I let our most important bedtime ritual fade into nothing

 

 

Right from the minute they are born, we (try to!) get our children into a bedtime routine that works for the whole family.

 

However, over time this routine eventually start to change as your child becomes more independent or they start to stay up that bit later. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing; families grow, that’s what they do.

 

However, there was one part of our routine that I thought I would hold on to for as long as possible, but I haven’t.

 

When my little girl was only small, before she could even move her head properly, I would sit by her cot and read her a story. Reading and having a love of books is definitely something my parents instilled in me, and I swore that I would read bedtime stories to my kids until they were simply too old.

 

Fast forward a good twenty years to being a mum myself, and I am now going back on my word. The bedtime story has been replaced with ten minutes of drawing that she so desperately wants and that I so desperately want her to do.

 

The "I’ll just read one more chapter for you"’ has been replaced by “I’ll be back in five minutes to turn off the light”. As much as I try to justify my lack of interest in reading to her, I am simply lying to myself. She is not too old to enjoy listening to a story being read by her mum, nor is she too old to want to see the pictures in the book.

 

 

 

In fairness to myself, it kind of started about a month ago when she didn’t want a story, but opted instead for a few minutes to colour in her new drawing book. One night turned into five and five turned into ten as I relished the extra few minutes of sit down after a really long, draining day.

 

But last night, suffering from a sore throat, I literally couldn’t read her one and that was when I realised just how much I miss it. The adventures that we went on together each and every night were the best way for both of us to wind down after tiring days.

 

We all make promises to ourselves as new mums (promises that will inevitably get broken), but that doesn’t mean we can’t pick things back up again - before it’s too late. 

 

Mary Byrne is a staff writer at MummyPages and mum to a horse-crazy, sports-mad, seven-year-old girl.