![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2013\/02\/Bedtime.jpg\" "\\"Bedtime\\"")
<\/a>Would you believe that Sally doesn\u2019t have a bedtime? Well, she doesn\u2019t. She used to. We tried to put her to bed at 8:30 each night, and each night turned into a battle. \u201cIf you don\u2019t go to bed when it\u2019s your bedtime, you will be tired in the morning,\u201d we told her. \u201cNo I won\u2019t!\u201d she insisted. So we would let her stay up, figuring that the next day she\u2019d be tired and learn her lesson, and then she\u2019d finally understand why she needed to go to bed at 8:30 each night. Except that it didn\u2019t\u00a0exactly\u00a0work out that way.<\/p>\nI don\u2019t remember when we gave up trying to insist on Sally having a bedtime. Maybe it was when I realized that there was no real reason she had to go to bed at a certain time. Maybe it was when we were just all tired of fighting a war with each other. Or maybe it was when we realized that giving Sally a bedtime simply wasn\u2019t needed.<\/p>\n
Every night we have supper, wash dishes, clean up a bit, play a game, sit around and read, and maybe watch a TV show. Sometimes we go to the Y or the library. Bobby goes to bed by eight o\u2019clock, exhausted little baby that he is by then, but we three stay up. At that point Sean and I usually switch into work mode, me blogging or doing my graduate school work and Sean working on his own studies or grading exams. Sally plays games on the iPad, builds with k\u2019nex, or looks at books. Sometimes we put a movie on in the background, often Planet Earth. The hours tick slowly by.<\/p>\n
Then, sometime between 9:00 and 11:00, Sally announces that she is tired and wants to go to bed, and asks us to tuck her in. And then she does, just like that, entirely voluntarily and with no fuss. Last night it was 9:07. The night before it was 10:35. Sometimes she\u2019s tired and grumpy in the morning, and when that happens I let her know that she probably didn\u2019t get enough sleep the night before, and we talk about the importance of sleep and how we feel when we\u2019re tired. But usually she\u2019s fine. She\u2019s pretty good at figuring out when she\u2019s tired and regulating her own sleeping habits.<\/p>\n
One reason Sean and I originally gave Sally a bedtime was that we valued the quiet alone time that came after the kids were in bed. Interestingly, letting Sally decide for herself when to go to bed hasn\u2019t messed that up. She\u2019s good at playing quietly and independently, and if she starts to infringe on our ability to get done the things we need to get done, we simply remind her that we are working and it\u2019s late and encourage her to use good interpersonal skills (i.e., if you want our attention, ask nicely and be patient). Since we make a point to have more interactive family time earlier in the evening, though, this usually isn\u2019t too much of an issue.<\/p>\n
If Sally is still up when we\u2019re ready to go to bed ourselves\u2014whether solely for sleep or for sleep with a side of intimacy\u2014we let her know that we\u2019re tired and are going to bed. Since we usually don\u2019t go to bed until around 11:00, she\u2019s almost always already in bed. If she\u2019s still up she usually either opts to go to bed herself or to play quietly in her room, and sometimes she simply takes the iPad into bed with her. We make it clear that we\u2019re going to bed and don\u2019t want to be disturbed, and it\u2019s never been a problem.<\/p>\n
I suspect that part of why this works for us is simply Sally, but I also suspect that a large part of it is that Sally doesn\u2019t see staying up late as some sort of special privilege. Most kids have regular bedtimes, and if they\u2019re allowed to stay up without a bedtime, it\u2019s a huge special treat and they take it as a sort of challenge to see how late they can stay up. They\u2019re not used to self regulating, because they\u2019ve never had to. Instead, they binge. But Sally doesn\u2019t feel the need to binge. She doesn\u2019t see staying up as something special or going to bed as something to be avoided. Instead of trying to make her conform to some artificial bedtime, we\u2019ve taught her to be responsible about sleep and allowed her to make her own decisions and self regulate.<\/p>\n
Again, I\u2019m not saying that this would necessarily work for every child, and even if it it would I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s something everyone has to do. There are lots of other tools in the positive parenting toolbox for making a set bedtime a positive and enjoyable thing. Indeed, I was originally skeptical the first time I heard someone tell me she didn\u2019t give her kids a bedtime, and I set out to do the whole bedtime thing. All I\u2019m saying is that as it has worked out for us, Sally doesn\u2019t have a bedtime, and at this point in time we couldn\u2019t be happier with that.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Would you believe that Sally doesn’t have a bedtime? Well, she doesn’t. She used to. We tried to put her to bed at 8:30 each night, and each night turned into a battle. “If you don’t go to bed when it’s your bedtime, you will be tired in the morning,” we told her. “No I won’t!” she insisted. So we would let her stay up, figuring that the next day she’d be tired and learn her lesson. Except that it didn’t exactly work out that way. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[24,143],"class_list":["post-13523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting","tag-children","tag-positive-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\n
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