Tuck In Your Elbows

I think this is how the astronauts felt when they came home. I'm not referring to the disorientation that must've come with finding the familiar suddenly strange but the part when they were smashed into the ocean at a zillion miles per hour and were then woken up at three am by crazy naked giggly elves.

Caroline and Edward were just... awake. Both of them. For good. At three in the morning. I suppose they're jet-lagged but we were driving and thus passed gently through the time zones not to mention the fact that we were going the other way so, really, the more likely explanation is that they are out to get me.

I just read this article in the Washington Post about a family who has 11 children under the age of 13. It seems to work for them and I admired the parents' various organizational strategies because I like that sort of thing but the line that stood out for me was when the mother said that the younger kids start going to bed at 7 and all of the children are in bed by 9 o'clock.

Or... what? They just go to bed and stay there? For real? What about when some variation of 11-x kids ask for water or the bathroom or... as is the case in my house circa ten minutes ago... what happens when their Edward starts weeping loudly in his room so they go up and he says, "SOB! I don't know how to 'pell zebra! SOB SOB SOB!"

Don't they tell him how to spell zebra or I am just a sucker? I mean, clearly I am a sucker because children take off their pajamas and climb into my bed in the middle of the night to gleefully announce that they are Lightning McQueen and Miss Sally respectively and that I am Flo and they need some gorganic fuel. But am I an incompetent sucker? Don't answer that.

Obviously her kids go to bed as stated or she'd be a gibbering idiot but HOW? HOW does she get eleven children to go to their beds and stay there and sleep every night? Someone once told me that at two and half Caroline was old enough to understand that when we said bed time it was bed time and she needed to stay in bed. I get that but I wondered about the 'or else'. Go to bed or else... what? 

I'm sort of musing but sort of asking. I expect Caroline and Edward will get back into a routine sooner or later but as I got into bed last night a little before eleven I said, "I just hope I can get six straight hours of sleep tonight without interruptions."

Then I did the math and said, "No, no. SEVEN. SEVEN hours."

Edward woke me up at 5:54.

So that has been the negative side of extended travel with Caroline and Edward. The positive side is that they bonded. Uberbonded. The rest of us admired the mountains while Caroline and Edward took the two weeks of constant companionship and sealed themselves into some sort of together-forever-and-ever, you-complete-me twinitude. Which is sweet. Of course it is sweet. They played together and slept side-by-side and told each other how terrific they are

[Setting: Somewhere in North Dakota

Edward - I know to count to one hunnerd

Steve Patrick Me Caroline - Great!

Edward - I will count to one hunnerd now

Steve Patrick Me - That's ok, we believe you

Caroline - Go for it little buddy!

Edward (very slowly) One Two Tree Foh Five... Tirty-six Tirty-seben... Fitty-two...

Steve Patrick Me - Uhhhnn

Edward - Sebenty-eight Sebenty-nine...

Caroline - You can do it!

Edward - Nindy-eight Nindy-nine... Nindy-nine... Nindy-nine

Steve Patrick Me - Aaaaaaaand?

Edward - Nindy-nine...

Caroline - One hundred?

Edward - ONE HUNNERD!

Caroline - I'm so proud of you

Edward - I do it again!

Steve Patrick and I put our fingers in our ears. Caroline said - OK!]

He let her help steer his ride. Enough said.

I liked the near daily posting (speaking of bonding - I felt like we were conversing in almost real time) and I shall endeavor to continue it. It will be less, well, scenic, but there it is. In the meantime I am working on a trip recap with a map and whatnot but to answer the most frequent question (although DJH handled the subject beautifully in the comments) a roll of aluminum foil is a great car toy. It is cheap, small, lightweight, appropriate for almost all ages, tidy and they can wad that stuff into pretty much anything for hours.

PS We never did see South Carolina or Rhode Island so our license plate total stands at 48 US states and 7 Canadian provinces. Today Patrick went with me to the grocery store to buy milk and apples and salsa (putting life back in order takes forever after a trip) and as I drove he whapped the states back into place in order to start our next round. We got five.

PPS Providence, Rhode Island is in my top ten favorite cities and as such I intended no disrespect to the state. I probably would not leave either. After all, when the wealthiest people in the wealthiest country at one of the wealthiest times in history chose to build vacation homes, where did they go? Rhode Island. I was merely frustrated that we failed to see one of their license plates.

PPPS I have no idea what's going on with South Carolina.

PPPPS Do kids usually just go to bed and stay there? Mine don't and short of breaking their thumbs I am not sure what to do about it.

