One thing other parents in my life always seem to be impressed by is bedtime. I always hear about parents snuggling their kid for hours or they can’t get their kid out of their bed or all these other stories. While I’m sure that works for a lot of families, that life is not for us.
The Secret to Me Time
7-9pm is OUR time each night. Time for Travis and I to hang out, to watch a show the kids can’t watch, to read, to workout, to work on a project. It doesn’t matter it is our time each day without kids.
And it isn’t a problem in our house. Now I want to be very clear my kids ALL go through phases where bedtime is more challenging than others. But 95% of the time my kids just…. go to bed. There’s no fuss, there’s no fighting, they just do it.
So, what’s the secret? I’m honestly not sure. I mean, this is the only way I’ve done things and I don’t know what happens in other houses. But here is our routine in case it helps someone.
The Night Begins
We eat dinner between 5 and 6 most days. We are an early to rise family so we eat an earlier dinner. Then we clean up, do chores etc. For the most part, my kids shower every other night. We find that showers are a much faster and more convenient way to bathe 5 kids. Showers happen around 6:30 pm. If it isn’t shower night they get until closer to 6:45 pm.
My husband and I do bedtime together. This was never ‘discussed’ but probably developed as a result of always having some very small baby that couldn’t participate in the routine… like we have now. So, if one of us is showering the kids the other is “catching” the kids as they come out of the shower, wrapping them in a towel, and sending them on their way. For a long time, this meant putting jammies on everyone, but thankfully my oldest three can get their own jammies on now.
Once jammies are on everyone knows its time to brush teeth. Again, it used to be us brushing everyone’s teeth but with the help of some electric toothbrushes with built in timers, the bigger kids can do it themselves with some loose supervision.
This is the part of our routine that has changed over time. It used to be that after a shower and jammies they would immediately get milk and watch a show. This was to replace that last nighttime bottle. Eventually they started growing out of the milk, and then we decided to grow out of the show too, at least my big three.
My Favorite Part: Snuggles and Books
At this stage in our lives, I take the big three and the baby and we sit in the playroom and read books. Depending on time and my mood I’ll read anywhere from 1 to 4 books to them all together. We used to read to each kid individually but someone was always waiting and I want to be able to read chapter books from my childhood all together on the couch.
Meanwhile, my husband takes our 1-year old… who still needs that last cup of milk and a sleep sack and gets him situated. He brushes his teeth after the milk, gets an age-appropriate book read and gets tucked into his crib.
After I’m done reading to the big kids, they all get hugs and said goodnight and often… that’s the last I see of them until 7:30 AM.
The End….?
Now like I said, it isn’t always perfect. Sometime between three and four years old I feel like kids go through phases of seeing what they can get away with at bedtime. Each one eventually seems to need magic medicine each night which is just water in a syringe. Each one goes through a phase of needing a specific number of pats or hugs or “covered” each night and will pop out to remind us. But for the most part they all just…. Go to bed.
I’ll be honest, I have no idea when they actually go to sleep. I do know they are asleep by nine when I go to bed because I’ll check to make sure there are no stragglers. But what they do between 7 and 9 is their own business. As long as they are being quiet and in their own room, I don’t actually care what they are doing.
When to Wake
As soon as they are able to understand the concept they get an OK to wake clock. Usually this is around 3 years old. “Stay in your room until your clock turns green” is a regular rule in our house. Again, I don’t actually know when they wake up. I do hear them come out and use the bathroom so I know it’s sooner than 7:30. And on school mornings I’ll go wake them up when I need them moving… this only applies to weekends. But I am not bothered until 7:30.
Even the 1 year old in his crib as I write this, I hear him moaning off and on but he’s turning on his fishtank, he’s reading a book, he’s okay. He isn’t crying. I’ll go grab him right at 7:30 because I know he’s awake.
Once you have your first kid on a bedtime routine… the others just kind of fall in. We don’t actually “train” them or establish it or anything. The babies are just always there participating from the start so once it is age appropriate, they will just be part of it as well. Forrest is close he just doesn’t sit well for all the books so lately my husband lets him come down to the basement and sit for one book before getting swooped up for his milk and his book.
Before you know it the baby, Riley, will be getting her last feed of the day at 7pm.
The Power of the Routine
We do the same thing every night at roughly the same time. Everyone knows it. My parents know the routine, my in-laws know the routine. If we hire a babysitter they learn the routine. Because we have this routine, when we travel, we still don’t have an issue. They might take a little longer to be quiet if they are sharing a room with cousins, or they might stay up a little later, but when we say bedtime they all jump up, get jammies on, brush their teeth and settle in for a book.
So I can’t tell you a magic secret for getting your kid to sleep in their own room, every night and let you sleep in. But I can tell you that we established a solid routine right from the start and both adults just committed to it. And for us, bedtime is easy. Routines can shift, habits can change, but the bones of our routine have remained the same. Having this solid routine allows us to do bedtime with no fuss, and lots of love. We do bedtime anywhere we go, and there’s no fighting.
And lastly… get an okay to wake clock!
Happy Sleeping!