Goodnight Moon: Bedtime Routines with Seventh Generation

This bedtime post is sponsored by Seventh Generation. We love their products, their commitment to protecting our environment and their mission to make the world a safe and comfy place for our kids.

I’ve always been a morning person, clanking coffee cups and cleaning the kitchen well before anyone’s awake (they’re not always too happy about that). I’m ready to get moving early, taking advantage of my sharpest self–writing, tackling projects, cleaning–the earlier the better. I used to save more tasks for the evening, but with three kids and crazy busy days now, nights are spent quietly winding down–relaxing and retreating with my family. Getting ready for bed is a ceremony in itself, a window of the day where we are fully present–what’s done is done, and what didn’t get finished gets moved to tomorrow.

Bedtime is one of my favorite rituals with babies and one of the first memorized routines for all of my kids. I remember when Lainey was barely crawling, we headed into her room to start the bedtime routine, and she went right to the pajama drawer–knew which one it was–and pulled out a sleeper. Dash is no different. As soon as the sun disappears and we make our way to the bathtub to start the routine, he follows right along, knowing what comes next. Jammies, bottle, book, sound machine, bed.

He doesn’t let us put him to bed without touching his mobile. Every night, we hoist him up and he touches each character (surprisingly, very gently) and slides the felt balls up and down their string.

I want everything as comfy and cozy as possible for bedtime. On the few occasions we returned home late with sleeping kids in the car, I’ve risked waking them up to slip them into sleepers because jeans to bed–no can do.

With three kids and seven years of parenting under my belt, I’ve slowly narrowed down the products we use for our kids after trying out a lot of things and taking suggestions from other moms. We have our favorite soft blankets, smell-good soap, safe cleaning products and comfy jammies. I love discovering new products and the ways companies are helping us raise our babies with comfort and safety in mind, and they’ve made great leaps from the days when our parents raised us. “They sure didn’t make them like that when you were kids,” my parents have said a number of times. “We strapped a plastic box in the car and called it a carseat!”

We’ve loved Seventh Generation’s cleaning products for a while now due to their commitment to safe ingredients, and after trying their new Touch of Cloth™ Diapers, we’ve added them to our favorites and into our bedtime routine.

Touch of Cloth™ Diapers are the first and only disposable diapers made with completely clean cotton fibers, free of fragrances, lotions and petroleum based plastics. The outside of the diapers are soft to touch–as soft as cloth–because they’re made with unbleached cotton and other plant based materials, replacing a layer typically made from petroleum based plastic. They fit snugly, are super-absorbent, and I love that they are pure white–as simple as the cotton they’re made from. I tried cloth diapering with Nella, and I couldn’t keep up with it, but these diapers are a nice compromise and work well for our family.

Seventh Generation’s mission in designing products lines right up there with our parenting mission: “we must build new ways of caring for ourselves, and the world around us.”  We’ll take any reminder–even diapers–that the best things often lie in simplicity.

To many more comfy and cozy nights ahead.

Thank you, Seventh Generation for sponsoring this post, and thank you readers for checking out the sponsors that make great products and services our family enjoys, and help make supporting this blog a little easier.