Comments

[Katherine]

I think some of it is just part of a kids personality. My kids are both morning people, even now at 12 and 15. We had a week or so with the older one at 2.5 when we took him out of the crib (in preparation for kid 2), where he would keep coming out for something. We told him he could come out once for the evening and if he came out again we would close the door. We had to hold the door closed a few nights (I think we opened it again once he quit crying and was back in bad, dont really remember). Then he was set. Younger one moved from crib in his own room to lower bunk in a shared bedroom at just before 3.5 yo. No bedtime issues, but he is the kid who would come up to me on Scout campouts and ask if he could go to bed already, when the other kids were still running around, mot winding down.

I do remember a few times where one of the kids took an over long nap during the day and wasn't tired at night, telling them that they had to be quiet and stay in their room but could play until they were tired. I went to bed and would find them in bed or asleep on the floor in the morning.

[Sam]

I will say, yes, my 4-year-old does go to bed and stay there. However, it has taken time for us to get there. He's never been one to get OUT of bed after being put there. Sometimes he calls for me - "MAMA! COME HERE, MAMA!" and it's kinda sweet. Most of the time he just needs some water and that's it. There are nights where he's too wound up and needs to lay in the bed and chatter and kick his feet around, but for the most part, we're very lucky. I've always been of the opinion that putting him to be bed before he's tired is worthless. He used to have a 9 PM bedtime, but now that he's going to speech preschool 5 days a week, bedtime is 8:30 or even 8.

But my son has never contemplated counting to 100 (as far as I know) neither worries about spelling zebra, so there's that.

[Sara]

I remember being terrified when we put my oldest (now 10) out of his crib and into a big bed, wondering why in the world he'd stay there...but he did. Now we have four kids, 10 years to 10 months, and we have never - not ever - had a kid come out for more than the very infrequent "I need a drink" or "I forgot to brush my teeth" thing. We do about 45 minutes of reading/bedtime talk with the kids, so we start at about 8 and everyone asleep by 9.

Hate to say it, but I think you're screwed. :) The kids know that bedtime doesn't really mean bedtime, so there's no erasing that. I guess if I were in your shoes, I'd resort to some bigtime bribery!

[D]

I have good-sleeping kids, so I may never have been truly tested and so I don't have full confidence in my methods. But here goes....

On the occasions where my kids don't sleep and clearly are making excuses for staying up, I make threats ("promises") along the lines of "the next time you holler and no one is about to die, I will..." And I look for kid-specific situation-specific "consequences"; my own very twisted mind had to work hard to find out consequences that would be effective. I could not do a timeout - that'd be more time the kid is allowed to stay up!

For the one kid, the threat is that I will change her into an outfit of my choice. For her, this is an awful scenario, and the one time I did it, she despised it so thoroughly that it's an effective consequence for her. For her sister, who loves her cuddly animals in bed, the threat is that I will start taking away cuddlies. That works well for that kid.

Granted, the day(s) where I had to deliver on that threat/promise, things went disastrously. No surprises there.

But having cemented the reputation of delivering on my threats, I find that they rarely try to find out whether I might be bluffing...

[Christine]

My five-year-old was a horrible sleeper for the first three years or so, and now is a magical child who just conks out after a few minutes in bed. My 2.75-year-old is horrible: she still has to nurse to sleep and I end up co-sleeping half the night, if not more, in her bed. If I get two hours to myself in the evening, I'm doing well.

The past two nights have been particularly bad, with her reappearing downstairs and not sleeping til 10pm, and I'm reduced to abandoning her nap today in the hopes of resetting her clock. She does still need a nap, and I still need her nap, so I hope this isn't the end of it for good.

I have to respectfully disagree with commenter Rachel and say that sometimes you need an "Or else" - and if anyone can tell us what it should be, I'll be happy to hear it. (Though I do prefer a carrot to a stick. I'd pay her a dollar a night if she had any concept of money at this age...)

[Laura]

Providence? I'm from South County, so I am quite partial to the beach area. Providence is much better from when I grew up, but I will always see it as a sketchy city. Federal Hill I'll give you, totally awesome.

My kids stay in bed because they don't have a choice. I will not give up me time at night, so if they get up, they get a very mad mommy who doesn't care what the problem is. If they are breathing and not bleeding they stay in bed and I don't care if they are crying or upset or mad or anything. I am very strict about it and don't give them a choice. And they want to please Mommy in general, so outside of a few blips it's worked for us so far. Helps that one is in a crib and will stay there until 3 hopefully, but she goes to bed happily and quietly.

