I was a participant in the Life of Dad #BedtimeBattle Twitter party last week for the Elo Pillow, a clever storytelling head pillow designed for young kids, to help keep them snug (emphasis on the words keep them) in their own bed while Clifford, Owl Moon, Curious George and other kidlit classics soothe them to sleep. During the par-tah, there was a quite bit of chatter regarding the question, What Time Is The Best Time for Bedtime? It all got me thinking, so many new parents probably ask themselves a version of that very question at some point along their journey:
What time should I put my kids to bed?
This quandary isn’t limited to brand new moms and dads bringing their tiny bundles home from the hospital. At that early stage, the answer is easy: WHENEVER THE HELL YOU CAN. Which is quickly followed by boldface parenting lesson #1: NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY! There isn’t a parent alive today who hasn’t, at least once, wondered, and possibly Googled, the question: What time should I put my kids to bed? 7pm, 8pm, 8:30pm, 10pm?!?!
Which time is the best time for your kid’s bedtime is, frankly, an impossible question for anyone but you to answer. That said, I’ll tell you what we have done and what we currently do after 10 1/2 years of child ownership, I mean parenting, and maybe our experiences will help guide your decision-making in some small way when it comes to your own kids and how sleepy/awake they are at 7, 8, 8:30 and beyond each evening.
When the Bear was toddlering in to (and out of) her first little big girl bed, around age 3, we’d spend a solid hour each and every night snuggled up in our king size adult bed reading book after book — the Cliffords and Curious Georges and most certainly Jane Yolen’s Owl Moon. A lot of Owl Moon, my all time fave children’s book. We’d read from 7pm on and, nearly every night, the toddler version of our first born child would be in dreamland before 8pm, in our bed, warm and cozy between the Mrs. and I. Cute, no doubt, but problematic since we aren’t the co-sleeping type. Not at all. Get the F out of my bed. The transfer out of a toasty cocoon into her crisp and cold twin size bed had to be mitigated with a series of blankets and organized like a space shuttle landing, only with slightly more at stake. NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING TODDLER!
One parent, it was usually the Mrs. with her tender and considerably-less-clumsy touch, would wrap up our sleepy girl in a warm fleece blanket, likely one of those cheap square freebies my parents still get sent to them often from a variety of random charities you’ve never heard of, while I scoot over to her room and prepare a 2nd blanket a la a sleeping bag, with 1/2 of it hanging off the side of the bed waiting to be flipped up soft-taco-style over top of her, on her chilly fitted sheet. I’d start the Bill Harley Town Around The Bend storytime CD that put her to sleep and/or kept her asleep for nearly 4 years straight before and after the move out of a crib, and finally I’d dim the lights that were inevitably left on after the Bear changed into pajamas an hour earlier. What is it with kids and light switches? Up only, like a balloon that’s slipped from a child’s hand. Sure, it eventually might come down but a kid’s gonna have nothing to do with that half of the equation.
Later, the Mouse followed a similar protocol and still, if we are reading in bed after nightfall, she will be asleep, out colder than a frozen Hot Pocket, by no later than 8:30pm. You can set your watch to that one. She’s the Punxsutawney Phil of bedtime, if asleep by 8:30pm, you’ll be able to catch up on your DVR-ed shows with your wife. If not, you’ll have 3 more months of winter books to read.
Fast forward to today, with a 10-1/2-year old who gets chattier than a bored parrot the later the evening gets and a 7-year-old who struggles to see the other side of 9pm. DVR-ed shows are all but out of the question if the Mrs. and I hope to grab anywhere near 8 hours of sleep, and on the nights before the Bear’s twice weekly early flute practices, we’re pretty much saying goodnight to her and then slinking immediately off to our own bed before the alarm clangs miserably in the darkness of morning.
I realize now that the above may be of no help to you whatsoever, I’m sorry, so let me say this one final thing: Put your kids to bed as soon as you can but not too soon. Read to them, get them a glass of water, snuggle under a pile of blankets, have a pillow fight, get them another glass of water, throw balled up socks at each other, laugh, listen to their ridiculous stall-tactic-stories, brush teeth, pee, get them another glass of water, and then tuck ’em into their beds when they appear to be succumbing to the grogginess of night. Those old episodes of Brooklyn Nine Nine, Orphan Black, Men in Blazers and Last Week with John Oliver aren’t going anywhere. Childhood though? Shit, there’s no Hulu Plus or Netflix for that.
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