KAREN NAZOR HILL: I think one of the hardest times of the day for a young parent is bedtime. Despite fun bedtime rituals, some children aren’t ready to go to bed, whether they’re sleepy or not. I have found this to be true especially during Daylight Savings Time. It’s a lot easier to go to sleep when the sun is not shining through the window. Somehow we parents and children make it through this milestone, but at the time, it’s not easy. My 3-year-old granddaughter is just too busy to go to bed. It doesn’t matter if she’s spent the day at the Creative Discovery Museum, swimming and playing outside. When the clock strikes 8 p.m., she thinks she has more playing to do. Some nights she climbs into bed like a champ. Other nights, she doesn’t. And sometimes, actually most of the time, the only way she’ll go to bed is if her mom goes to bed with her. What’s bedtime like at your house, Mark?
MARK KENNEDY: Bedtime at my house for my 3- and 8-year-old sons is sort of a rolling, one-hour process. Ideally it works like this for the boys: They both take a bath, put on pajamas, eat a snack, read a book and then it’s lights out. It rarely works with this precision. Working through the process requires lots of diplomacy, mixed with the occasional direct command. Oddly, our 8-year-old son is often the first to sleep. It’s the 3-year-old, who still naps in the afternoon, who has the most trouble falling asleep. He generally requires two or three tuck-ins, a trip to the bathroom and a drink of water before he settles down to talk himself to sleep.
Recently, we tried letting the boys drift off to sleep together in the 8-year-old’s queen-size bed. Oddly, this seems to have had a settling effect on both of them. Bedtime is a lot less stressful for everyone now.
After both boys get to sleep, we move our 3-year-old son to a different bed, where he remains for the rest of the night.
From my experience, parents need to be creative about bedtime, mixing rituals with the occasional change of pace.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com and Karen Nazor Hill at khill@timesfreepress.com.