[Elle]

Not sure this would work for older kids, but around age 3 I started using "two tickets" with my daughter at bedtime. We made/decorated squares of paper; each night I hand her two of them. She can call me back twice; each time I say "Do you have a ticket for me?" and she hands one over. At this point (age 4.5) it's highly ritualized and she calls me back immediately, once to go potty and once for hugs and kisses. After that, if she calls for me I open the door and immediately say "Do you have a ticket for me?" No, obviously. So at that point it's brief and boring (and/or me being stern that we are done for the night, do not call me back). If she's distressed, I comfort her briefly; if she needs to go potty she goes and there's minimal interaction. The beauty of this seems to be that she rarely calls me after her two tickets are used! and prior to that we were in a long loop of call-backs, requests, etc. where I was scolding her each night in order to end it. Ugh. YMMV, but the "two tickets" approach has been wonderful for all of us.

[Nicolle]

I would have to agree with Carrie: while my first child never bothered to question the whole stay in bed thing, baby #2 questioned it (for HOURS) from age 2 until about a month ago. (she turned 3 about a minute later) Which is when I finally gave up, watched a couple of super nanny episodes dealing with sleep and concluded that conversations after bedtime are verboten. I silently walked her back to bed. She cried, screamed, begged hysterically the first night and since then: nothing. She says good night tries to engage me in a conversation, realizes I won't speak and goes to sleep...

[zarqa]

"Go to bed or else... what?"

Well, really anything you're comfortable with. For us, when LO was 2-3 yo, it was me going up, escorting her back to bed SILENTLY (that's a key). No more kisses, no more good nights, maybe a "shhhh" when she starts asking some question, or a muted "okay" when she tells me some really important news. Now she's 4, & the silent treatment doesn't always work, so we explain before bedtime that the only reason to get up is to go to potty. (of course, also if the house is on fire, but there is no reason to put such a thought in a 4 yo's head) She gets it, & we usually have good nights. Occasionally I hear the "MoMMMMyyy!!!" as if the house IS on fire. Sometimes I lay next to her for a couple minutes, but silently. Once I've engaged in any way, I'm toast. Once you've engaged, even when they're seemingly satisfied with that first engagement, they get back up for more.

But, of course, this is just us.

[fayrene]

We were lucky with sleep with our daughter, though she has started coming out of her room at night to go potty. If it is getting close to an hour after I put her in bed, I tell her no more potty and she stays in bed. She is a compliant child.

I know that her little brother won't be so easy, because he has not been as easy about ANYTHING so far - nursing, sleeping, teething, etc.

However, I do remember seeing this trick once - seems worth a try: http://www.prudentbaby.com/2010/12/tape-trick.html

[Camilla]

I think the family with 11 had naturally good sleepers, or else they would have reconsidered their stance on birth control, or been unable to find enough alone time to conceive the later children.

But, peer pressure works. My terrible napper was cured of fighting his naps by going to a daycare program three days per week, at 15 months. Apparently on the first day, one of the aides sat next to him and rubbed his back for 20min, and thereafter he just laid down on it when they got his mat out. I was flabbergasted, since nothing of the sort worked for me, but after a few weeks of school, he now naps reliably for me.

[Bean]

Been lurking around here for years, but I'm delurking to say that bedtime/sleep time in my house is a minefield. My nearly 9 year old daughter is the "2 more minutes of snuggle, I need water, I'm not tiiiiired" type of kid and she has a will of steel. Fortunately, once she's finally asleep we don't hear from her again. My 2 years and 3 month old son will beg for another story but once we pick him up and heft him into the crib he's goes to sleep. Problem is he doesn't stay that way. Sure we've had periods of a few weeks, even a couple of runs of a month or so, when he'll sleep through the night. But it doesn't last. In fact in the past 3 months I think he's only slept all the way through about 3 times. We've tried letting him cry it out, but it's too darn hard for me, when he's screaming specifically for me. So I'm exhausted all the time. I agree and wonder about the "or else.... what" because my kids never respond to normal parenting advice like the advice givers must assume they will. Pretty much doesn't matter if I follow the be nice / positive reinforcement methods, or if I'm stern or downright mean, they don't seem to care enough to actually do what I ask, tell, yell at, them. good luck to you!

[Sheri]

Smile - I am with the other folks who find themselves too tired to even speak by the time the kids get to bed, so coming back down and bothering me gets them absolutely NOTHING. So, they go to bed, occasionally ask for a glass of water that I will NOT get for them, (they can help themselves and they have no interest in doing so) and then they sleep.

[Kelly]

Am I the only one who watches Super Nanny? LOL

No seriously, her techniques are awesome! My kids are 9, 8, 3 & 3. Before bed my kids have a bed, bath and book. They brush their teeth, have a drink and go potty. Then I kiss them on their heads, shut their doors and I don't see them again till morning.

