How do you help your toddlers "process their day"?

[imsmum]

I seen this mentioned a lot on this board and I think it's something that would help my 18 mo old sleep.  I'm a bit unclear about it tho.  What do you do exactly, especially if you're not home with them during the day?

[tylersmommy]

It's easier as they get more verbal, but you can just talk about the day until then. We've always done it while putting on Tyler's pajamas or while sitting in the chair snuggling before bedtime. If you aren't home with your LO during the day, you can pretty much use whatever you know they did during the day. You'd just kind of babble on, like "So what did you do today? Oh, that's right, X came over to stay with you. What did you have for breakfast? Cereal? Mmmm. Did you play with trains today? I bet that was fun. Did you go anywhere in the car? You went to the store? Did you see apples, and bananas, and lots of people? Etc etc" As they get more verbal, you can ask questions they can answer, KWIM?

[deb]

With Josie we always did it after her books, with her sitting on our laps with the lights off, last thing before we put her down. At first we talked about it for her, like Tyler's Mommy suggested, and then as she got more and more verbal she was able to add details herself. Now at 4 years old, at bedtime she STILL says, "So what things did we do today?" and it's still a part of our bedtime routine.

[Nikki~Nathanamp;Danielle]

I think we also started when Nathan first started talking properly - maybe around 18mths. We've always done it when dh gets home (a nice way for him to get filled in on what we'd been up to as well) before bathtime/over bathtime and use similar dialogue to Tylersmommy.  To start I'd provide it all, then as his verbal skills got better I'd pose a question and he'd fill in what we did, now I hear him and dh talking all about his day and it's funny the things he tells him that I probably wouldn't have prompted him to discuss.

[imsmum]

Thanks--I'm going to give it a try tongiht and see how it goes.

[elfin]

We do the same as Melissa and talk about his day when dressing him in his pj's.  We talk about what he did that day, what he ate, who he saw, etc..