Oh man. Where do I even begin?
I guess I'll start with a confession.
The time between getting the kids bathed and getting everyone in the house to finally falling asleep is the worst part of my day. I know we cant be the only parents to feel this way.
My kids find every resource imaginable to fight bedtime. They've got a plethora of excuses as to why they are still up roaming the house....even after we've "put them to bed" five times already.
We have this whole ritual that we go through most nights. On a good night where everything is going right on schedule we start our night time routine at 8:00. We even set the timer to make sure that we stay on track down to the minute. I use a timer in a lot of areas of my life, it's A.D.D. management guys.
Let me break it down for you.
8:00 George's phone reminds us to "begin nighttime routine".
8-8:15 Bath time and PJ's
8:15-8:45 Playtime and snack time. They have 30 min to watch a tv show, play with each other, play Nintendo with George, color, whatever........and eat a snack.
8:45-9:00 clean up & brush teeth. We help them tidy up their rooms, the playroom, and make sure they brush their teeth well.
9:00 Prayers, story, kisses, bed
Everything is usually rolling right along pretty smoothly until actual bed time hits.
I don't know any other way to type out every problem we are dealing with quickly other than doing a word dump. You'll get the idea, here we go.
right before you close the door Ryder asks for ONE.MORE.THING. But I need my ______. LUCY! GET IN THE BED! Ok, I will lay down with you for 15 min. Finn is hungry. Ryder is doing karate and flips in his bed. Stop acting crazy, go to sleep dude! Lucy follows you in to Ryder's room while you are getting on to him. Lucy, go get back in your bed. WHINING. I will lay down with you, GO! Crying. Lucy falls asleep, you sneak out. On your way down the stairs you pass Ryder's room--um, mommy, can I/you forgot to _____. Ryder, you should have gotten that before now, go to sleep. Go downstairs--YOU ARE FREE! TIME WITH YOUR SPOUSE!!! WRONG. 10 min later, you hear feet. You ignore it. Maybe it'll just go away. If we pretend we don't hear her, will she go back to sleep? NO. LUCY! GET IN THE BED! Crying. little feet running. repeat this 3 more times. She comes down again. tears. she melts my heart. come here baby love. I hold Luce. Ryder comes down. Why does Lucy get to stay up and he doesn't? Ugh, ok Ryder go get in your bed, Lucy, Daddy is going to lay down with you. George has been up there for a while, I bet they both fell asleep. Tiptoe up the stairs, wake George up and tell him to come get in the bed. We both stumble down the stairs. George crashes into bed, I give Finn a dream feed(he sleeps in our room). FINALLY we are all asleep. 3:30am I wake up to pee...Oh, Lucy has slithered her way in our bed. Sigh. THE END.
Sometimes I wonder why we even fight it. Why not just let them all pile in our room, who cares? Lucy always winds up in there anyway, why not just let her start out in our room? Well, I honestly wouldn't care, but she won't even go to sleep in our room WITH Finn in there without one of us. And you cant ever just be done with putting Ryder to bed. Its always one.more.thing. and right when you are walking out of his room. You'll almost be out the door......"hey momma". AHHH!!!!! Finn is the only one who is a great sleeper! The 3 month old you lay him down, and he's asleep. All night!
All this boils down to: I WANT TIME ALONE WITH MY HUSBAND!! I know its annoying that I use caps constantly, but I am screaming this shaking my fist towards the sky! I want to sit on the couch with George and talk and eat junk food and watch tv and just hang out for like an hour before we go to sleep. Is that too much to ask?
Please. PLEASE. I am desperate. GIVE ME SOME ADVICE!
Is anyone else going through this? What do you do?! Have you just said forget it and let all the kids pile in your bed? How does that work? I have tried letting Lucy sleep with Ryder, but she usually doesn't want to and on the few times they have its like a 7th grade girls slumber party. Giggling for hours. Endearing and cute at first, but eventually it becomes a problem.
Ok, if you've got this sleep thing down and mastered, show me your ways. If you are in the same boat as me, lets form a support group. We could meet when all of our kids are constantly getting up--hey they aren't sleeping anyway, right?
Let me break it down for you.
8:00 George's phone reminds us to "begin nighttime routine".
8-8:15 Bath time and PJ's
8:15-8:45 Playtime and snack time. They have 30 min to watch a tv show, play with each other, play Nintendo with George, color, whatever........and eat a snack.
8:45-9:00 clean up & brush teeth. We help them tidy up their rooms, the playroom, and make sure they brush their teeth well.
9:00 Prayers, story, kisses, bed
Everything is usually rolling right along pretty smoothly until actual bed time hits.
I don't know any other way to type out every problem we are dealing with quickly other than doing a word dump. You'll get the idea, here we go.
right before you close the door Ryder asks for ONE.MORE.THING. But I need my ______. LUCY! GET IN THE BED! Ok, I will lay down with you for 15 min. Finn is hungry. Ryder is doing karate and flips in his bed. Stop acting crazy, go to sleep dude! Lucy follows you in to Ryder's room while you are getting on to him. Lucy, go get back in your bed. WHINING. I will lay down with you, GO! Crying. Lucy falls asleep, you sneak out. On your way down the stairs you pass Ryder's room--um, mommy, can I/you forgot to _____. Ryder, you should have gotten that before now, go to sleep. Go downstairs--YOU ARE FREE! TIME WITH YOUR SPOUSE!!! WRONG. 10 min later, you hear feet. You ignore it. Maybe it'll just go away. If we pretend we don't hear her, will she go back to sleep? NO. LUCY! GET IN THE BED! Crying. little feet running. repeat this 3 more times. She comes down again. tears. she melts my heart. come here baby love. I hold Luce. Ryder comes down. Why does Lucy get to stay up and he doesn't? Ugh, ok Ryder go get in your bed, Lucy, Daddy is going to lay down with you. George has been up there for a while, I bet they both fell asleep. Tiptoe up the stairs, wake George up and tell him to come get in the bed. We both stumble down the stairs. George crashes into bed, I give Finn a dream feed(he sleeps in our room). FINALLY we are all asleep. 3:30am I wake up to pee...Oh, Lucy has slithered her way in our bed. Sigh. THE END.
Sometimes I wonder why we even fight it. Why not just let them all pile in our room, who cares? Lucy always winds up in there anyway, why not just let her start out in our room? Well, I honestly wouldn't care, but she won't even go to sleep in our room WITH Finn in there without one of us. And you cant ever just be done with putting Ryder to bed. Its always one.more.thing. and right when you are walking out of his room. You'll almost be out the door......"hey momma". AHHH!!!!! Finn is the only one who is a great sleeper! The 3 month old you lay him down, and he's asleep. All night!
All this boils down to: I WANT TIME ALONE WITH MY HUSBAND!! I know its annoying that I use caps constantly, but I am screaming this shaking my fist towards the sky! I want to sit on the couch with George and talk and eat junk food and watch tv and just hang out for like an hour before we go to sleep. Is that too much to ask?
Please. PLEASE. I am desperate. GIVE ME SOME ADVICE!
Is anyone else going through this? What do you do?! Have you just said forget it and let all the kids pile in your bed? How does that work? I have tried letting Lucy sleep with Ryder, but she usually doesn't want to and on the few times they have its like a 7th grade girls slumber party. Giggling for hours. Endearing and cute at first, but eventually it becomes a problem.
Ok, if you've got this sleep thing down and mastered, show me your ways. If you are in the same boat as me, lets form a support group. We could meet when all of our kids are constantly getting up--hey they aren't sleeping anyway, right?
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