I remember watching Super Nanny for the first time when my nine year old was little and I thought, THAT WILL NEVER WORK. And then it did. Like Magic!

Here is the general jist: Go through your bedtime routine, tuck them in and the first time they come out say "It's bedtime now, let me help you back to your bed. You need to stay there until morning" and nothing else. The next time they come out, walk them back without saying a word. Repeat over and over and over again. Do not engage, do not get mad, do not speak. Be prepared to be met with great resistance the first few nights. They will try to wear you down with pleading, begging, cuteness and eventually a little screaming with a side of head banging or hair pulling. Be firm. Back to bed, as quiet as a mouse over and over and over again until they know that your agenda is tantrum resistant.

[Kelly]

bed, bath and book. heh. that was supposed to read bath and book.

[Jen]

I'm in the boring/on the edge of impolite/no interaction/substandard care end of things.

Pleasantries and games and fun occur during the day and then, mom and dad turn dull and bookish.

Between three kids we had three personalities:

good napper, late sleeper (even as a baby, bless him), hard to fall asleep (now a confirmed night person, just like his mother, college student)

bad napper, would go to sleep when he conked out and not before, early riser happy morning kid (now a HS senior, not so happy in the mornings, but still can get himself up fairly easily)

bad napper, falls asleep easily, sometimes early riser.

For middle kid, the rule was you have to stay in your room. He would line his cars at the edge of the doorway and we'd often find him asleep, head in hallway, crossed legs still in room. He also slept on the floor of his room, head in doorway for nearly a year.

Oldest, had a period of horribly hard to fall asleep around 5 or so. We worked hard on relaxing thoughts, good things to think about while falling asleep, dad/mom will sit in hallway and read as long as you are in bed and not talking to us.

Youngest has been easiest, but he does love his glitter lava lamp, too. Nice way to lull them into lying quietly, at least.

[Jen]

Oh I forgot middle kid coming into our room at night. I was too tired to take him back to his room often, so I finally put a little blanket on the floor, and another next to it. Told him if he came in, he could sleep there without waking me up about it.

Turned out that was far less interesting than either trying to crawl into bed (which I'm lazy enough to allow, but husband hates sharing, so it got crowded on my quarter of the bed) or walking him back to bed. He did sleep there a few times, but then stopped coming in.

[Alison]

I don't think it's you, I think it's them. My kids stay in bed, and I do not have any sortof super parenting abilities. It may even be my single moment of total success. Witness: Today at the grocery store the one punched the other in the face over an argument about whether a certain DVD had been on the rack. Or not. Punched. in. The. Face. !!! The punchee was in fact correct, not that it helped him any in avoiding injury.

Comforting, no? Probably not.

[Kirsten]

I too believe it is mostly a matter of luck with kids and sleep, and I say that having been lucky so far in that department.

I think there are a few things that help at the margins: bedtime routine; physical exercise during the day; same bedtime every night no matter what; no desserts after dinner; providing "substandard care" after bed, as one commenter put it - too funny; and frankly, necessity. That's what makes the household of 11 go to bed -- their lives would suck too much if the kids didn't go to bed. I also think that kids actually do get a sense of whether something is really necessary -- and if they get that sense from you, maybe it will help. But it helps much more just to be lucky on the sleep end of things.

Very much looking forward to frequent posts!

[Abby Spice]

1. I think sleeping has a lot to do with the kid. I babysit constantly and three kids from the same family will be entirely different about bedtime.
2. The article didn't, as far as I saw, ask about corporal punishment. I used to sit for a number of evangelical families, and their kids were always well-behaved...because they got hit if they weren't. The parents frequently told me I could "give them a swat" if they got out of line, but I never took them up on that.
3. More posting?! When I first found you I read your whole archives over a few days and then felt a hollow emptiness inside me when I realized I now had to wait for your posts to get more. A HOLLOW EMPTINESS, I SAY.
4. There is no four.

[Andrea]

In my experience kids will only occasionally go to bed and stay there. Over the years we have sometimes found the right solution for the right kid - our 11 year old is allowed to read until he falls asleep whether that means at 7 or 8 or 1 or 2 am it's just what we have to do. With the family with 11 kids I have to wonder if they go to bed and stay there because they already have somebody to keep them company and/or snuggle with.

[Kirsten]

We do the boring straight-back-to-bed thing here, and also relied on her learning to read the digital clock a bit. But from the time she was in a big girl bed until she was fully potty-trained at night, we kept a baby gate on her bedroom door. That way, she could get out of bed, wander around the room, and even open her door and call to us if she needed us - but she couldn't get out. It was great, and frankly, trained her well. Once she was night-potty-trained we took the gate away (though we threatened her with bringing it back once or twice, and she didn't like that) - and that was basically it.

