posts tagged with 'bedtime'
falling dark
A few days ago I came to a stopping place in the chapter book we're reading in the evenings (Julie of the Wolves, in case you were wondering) and looked up in complete surprise at how dark it was. "Yikes!" I said. "It must be late! We should be in bed!" I was even more surprised when the boys, who had a better angle on the clock, told me it was just ten past seven. Never mind: it had been a very busy day, so we were happy to sleep when the sun told us to. But it was startling to realize just how fast the days are shortening lately, here in the moment of the fastest shortening of the year. It's not something I really keep track of, but it feels like not much more than a week ago we could have been reading outside well past 7:00! (it was also warmer then; the past few evenings have been pretty chilly).
Yesterday we had another lesson in what fall evenings mean when we took a walk to work off the big heavy supper that I made (chicken! biscuits! mashed potatoes and gravy!). We headed out before 6:30 for a little loop in our local woods, but before we were even half way through it was clear that we should have brought lights. Thankfully we know the path very well indeed so we weren't too bothered, but it was a little stressful for the half of the party who were without shoes and had to contend with stubbing their toes on roots. We have an outdoor gathering a our friends' house this evening; it feels like it'll be getting dark before we even leave the house! Happy October; fall is here.
is it my bedtime?
One minor benefit of blogging regularly for so many years is that it lets me see how well I've been managing my sleep schedule. Writing is often the very last thing I do in a day, so by checking the date posts are published I can see how long I've been keeping myself up. And it's been pretty late the last couple weeks! There are good reasons to stay up late—it's the only time I get a moment to myself, a moment to think without being assailed by the constant noise of our lovely household—but overall I think I'm better when I manage to retire at a reasonable hour. When I'm up til all hours I'm tired the next day, and then things don't go well and I get frustrated, and then I need even more time the following evening to calm down and collect myself. A vicious cycle.
Even worse, I don't even get to share the evening time with the one member of the family I'd actually like to hang out with by that point. Leah needs to go to bed early; most nights she barely manages to stay awake longer than the kids (in fact, often she doesn't even do that!). So really, I ought to go to bed early and get my quiet alone time in the morning when I'm not collapsing from tiredness. I'm going to try it... keep an eye on those post times if you want to know how I'm doing!
writing and sleeping
I've been staying up late the last few days or weeks. There's so much lovely stuff to do around here—playing, building, cooking—that it's hard to sit down to the computer to write until everyone else has gone to sleep (also it's hard for me to concentrate before everyone else has gone to sleep!). I have no illusions that posting in this blog is something I need to do, but I do enjoy having it as a record; and when I don't write in it for a length of time I have trouble getting started again. Plus I committed to doing this poetry thing, which I'm pretty happy with—but I haven't managed to get much ahead what I need to have done for each new day. And then of course I have a real job that I need to write for. But as I talked to Leah about it she recommended writing in the morning, so I went to bed at a reasonable hour last night... and woke up after six hours of sleep before 4:00, raring to go! Oh well. Rescheduling myself will take a little time.
unschooling children know no schedule
After a very busy day at our house, in which we hosted a segment of our new co-op for wreath making (11 kids in all), I was ready to go to sleep right after supper. To be honest, I was ready to go to sleep not to long after lunch, but it didn't seem appropriate to just abandon guests and children and retire to the bedroom, so I kept myself going. And then I kept myself going some more after supper, because the younger boys finally started writing.
Now, when I say writing I don't mean they were actually putting letters on paper themselves. Lijah can't really, yet—or at least you don't want him to, since it's tiring to not only tell him how to spell a word, very slowly, but also draw each letter in the air so he knows how to make it. And Zion's writing genius was stifled by my early attempts to make him write down his own stories. That was a mistake.
Happily, Lijah is unendingly creative; and having learned better, I now just do my best to capture his stories as they emerge and get them down on paper for him. It turns out that when I do it creates a positive feedback loop: he's tickled to hear his own stories and wants to make more of them. Mostly so far he's just done one page and moved on, but this evening he was inspired by Harvey's working on a comic strip (at the dinner table, but whatever) to string together eight pages of material featuring Thor, the devil, Wiley Coyote, Nuliujuk, and more. Not to be outdone, Zion created his own eight-page book. More coherent, if less wildly original, it's a story about a meteor crashing to earth and releasing a cloud of battling Pokemon.
All this creativity took place between 6:30 and 7:45, which may be early evening for some people but is definitely the center of the bedtime hour for us. So that was delayed. Worse, writing time also kept anyone from doing their kitchen chores, so after I got everyone tucked in bed at around 8:30—Leah is out for the evening—I had to come down and start the dishes. But I think it was worth it. Stories are important. I can't wait to see what they think of next.
time to sleep
It is hard sometimes to find time to write. The time that I usually manage it is after the kids go to bed; the problem with that, though, is that after I finish bedtime I need a good long time to decompress from the busyness of the day and concentrate on producing readable English prose (and Lord knows I don't always hit the mark even then). So of course my own bedtime is delayed, sometimes past 11:00.
