Simply Mother

So since my last post was SUCH a big hit . . . I’m going to do what any sensible completely irrational blogger would do and . . . write about the same topic!

Only this time, I’ll be more specific. Sleep. And that whole “self-regulation” thing.

Theoretically, children will naturally get the amount of sleep they need as long as they are allowed to go to bed when they’re tired, and not pushed to sleep at a certain time. Supposedly, they’ll snooze as long as they need and wake up happy.

I’ve tested out this theory and here’s my conclusion: It’s ONLY works in theory.

In reality, there’s such a thing as exciting books that are hard to put down, a sun that doesn’t wait for people to be fully rested before shining it’s brightness into their bedrooms, and activities scheduled by someone else that require people to be up at a certain time, no matter what time they happened to fall asleep.

We had it all worked out

We had a great thing going for a long time there. After bedtime routine, around 8:30, my five-year-old Sarah would go into her room for “Quiet Time” where she would read until “lights out” at 9, at which point I would come in, tuck her in, and turn off her light.

She was perfectly happy with this arrangement, but then a few weeks ago she started not wanting to quit reading. I could really understand that–being engrossed in a book and wanting to finish the last few pages or whatever–and of course I don’t want to be “rigid” so I let her go a bit longer. ‘

Letting her “self regulate”

But it started getting later and later and I wondered if I needed to “be firm” about the pre-established time but then of course my old worries about inhibiting her self-regulation and controlling too much of her life were there. I mean, when a person goes to sleep? Seems like a pretty personal thing to me. Maybe right up there with when they start peeing in the toilet, I don’t know. I mean honestly it’s not even something anyone else can control anyway. Maybe we can require the lights to be off or whatever, but, short of drugging, I don’t know any way to actually make another person fall asleep.

As far as I understand the concept, the “radical unschooling” people say your kids have to know they are really “in charge” of themselves or they will just keep pushing and resisting, never really self-regulating. This makes a lot of sense and it was exactly what this same daughter needed as far as potty training went a few years ago, so I thought I’d try letting her know that it was totally up to her when she went to bed.

I did explain that I thought she needed a certain amount of sleep, and, since this girl wakes up at the same time every morning no matter WHAT time she goes to bed, in order to get enough sleep for her to feel good the next day, she needed to go to sleep by 9.

I also told her that in order for me to feel like a responsible and caring parent, I couldn’t have her out in the main areas of the house because we would still be up doing things and keeping her awake for sure. So I needed her to be in her bedroom by 9, but it was up to her when she went to sleep. She was fine with this arrangement because all she wanted to do was read anyway.

Theory, Shmeory

Well, it didn’t work. I’m sure the unschoolers will say we didn’t wait long enough or maybe it’s because I didn’t give her totally free-reign, I did require her to be in her room, and maybe, but . . . it just wasn’t feeling right.

She would wake up after only 7 or 8 hours of sleep and just be totally grumpy. i mean, everything that came out of her mouth was angry, and the littlest things would cause major upsets for her. And then? She would go to sleep even LATER that night!

This went on, getting progressively worse, for a couple of weeks and then a few nights ago I decided it needed to change. It was just too hard on her, and it was asking too much of such a small child–especially one who has always been so enraptured with the world that she started out not wanting to go to sleep as a teeny tiny baby–even rocked and cuddled in the arms of her mommy, she just did NOT want to fall sleep.

Seriously, I would watch as her little newborn eyes would droop, droop, droop, and then suddenly FLASH open, like, “Woah, woah, what did I miss? Did I miss anything? Wow, I almost dozed off there but don’t worry! I’m awake!”

Now my second daughter, she is different–she has been much more of a sleeper and ever since she could say “bed” she would tell that to me, practically dragging me to the bedroom when she was sleepy.

New Plan!

So here’s what we did. She already knows about my need to feel like a responsible and caring mother. I just told her I felt like I needed to do something more, because I could tell she was not getting enough sleep, I saw how sad she was during the day, and I think she just still needed a little more help saying goodnight to the world.

After bedtime routine, I help both girls get tucked in, then sing to them for awhile, and then go out. I would be happy to stay in with them till they fell asleep but they just don’t go to sleep with me in there. They just can’t help telling me all the things that pop into their minds! So I go out. They know they can call me if they’re scared or there’s another emergency, and I also say I’ll be back to check on them soon.

They’ve been falling asleep between 9 and 9:30 and sleeping 11 or 12 hours and waking up oh so happy and cheerful! It’s such a difference. Sarah’s even waking up later than when she was going to bed at 10 or 11 and sometimes even midnight!

So, as lovely and wonderful as the idea sounds, sleep self-regulation just wasn’t a working reality for us. Heck, I can’t even do it, I should be in bed right now! But perhaps critics will say that’s because I was told when to go to bed as a child. Oh well. At least we’ve got this worked out so they’re going to bed relatively happily and waking up bright and cheery!

[I say "relatively" about the going to bed part because Sarah does still lament that she wishes she could stay up and read--but she says this as she's practically falling over with exhaustion, and often the next words out of her mouth are about how tired she is, so I think she's okay with arrangement.]

[The pictures in this post are all of my kids at various ages. Click through to Flickr to find out who's who, if you're so inclined.]

Filed in: parenting | May 7, 2009