Note: This is the first post written by Courtney’s husband. We’ll call him Mod Daddy until he comes up with his own cool name.
Bed time is always an adventure and it has nothing to do with Curious George or Pinkalicious.
Parents of one child know this story. Parents of two feel our stress. Parents of three or more? Our thoughts are with you.
But it’s all fun, and sadly, temporary, as eventually all of our little angels will go to bed on time. Eventually. Remember that you might, might, might miss this struggle as your kids grow up and fall in line, bathing themselves, putting on their pajamas and brushing their teeth without you. (The key word is might.)
Our goal has always been 7:30 and goals are great, but that’s not easy. I often get home after 7, so if the baths aren’t done or something like dance or soccer delays the pajama party, there’s very little time to get things pointed toward the pillows when I finally join team Mod Mommy.
I’m here to admit time often slipped away, as our sweet little trio ganged up on us on a three on two fast break somewhere between their toys and tooth brushes.
After several weeks of that, we decided we had to crack down. But we wondered if we could get our three headed, six-legged genie back in the bottle. Our anxiety took a back seat to the fact that kids need a lot of sleep for so many reasons.
That’s when we initiated what I like to call Operation Bedtime.
Realization number one…and this might sound silly considering our kids’ ages…they can’t tell time. They had no idea they were up until 8:30 at times and sometimes later, so cutting an hour or so off that wasn’t really noticed.
Realization number two…and this might sound silly considering our ages…we’re in charge. We are, aren’t we?
Of course, there was an initial push-back on the first night and the second and, OK, the third and fourth. Truth be known, we still struggle a month or so into Operation Bedtime, but it’s working.
While they still fight sleep and invent cute reasons to leave their beds, we’re starting the quest in the 7’s instead of the 8’s. So the net gain is sleep and peace, for them and us.
But WAIT. He can’t share that post without sharing what Operation Bedtime is! Please share!
I’ve become militant about bedtime, but I hate it because I enjoy bedtime snuggles when I have the time. I wish there was a way to have a few minutes of snuggles without it making them beg for more and more and more. It’s just easier to not have any snuggles at all, but that makes everyone sad. Happy medium? where is it?
Sabrina recently posted…Raffi’s 4 year old interview
haha I know! Talk about cryptic!! You have 3 so you know what it’s like. Coby is usually the first to go down. So, I get to snuggle with him a bit while the hubs wrangles the other two with teeth brushing, potty breaks, filling up cups etc…By that time, I’m ready to read to one of them. We switch kids each night or sometimes they like to listen to a story together. Then we each lay in the room with the kids until they feel like they are ready to fall asleep. It’s so hard because we want to lay with all of them, but I often fall asleep myself on Cooper’s floor! The only key to this for us is that we started our process to late. We figured the earlier the better, because it’s literally an hour or so before any falls asleep from start time!!