Which 11:00 may be a perfectly reasonable bedtime for some adults! I've heard that there are sometimes things showing on the television—dramatic events, sporting contests—that will keep viewers up at least that long. But I don't think it works for me in the long run. My average day takes a considerable amount of emotional energy and improvisational thinking, and I need my sleep. So I have a new regime, and no more late-night writing.
Except for Zion, we're all pretty much early risers in this household. This morning Leah was up first and out for a run at 6:00. Harvey got up a few minutes ago and is now reading out on the front porch using a headlamp. Lijah is eating his pre-breakfast muffins on the couch. Can I do the day's writing work before the sun rises and I need to start getting breakfast ready? Only time will tell. But it should certainly be easier after 8+ hours of sleep a night, for a change.
dark for sleeping
Despite the fact that it's really warm again, there's one big way it's feeling wintery around here: light levels. A week and a half before the time change it's dark before too long after dinner, and dark well after it's time to wake up. It's a little frustrating from the point of getting things done outside. On the other hand, it's great for the sleeping! This evening the boys were all quiet in bed by 7:15, and Leah followed within an hour. I don't want to say anything to jinx it, but we may be ready to start chipping away at our gigantic summer sleep debt!
After we get back from the church retreat this weekend, that is.
"what did we do today, again?"
At bedtime I almost always ask the boys about their favorite part of the day. I like to pray thanksgivings with them, and it's nice to know what they might feel particularly thankful for. Of course, as I ask I'm pretty sure what I'm going to hear for an answer: "I don't know, what did we do today, again?" Coupled with the other frequent bedtime question—"what fun thing are we going to do tomorrow"—and it's enough to drive a parent to distraction.
In their defense, I must say it's not as bad as it sounds. In Harvey's case it's his natural caution about not wanting to answer any question wrong that's holding him back; what if he forgot something that he should have enjoyed?! But most likely he recalls it all. And Zion's always hard-pressed to name something he didn't love about our day. "Playing with our friends" is almost always his first answer, when he remembers anything; but then when I remind him of the other events of the day he cheerfully adds them to his list of favorites.
So really, there's plenty of gratefulness to go around... even when I have to dig deep to find it!
bedtime assurance
Zion falls asleep during stories, and Lijah falls asleep nursing or listening to music, but most nights I need to leave Harvey's bedside while he's still awake—if for no other reason than my presence is too distracting to him to let him drift off. Not that he realizes that; lots of times he feels like he's wide awake, and expects to be so for some time. So every night—every night, he likes his routine—I tell him I'll check on him when I'm done with whatever evening chores I have in front of me. For the last six months or so he's asked how I'll know he's asleep, because he might just be closing his eyes for a second, and I tell him I'll know by his breathing. Which in actual fact is totally not necessary. I'll really know because I don't hear him complaining about something, because that boy can't stay in his bed at night for more than five minutes without finding some reason to call for us... unless he falls asleep in that time, as he does 19 evenings out of 20.
Actually, the above isn't totally true: I don't tell him I'll check on him, and I don't give him the answer about breathing. Anymore. I did for weeks, or maybe even months, but I'm not a patient enough parent to keep saying the same thing over and over again forever. And Harvey knows that, so he fills in my side of the conversation. Our current bedtime closing goes like this:
D: Goodnight, I love you.
H: What are you going to do out of my bed before you come check on me?
D: Put away the bikes, close up the chickens, see if Mama needs help with the cleaning. Maybe do some writing.
H: When you come check on me, How will you know I'm asleep? Will you listen to my breathing to see if I'm asleep?
D: Yes. Goodnight, I love you.
I think it works pretty well.
to soothe a savage breast
For months Lijah was just in love with brass band music, and specifically the more uptempo tunes of the Youngblood Brass Band. Not so much lately, but when he was between six and twelve months all I needed to do was turn on "Brooklyn" and, no matter how much he had been fussing, he'd just relax into my shoulder and be asleep before the song was done. In the car it was "Pastime Paradise", which was also a favorite of the other two boys; sometimes we'd even start it before we tried to get him into his seat, since that sweet sousaphone beat made the buckling-up so much easier.
Why was that? Did he really like the songs so much they eclipsed all his other concerns and annoyances? Maybe, but I have a theory that there's something else involved—namely, that pre-verbal babies have a preternatural perception of body language. When they're freaking out it stresses their parents, and when the parents are stressed it adds to the baby's stress and makes it still harder for him to calm down. When you find something your baby likes it short-circuits that negative feedback loop. It was YBB for Lijah; for other babes the magic might be from being rocked a certain way, or hearing mama singing a particular song. But the important thing is that, having launched into the guaranteed-good calming process, the parent can feel like everything is under control and relax. Self-fulfilling prophecy, it works.
With the third kid I've come to the opinion that, for me at least, recorded music is the way to go. While I have plenty of philosophical reasons to prefer singing—and I sang a lot to Harvey—there's a problem with having to produce the magic yourself. Sometimes I'm too tired for good vocal production! With the right song cued up on my phone all I need to do is fumble it out of my pocked and push the button; poof, instant calm.
