by Annette Van De Kamp

Created on: May 01, 2008

It's ten pm and I just finished putting my children to bed. Now, this is not as bad as it sounds; they are out of school due to some type of teacher training, so they don't have to get up early tomorrow. At least there's that. Of course, who am I kidding: they won't sleep in. Not much, at least, and not long enough to avoid a cranky mood.

Okay, wait; this is exactly as bad as it sounds. I admit it, and I don't even feel bad about it. After all, I know there are millions of other parents out there, well meaning and sincere, who are equally bad at getting their kids to bed on time. Let's face it; we, as parents, all come from a different place. We may or may not have college degrees, decent jobs, or nice houses; maybe we go to church or synagogue, or maybe we won't be caught dead in any of those places, maybe we're old fashioned, maybe we're modern, Republican or Democrat, the one thing we all struggle with is convincing kids they should sleep. Some days, it simply can't be done.

Why is that? Do children instinctively know that, most evenings, parents would like nothing better than a nice nap, and they want to rub our faces in the fact that they can sleep whenever, but choose not to? Are children that devious? Somehow, I don't quite think that's the answer, although I might talk differently when it's eleven PM and there's a child jumping up and down the stairs while singing at the top of his lungs. For once, my daughter Isabella is not the one causing problems. We put her on a bedtime routine early on; dinner, bath, story time, bed. She might not always like it, but she never refuses to go to bed. Had she remained our only child, we would have many a quiet evening at our house. Three-year-old Mendel is another story entirely; he doesn't believe in sleeping, and what's worse: he makes empty promises. "You'll take a bath", we'll say, to which he readily agrees. "When we say you're done, you come out of the bath. You will put on your jammies, and we'll have story time. In bed." He submits to all the steps, until story time. "I have to go downstairs", he'll announce, and why? "Because I want to sleep on the couch." In the past, we let him get away with it. We were so desperate to get him to sleep, we'd basically allow him to pick his poison; sometimes we were rewarded by him actually falling asleep on the couch, after which we'd move him to his bed. Nowadays, it's just an excuse to run around the living room singing and shouting while we pull out our hair.

What we ended

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>