[Melani]

At Caroline and Edward's age, my kids slept with a sippy cup of water in their room and a tall baby gate in their doorway. I did find them sleeping by the doorway on the floor several times but they survived.

From what I've read of Caroline, though, she can probably scale all gates so this probably isn't helpful at all. I hope that one day soon you will get to sleep all night, every night.

[Lawmommy]

Well, my eight year is a champion sleeper for the most part, I mean, she's sleeps like she is hoping to compete in the sleep olympics and come home with a medal. (Most of the time. Following a period of sleep terrors that lasted about 9 months when she was five.) She will actually ASK to go to bed if she feels she has been awake too long. (For example, last New Year's Eve, she laid down on the couch at 11:00 PM and announced that we had all been awake far, far, far too long and then she curled up in a ball and said, "wake me up for bubbly juice and kisses.")

My eleven year old has never been a sleeper, and his failure to sleep through the night until after his third birthday is possibly a very real contributing factor to the circumstances that led to his sister being adopted and therefore not sharing any of his DNA. (Because his sleep-deprivation DNA terrified his father and I.) (I'm only kind of kidding about that.) At any rate, my now eleven year old wouldn't stay in bed until he learned to read (mercifully at an early age.) So, he goes to bed with a book or twelve next to him and has since he was four. He's only allowed to get OUT of the bed to go the bathroom, which works about 85% of the time.

[Not on Fire]

My kids do okay about going to bed. We have a routine of snack, wash, pjs, story and bed that we try to do the same way each night. I always turn off the tv etc. so that there is less stimulation.

If you get up for a snack, I am okay with that, but you will eat it at the table alone and if you get up snack is over and you go to bed.

If you need to talk to me, I will listen and then put you back to bed, quietly and calmly.

I think the low key reaction is really the most important part, that and doing it the same way every night no matter what.

[mimi]

I think we got lucky, our two year old has always been a good sleeper. We had to transition out of the crib very early, before he was two as he figured out how to climb out and onto his dresser, so We started using the peapod on top of the toddler bed with a rail on the side to keep it from falling off for and so far its working for us. He does know that it unzips, and occasionally does unzip it, but he will stay in his bed. I also give him a few toys, books, and water so that when he does wake up he can play, and play a little before going to bed too. We have a set schedule that we follow no matter what and I am very firm, telling him as I'm leaving that I'm not coming back to morning, but I've been firm since the beginning that I'm not messing around at bed time.

[Amber]

We don't leave our state. We love it here too much!!

Amber
charleston, SC

[Alexicographer]

Oh ... 2 other things I forgot to mention. One is that when DS got absurd (going from, let's say, 2 post-bed-not-yet-asleep requests to 20, I told him I'd come back no more than thrice. At first I gave him tickets (postits stuck to the wall), but he made a game of that (hiding them) so I just counted. He got the point very quickly though I assume that's luck and not my skillz.

Also, though many have commented about not going back and/or keeping returns dull, I do try to go check in on DS once or twice as he's falling asleep (or playing quietly), not every night but reasonably regularly ... I see this as a way to reward good behavior. This seems to work for us, but I can also imagine scenarios/kids where it would cause rather than reduce problems.

I'll admit I haven't read all the comments so I suppose it's possible things devolved unpleasantly below where I dropped off reading, but Julia, kudos to you for attracting such warm commenters and creating a home for such a positive and interesting dialogue across a topic that seems to be the sort to lead to blows in some contexts I've witnessed. It's fascinating to me to read the different approaches and results.

[craftyashley]

Putting our twins in separate rooms solved most of our sleep dilemmas: crazy parties at 9pm and waking up at ungodly hours. Our kids have never come in our bed. I just don't think it has ever occurred to them! And this makes me the luckiest person in the world, I guess.

