet up with a dragon, they all help to rescue her. There is a great theme of friendship and cooperation. Like the Gruffalo, this story rhymes and has repetition, so we can have a good interactive read.
4) The Ernie and Bert Book, A Sesame Street Book - like the Great Cookie Thief, this is another classic from my childhood that our son loves. It can still be found online, not sure if it is in any stores any longer. This one was at the top of our list for awhile. Our son practically had it memorised because we read it so many times. This is the story of what happens when Ernie broke the piggy bank, so he had to put the money in the cookie jar, and the cookies in the milk bottle, and the milk in the... you get the idea. It goes on like this and is lots of fun.
5) Speedy Fire Engine, A Wheelie Boards Book. This book is shaped like a fire engine and has wheels. It is a simple story that rhymes. It is just a few pages about a fire engine that quickly goes to put out a fire. I think our son mostly likes this one because he likes fire trucks. Today he kept repeating, "Speedy Fire Engine!" about a million times. He also likes to turn the wheels on this book as I am reading it to him.
So that is our current top five... I would definitely recommend checking these out if you are looking for some new books for your kids and don't have these already.

Toddler Bedtime Routine

Hi all,
I am sure many parents out there are searching for the perfect bedtime routine, so they can get the kids to bed and have a moment of serenity. I know we searched for one at first!
It took us awhile to come up with our bedtime routine, and now that we have one, we use it on a "routine basis" (pun intended)... Actually we use it every night and it works very nicely with great success. We use it with our almost 29 month old son, and he knows exactly what to expect with this routine, and it is a perfect signal to him that it is bedtime.
In preparation for our daughter's birth, I started doing this routine with him, knowing that my wife wouldn't always be available to put our son to bed, due to nursing duties with our daughter. Quite ironically (sorry, don't want to quote Alanis Morissette here), since our daughter was born, our son wants my wife to do the routine with him more often. This is understandable, since he wants to have some special one-on-one time with her.

So the routine goes like this:
1) Time to take a bath and brush your teeth. The bath is sometimes left out if he is not very dirty. In that case we just brush his teeth. If giving him a bath, I brush his teeth while he is in the bath. See also my posting on tooth brushing.
2) Time to wash your face and hands. This step is only if we didn't give him a bath.
3) Dry down and run under the bed covers! (this is his favourite part)
4) Put on bedtime gear/pyjamas/t-shirt, depending on how hot it is.
5) Close the blinds together (he sometimes wants to do this all by himself - that is okay, I let him).
6) Time to read a book... we generally read the same books to him each bedtime, or he chooses one out of about four typical bedtime books. I will write another posting on books we like.
7) Read the book one time.
8) Read the book a second time (before starting to read the book a second time, he always says "again? last time... then sleep." ... it was me who got him saying this, because I always said, "last time, then sleep" to him before starting to read the book a second time) - we don't read "war and peace" or "the lord of the rings" to him or anything like that, so it is not a big deal to read the book a second time.
9) Turn off the bedside lamp (he turns it off by himself).
10) Sing him a bedtime song/lullaby. He usually falls asleep during the singing. I always sing the same lullaby, "Hush little baby," my wife uses a different one.

That is it, our 10 step program to a good night's rest! It may sound long, complicated and elaborate, but it actually goes by really quickly and flows very naturally.
So if you are in need of a bedtime routine, I welcome you to try adapting this one to your needs, or take the steps that might fit for you and create your own routine out of it. Appreciate any comments you have!
Wishing you many nights of uninterrupted sleep,
TBD