Bedtime Rituals

It is the same time every night. It is the same routine every night, snack, read stories, snuggles, good night. It has been like this for years. Why are both my children surprised every night when we get to the good night part? I just want some peace at the end of a long day.

Tonight I actually caught my son putting masking tape on the wall so he could write on the masking tape and not write on the wall. He thought it through far enough to think if he was writing on the tape when it was stuck on the wall then he wasn't really writing on the wall. Yes, he always tries to find loopholes in our rules. I never said don't put making tape on the wall after bedtime. Or I didn't make a no writing on masking tape that is a wall rule so he thought it would be okay.

My daughter often after we put her to bed will throw all her pillows and blankets on the floor then announce she is cold.

My children I think actually plot against me and do all they can to make bedtime the most torturous time of the day. It is 9:25 now, almost an hour and a half after bedtime and I think they might have finally fallen asleep.

Funny thing is it backfires on them when they need to wake up the next day. My son always tells me I need to let him get more sleep. I of course remind him that he did everything he could to stay up as long as possible after we send him to bed. He still fights it and sometimes he gets creative.

Excuses I have heard at bedtime about why they can't sleep are...

- I read the wrong stories
- I didn't snuggle with them long enough
- The kitty is on my bed
- The kitty isn't on my bed
- I want to finish dinner
- I don't like my jammies
- I want (whichever parent had to go out)
- I need my (insert any stuffed animal here)
- There is a monster in my room
- There is a ghost in my room
- There is a noise in my room
- I need you (this is the one that is the hardest to resist)

I stand my ground and they eventually accept that is really is bedtime and fade off to dream land.

That is part one. Part two happens a couple hours later a random child will wake up because of a bad dream. Now the challenge is to get them back to sleep as quickly as possible. This doesn't happen every night. In fact sometimes we get a good stretch of both of them sleeping all night and then BAM!!! One wakes up and I finally get them back to bed. I just start getting into bed and the other one wakes up. These I swear are things they plan during the day just to get to me.