[Laura H]

I agree that some of these things are hard-wired and we have to accept, to a certain extent, the internal clocks that our children are born with. That said, starting when mine were very little and weaned (between age 2 and 2 1/2) we used a few things that have seemed to help them wind down and be ready to go to sleep at lights out: the whole TVs/games off, house lights turned down, white-noise makers on in their bedrooms sets the tone that it is bedtime, period. They brush their teeth and lie down with a book-- when they were younger I read to them.
But the most important thing we've always done in our bedtime routine is 'Talk About Our Day'. When they were little I narrated and over the years they joined in. As they're lying in bed we take a couple minutes to review our day from that morning til bedtime, which is especially nice if something important or unusual happened that day. It's also a time to touch on things that were hard or sad, or how behavior problems were resolved without dwelling on them. Then we 'Talk About Tomorrow' so they know what to expect the next day. For my 15 year-old who has autism it's a cherished ritual, but I also see my 12 year-old typical kid hovering neaerby and listening in too ; )
L
p.s. and good light-blocking shades! Huge

[yasmina]

After reading everyone's comment, I think most of your readers are loving you too much to say harsh things about the sleeping issues. I love you and your writing and your kids and everything shown in this site. However, I have to say that you do have an issue. If your kids are tucked in but don't stay in bed 5 out of 10 times, you have a major issue. You need to work on that. There is no other way around!

How and why?

How? Try the techniques that Kate uses in her comment.

Why? Because first, SLEEPING PATTERN CAN BE TRAINED! Your kids may be more difficult than others to train, especially you have already missed the best age to train them (4 months to 1 year old).

Second, as one of your commenter said, you are the boss and you rule the house. That is that.

If everything else fails, melatonin should help.

[Sarah]

My son is 2.5 year old, and moved from a crib to a bed 6 months ago. We told him that his whole bedroom was now his crib - he can play in it as he likes, sleep when he's ready, and we get him out when it's time.

Three things reinforced this:
1. A cover on the door handle so that he can't open the door from the inside.

2. A wall-mounted reading light he can turn on and off himself, from in bed.

3. The Good Nite Lite, a moon nightlight that turns orange to 'become' the sun at a parent-programmed time.

When we put him to bed for the night (with a full sippy cup of water), he's good. Can't spell zebra? Okay. Many other engaging things to do in your awesomely giant crib-room until 'the sun' comes up and Mama or Papa come to get you.

If he's not ready to sleep, and we have to go in to soothe him, reminding him that he can turn on his wee light and read until he's sleep calms things right down.

If he wakes before 6.10 (our 'morning light' time), one of us goes in to snuggle with him, but but quietly and with closed eyes until the sun comes up.

Phenomenal change from the bad old days of 6 months ago.

[Dawn]

I have three kids (15, 10 and 8), and I guess you could say I am sleep blessed. But don't hate me, we have our other issues -- no free lunches in parenting! I wish I could take credit for superior parenting, but aside from inheriting my high need for sleep, I can't say I actually "did" anything special. Sure, they all had their phases of teething or anxiety here and there, but I always just comforted them briefly and marched them back to bed with a "Good night," and there they stayed. I can only speculate what I would do if they kept getting back out of bed, and I think I would probably park myself outside their door (book in hand) waiting to escort them back to bed as many times as it took.

Good luck!

[Wendy]

I just had a conversation about sleep with my (childless) younger brother. I am so very tempted to somehow have him read this post and the comments. When/if he ever has kids, I want him to remember his pre-child ideas! I need to record one of those conversations to replay to him at bed-time in a few years.

My kids are 6, 3.5, and 8 months. They are generally pretty good sleepers, by which I mean that we have all worked out a routine that seems to work for everyone involved. Currently, being summer (we are all on holiday), the two oldest go to sleep at about 9:30-10, and wake around 8:30. I get less "me" time than I would like, but don't spend that extra hour (or two) involved in a pitched battle which leaves us all feeling awful. My middle son comes into my bed every night, and has done so since I was pregnant with his little sister. He says he needs company, and after I asked him to please not wake me up, he now comes in quietly and snuggles up next to me.

Not to sound simplistic, but have you asked Caroline and Edward why they are getting out of bed? What I mean is, if you and they were to consider the reason, then it might be easier to think of a way to keep them in bed (or at least, as others have suggested, in their rooms.) For us, the cats coming inside in the evening made it hard to sleep. Solution: locked cat door until the kids are asleep.

Related to the question of "or else what?", have you (or your readers) ever read anything by Alfie Kohn? I'm reading some of his work now, and need a place to discuss the ideas.

[H]

Hmm... do you think the family with 11 kids has a group peer-pressure thing going on? As in, you get the oldest 3 or 4 to go to bed, and younger kids will follow?

Wait, never mind - as I was typing that I decided OF COURSE NOT. The younger kids would probably take the opportunity to monopolize the parents for once.

We are big on bedtime routines in our house. Every night at 8, kid #1 took a bath, put on jammies, brushed teeth, was read to, then went to sleep. Same time, same routine, same excellent sleeping.

Then we had kid #2, and despite doing The Routine with her, she's not ever been as good about bedtime. She still wants us to sit with her until she falls asleep (she's 3). I can usually talk my way out of it, but her daddy is less able to say no. And lately she's been going through a wake-up-mom-I'm-scared at 3am thing that's killing me.

