A Parent’s Honest Guide to a Young Child’s Bedtime

If we’re being honest, as much as we love our kids, one of the favourite parts of a parents’ day is when our kids are tucked up and fast asleep in bed (preferably their own and not ours).

The thing is, getting your child to go to bed and then making them stay there doesn’t always go quite how we want it to. For every smug parent whose offspring goes straight to bed and straight to sleep then there’s (at least) one hundred parents who hate that one smug parent as their kids, well, absolutely do not do that going straight to bed and sleep thing.

Parents, generally, are not daft. We’ve read the parenting books and know about establishing a good bedtime routine etc etc but, unfortunately, far too often our kids just won’t play ball…or they’ll actually try to physically play ball as a way of putting off going to bed.

Sometimes though it’s as if, after about 6.30pm, our kids suddenly become mini masterminds. Three hours ago they had their shoes on the wrong feet and you had to stop them putting a pea up their nose, again, but now they suddenly know every trick in the book when it comes to delay tactics for putting off bedtime.

The same child that point blank refused to eat their dinner, is of course, now starving the moment you mention that it’s time to put their pyjamas on. Are they playing you up to try and stay up a bit longer? Probably. Will you feel guilty if you send them to bed and they really are genuinely hungry? Definitely. Which is why at the time you were hoping to be sitting down watching that new drama on BBC ONE and drinking a large glass of wine, you’re instead watching your offspring take 45 minutes to eat half a slice of toast. 

This kid who just shrugged and said “Dunno. Can’t remember” when you picked them up from nursery or school and asked them what they had done that day can now suddenly remember EVERYTHING that happened and need to share this information with you right NOW, funnily enough at the exact moment you’re trying to get them to brush their teeth.

Negotiations over a bedtime story can be brutal. You say you’re going to read one story, but they’ve picked out three books. You compromise and end up reading four books, with voices for each of the characters and don’t even think about trying to skip even one word. They’ll know. Oh yes, they’ll know. 

The child who usually wipes their face in disgust when you kiss them now demands a kiss not only for them but for all 37 of the soft toys on their bed too, who all have to be lined up in a particular way. 

Bedtime is now done though. Now it’s your time. Well, so you’d like to think. Your kid probably still has other plans for you.

But… if… you… can… just… make… it… out… of… the… room…

Nope, they’ve already called you back because they’ve had a bad dream. It doesn’t matter that it’s physically impossible for that to have happened in the last 3 seconds but logic doesn’t seem to exist in their world. They’re insistent that they had a bad dream and need a cuddle, whilst you’re inwardly screaming. 

On a second, or possibly third or fourth, attempt to leave the room you might, *might*, even make it out of the room. Possibly even down the stairs. Well, halfway down at least. Then the calling out generally starts. 

“I want a drink of water.”

“I need a wee.”

“I think there’s a dinosaur hiding under my bed.”

“My belly button has fallen off.”

After going back up and down approximately 16 more times you just try and ignore them. It may even go quiet for a bit and you think they have finally succumbed to sleep but then, like something out of a horror film, suddenly there they are in the doorway of the living room, insisting they have something really, REALLY important to ask you, that can NOT wait until the morning.

“Why do dogs sniff each other’s bottoms?”

This is usually the point where, if you were a cartoon, steam would start coming out of your ears and your head would go really red and then explode. You escort them back upstairs and into their bedroom like a warden with a prisoner, whilst they proclaim that they’re not even tired, despite the fact that their eyelids are drooping and they’re slightly slurring their words like a teeny, tiny drunk.

Then finally, FINALLY, they’re asleep and you look at your gorgeous little cherub looking so peaceful and angelic and then stifle a small sob as you remember you’ve got to bloody well go through all of this again tomorrow night.