The bedtime routine: Reality versus fantasy

 

Oh, why does getting children to go to sleep have to be so difficult? Why is it like pushing golden syrup up a hill, like surviving a zombie apocalypse?

 

Or maybe it's just me and my spawn of the devil children? Maybe everyone's else kids are like the ones in the movies; sweetly lisping goodnight to their parents, and falling asleep instantly after a kiss on the forehead.

 

But I have a feeling I'm not the only owner of a child who reacts to bedtime like Superman to Kryptonite, who rages against the turning off of the light with all the passion and anger of a Bolshevik revolutionary.

 

I try to follow all the sage parenting advice about bedtime. I try to keep to a routine. Same Bat-time, same Bat-place, same order of business: pyjamas, teeth, stories, and a couple of badly sung nursery rhymes once the lights are out.

 

 

And it kind of works, most of the time. I'll gently remind the anti-sleep crusader that sleep time is nearing. Then, cautiously, I'll approach with warmed pyjamas, softly murmuring soothing sounds - not unlike a horse-whisper luring a wild bronco.

 

She will bolt, and it'll take a bit of negotiation, a couple of empty threats, half-a-miinute of desperate pleading and a dash of prising small fingers off bannisters, and eventually we will make it upstairs.

 

Kids in the movies curl against their parents' side and listen raptly to the classic novel being read to them. My child ricochets around her bedroom like she's been on a two-month sugar-binge. If I attempt to shorten story time by skipping a page then she pauses, turns to face me with the steely gaze of an auditor for Inland Revenue, and points out the discrepancy.

 

Bedtime gets further derailed by sudden bursts of near-dehydration, starvation and visits to the bathroom.

 

Eventually, we reach the final stages, and the lullabies are sung after an argument about how many. The child nears sleep. The parent is exhausted.