Are the twins still in the same room?

[lynn]

Positive reinforcement. Training. Uhh... bribes! I actually am more concerned that they don't wake me up to early, so I implemented a "don't wake Mommy" sticker chart with both kids. Stickers leading to prizes for enough nights of letting Mommy sleep "till there was a 7 on the clock" (or whatever I thought I could get away with). Did this with both kids at around 4.5 or 5. Helps if they can turn on the TV/get themselves a morning snack.

At night we generally do yelling and threats, sad to say, though spelling zebra is clearly worth an emergency exception.

[Chris]

I'm sorry, I don't know how I got lucky and got kids who just mostly stay in bed. I wish I had some helpful advice but maybe the "or else" involves consequences? Like stay in bed or your favorite toy goes in time out or you don't get to watch your favorite show tomorrow.

[owlhaven]

I have ten kids and we pretty much did what Carrie, your very first commenter suggested. First, bedtime always begins with a story, a drink, a trip to the bathroom, and a gathering of any stuffed animals needed for happiness, so as to minimize the excuses to get up. Then once kids got to be 3 years old or so, we'd tuck them in, say 'no getting up' and sit outside their bedroom door and simply put them back to bed each time they got up, sometimes with a firm but (usually) calm, 'stay in bed'. Eventually they give up, and obey.

For kids in the habit of getting up, I'd expect it could take a couple weeks for them to understand you are serious about enforcing the rules. You just have to keep thinking of the long term benefit to you and your spouse, and how nice it will be to have peace later on, once you have prevailed.

I would be nutty if my younger kids did not get to bed by 9 most evenings. (As I type this, it is 8:45 PM and all of my youngest 6 (age 15 or younger) are within minutes of being in bed with lights out. It saves my sanity, really truly to know that when 9 PM hits, my duties are done for the day. (Barring the random puking, of course).

Good luck. Be tough. It is worth it.

[Shawna]

Hm. Mine (3 and 5) take awhile to settle down and chitter to one another until it's officially "late", but they don't call to us unless something's wrong (someone's sick or the potty-training one has to pee and needs help). In fact, they try to avoid getting our attention.

Do you think it could have something to do with the fact that we get pretty ticked-off sounding when we catch them still up? I don't think it would occur to them to ask for water or try to play with us.

As for the staying in bed in the morning... my son's natural rise time is about 8:30. (*ducks*)

His older sister gets up a bit earlier, but if it's the weekend she tiptoes downstairs and watches TV. If it's not the weekend, her rising usually coincides with when she has to get up anyway (between 7:00 and 7:30).

[Denie Heppner]

there's always nanny mcphee. :) or did someone mention that already?

[Kelly]

We have two "active" boys (one's 4.5, one's a 7yo with "emotional disabilities") and we have a routine that works for us. My phone alarm goes off at 6:55 (loudly) and they recognize that as their 5 min warning for bedtime (they love it, actually, it's weird). At 7 they start getting ready with the teeth and potty and jammies. If their room is clean they get a story (we're mean) and lights are out between 7:30-7:45. They each tend to come out 1-3 times more to pee (again!) within the hour or so after that, but otherwise that's it.

How do we keep them in? When they were younger (0-4) they had door locks on the insides of their doors so they've never been used to free-reign at night. We're also pretty exhausted at the end of the day and cranky parents are a good discouragement ("I don't care get back into bed!..."oh alright, go pee, but make it fast." works remarkably well). They know that if their request is simple/reasonable and they're quick, we're ok with that.

In the morning we have a rule that they play quietly (still working on that one) in their room til we come get them to "wake up" (potty trips notwithstanding). They are *not* allowed to come in our room without permission (ever). We're strict parents, I suppose, but we're a happy family.

[jen]

I think firstly, every kid is different and goes through different stages and I'm always about everyone getting the most sleep so whatever works. Mine does stay in bed for the most part. I, too, am a sucker and will acquiesce to demands for water and some amount of questions but he will sometimes use this against me and so after a reasonable amount of coddling, I start telling him it's time for sleeping, not talking. One more drink and that's plenty, etc.

However, it took us a solid two weeks of misery before this worked itself out. Well, more like several months. He was an awesome sleeper until he started to be able to get out of his bed...then things went South. He continually got out of bed and we sort of dealt with it but eventually no one was getting good sleep. So at night, the trick with mine was he had to go to sleep by himself. I used to stay in there (to keep him in bed) and I think he woke and I wasn't there so he thought Where's Mama and went to find me. So we started doing the return to bed, brief statement of it's time for bed, and placed him back in bed. It also took me physically not being in the house (I went for a run) for a few days. Two weeks of what seemed like 100+ returning him to his bed but he got it and now he's solid for 10 to 12 hours.