Now that Lijah's more of a rational being, the magic of "Brookyln" is diminished some. Once he started being able to think, "Oh hey wait, this is the sleepy song—must resist!", the system started to break down. Of course, he still loves music, and it's always easier to calm him when I have something playing. Now that I think about it, it's a fair trade-off: it takes two or three songs instead of half of one to get him to sleep, but I don't have that one driven so deeply into my brain that it rises every moment when I'm not thinking of something else. It's nice to hear a variety of tunes. And even when Lijah doesn't need the music, I've decided that I do. If I'm going to be rocking with him for who-knows-how-long since his nose is so stuffy he can't breathe lying down, I want something to mark the passage of time and keep me sane. I've spent nights up with him listening to the entirety of Counting Crows' first album and half of This Desert Life, and they're totally bearable; so much better than would be an hour and a half marked only by sniffing and the ticking of our three downstairs clocks.
So, future parents, I recommend recorded music. Sometimes it's magic, and even when it's not it helps a lot. Plus I have high hopes for these boys' musical sensibility as they mature; they've listened to a lot of good tunes!
bedtime these days
Our bedtime routine is working pretty well these days. I thought of it because today it didn't, quite; I guess that made me pay attention. We haven't said much about bedtime since Lijah's been around, which is maybe surprising since there's some concern, I think, about having the third kid: now the parents are outnumbered! But for us going from one to two was actually trickier. As it is now, Harvey and Zion have pretty similar interests and schedules, so it's workable for one parent to put them both to bed at the same time.
What usually happens is that Lijah starts getting sleepy sometime around 6:00, and Leah takes him upstairs to nurse to sleep in the bed. He's fairly sensitive to noise when he's falling asleep, so I work to keep the boys quiet and contained in their after-dinner activities. When one or both of them seems tired—usually between 6:30 and 7:00, this time of year, we head upstairs for stories. That they both love books more than just about anything else is very convenient, since if there's any recalcitrance I only have to say that the window for story time will be closing shortly to get them going.
They each get one book "in the lap"—so called as a historical relic from when Harvey was the only audience; these days we're just all in a row on the edge of the beds—then I direct them to brush their teeth and pee. That last bit is the only trouble spot lately, since Zion isn't always (ever?) happy to be made to use the toilet on command, and the requirement is a new one for him. But we make it work. Then I read two more books "in the bed", lying in Zion's bed between the boys (their "beds" are a pair of mattresses on the floor, pushed right up against one another). The lights are off for the second round of stories; they're lit by headlamp. I limit the "lap" stories to shorter picture books, but the "bed" material can be longer; most nights Harvey asks for a portion of a chapter book (we're currently in the middle of The Four-Story Mistake).
After I finish reading I turn off the headlamp and assess the situation. Zion often falls asleep as he listens, or nearly so, but Harvey has only dropped off during a story a handful of times in his life. Sometimes he asks me to pray for him to have no scary dreams, something which used to be a ritual but now is pretty intermittent, and every once and a while he'll request a song; Zion also tends to want a song if he's still awake enough to speak. After I do those things—or just lie still for a minute or two, if there aren't any requests—I say goodnight and get up to go, letting anyone still awake know that I'll come back to check on them in a couple minutes.
Most of the time that's all it takes. We work the boys pretty hard most days, and even Harvey can't usually last more than 30 seconds after I stop talking to him. But on the rare occasion it doesn't work and we have open rebellion I do my best not to fight, while also not setting any precedents that'll possibly extend bedtime in the future. Today, for example, Harvey was too worked up to settle down to sleep, so ten minutes or so after I left him to go downstairs I heard him walking around up there. Investigating, I told him that I was cleaning the kitchen and he was welcome to come help me, or he could turn on his headlamp and look at a book in his bed, or anything he wanted. He sat at the top of the stairs for a while, then came down and started drawing in the playroom. When I finished cleaning and started turning off lights, he whined indistinctly for a while until I was able to get him to ask me for what he wanted, which was "help going to sleep". So we went up together and I petted his head for, oh, about a minute and a half until he fell asleep. That was a little past 8:00.
Our kids are not awesome sleepers. Lijah wakes up four to six times per night, and its a rare night where I don't have to go in to settle Zion down at least once. But at least—and this is a great relief to me—they mostly don't fight sleeping. Lijah wants cuddles and nursing, and he get them, and Zion mostly just needs reminders that it's sleepy time and he should be lying down. He actually likes sleeping, which very gratifying to his parents; we're big fans too!
I don't know how other folks do with bedtimes; our culture seems to say that we should just put kids in their rooms and tell them to sleep—starting weeks after birth!—but there's also an industry of authors catering to solving sleep problems in the young. If you ask me, getting your kids to sleep isn't something you can "get right": all kids are different, and what works one month might not even work with the same kid the next month. But when I can relax about it things seem to go better. And I'm feeling pretty relaxed these days, so life is good!