I say this to give you examples to help you in your pondering but part of me thinks it's all just luck anyway. He's always been a pretty decent sleeper.

[jen]

Oh and I forgot to mention that the ease of bedtime and the amount of time he sleeps is mostly dependent on his physical activity. So I can see since the twinkles have been in the car so much maybe they aren't spent physically?

Mine won't sleep later than 6:30 unless he's had, for example, at least two hours at the pool. Or a mile and a half bike ride to the playground and then plays for an hour. So at least 2 hours of really good physical activity.

[Amanda]

My kids (4.5 & 1.5) stay in bed after the bedtime routine.

Occasionally (like once every 2 weeks) the 4.5yo will come out to ask questions/scare-us-while-we're-zoned-out-watching-TV, generally to ask us to fix his sheets (like his mama, he can't sleep with tangled sheets, so nights when he doesn't fall asleep right away, he flip-flops until his sheets are tangled).

I'm not sure I have advice on how we got there, though. It's just how it evolved once they sleep-though-the-night around 9/10 months. Of course, moving out of the crib is a bump during which we have to enforce the 'stay in bed and go to sleep' rules.

Honestly, I think I'd lose my mind if bedtime dragged out over several hours. I need that time (see aforementioned zoning-out).

If I had to say something useful, it would be something like the SuperNanny technique. Where you just keep putting them back, no interaction, no 'reward.'

[Shannnon @nwaMotherlode]

Julia,

Is the melatonin still working for Patrick? After I saw your post about finding the chewable version, I called my pediatrician to ask how much my 9-year-old could take (based on her weight). I just have to say it has rocked our world -- in a fantabulous way. She is now going to sleep at a decent hour and getting lots of good sleep. She's always had a TERRIBLE time going to sleep at night, but the melatonin has really helped. After about the fourth night of her falling to sleep within 30 minutes I was sold. Thank you, bless you, love you!

[BigSkyMum]

Like several others who have commented, I am very, very grumpy after bedtime and I have good sleepers. My sons are 5 and 8 now and they call for me very rarely and only if they have a real problem (they're sick or have had a seriously scary dream.) When they were toddlers I was intolerant of post-bedtime shenanigans and even went so far as to withdraw privileges (for example, no Thomas the Tank Engine DVD tomorrow if you fuss again). I felt that it was healthier for ALL of us to get good sleep so I felt justified in being tough about the boys being required to stay quietly in bed.

[KarinNH]

Since I had an overactive imagination, was terrified of the dark, and had a mother who practiced the mean-after-bedtime parenting philosophy, most of my childhood nights were spent being scared witless. When I had my own kids, those memories were still vivid. Needless to say, the bedtime wars were lost before they'd begun.

We all survived, still like each other, and now everyone sleeps quite well. As for my own mother? I am still sort of holding a grudge.

[Shawna]

Oh I should add, my kids now share a room. If they're in together there's a certain amount of interacting when they first go to bed, but when their each in their own rooms there are tears and loneliness and misery.

Overall, we'll take the wind-down chatter, as long at it extinguishes relatively quickly. One kid drops off like a rock within 15 mins usually, then the night owl gets bored and eventually follows.

[Olivia]

I think the "or else" of bedtime is something small families can indulge in. With 11 children it simply cannot be tolerated, which IMO is kinda sad. Some of the sweetest moments happen in the space of "or else". Reading that article makes me even more committed to keeping our family to two children. No one-on-one time with the children? I can't imagine it.

[Christina]

Do kids usually just go to bed and stay there? Not my three-point-five-year-old either, but it's getting better. If I lie next to him in his car bed until 5 minutes after he falls asleep, he'll now stay there until sometime in the middle of the night, at which point he either ends up in our bed or I move back to the car bed, whichever seems like the path of least resistance/quickest return to sleep for all at the time.

The nice thing about the car bed is I can't fall off, because the sides of the car are half a foot higher than the mattress. The not so nice things about the car bed are
a) I'm pregnant and I'm pretty sure kid + I now exceed the weight limit (my husband exceeds it all on his own, which is why only I end up in the car bed)
b) I end up wedged against the side of the bed which is not the most comfortable sleeping position ever, though at least I can wedge one of the 200 stuffed animals taking up 1/3 of the bed between my knees for better pregnant sleep ergonomics.
c) as a bed-sharer, my husband is much less likely to stick his toes in my face/arm/belly.