To bed perchance to sleep
Although I would describe ourselves as an autonomous family, especially where the children's learning is concerned, one area where I'm unashamedly NOT autonomous is sleep, or rather bedtimes. This is because, if the kids were allowed to let their bodies tell them when to go to bed, we'd have 3 different bedtimes and 3 different waking times which would effectively mean that I'd be on call most of the evening and starting the day pretty early due to their differing body clocks.I definitely need some 'me' time. I suppose to be strictly accurate I need some 'no kids' time in order to wind down properly and recharge my own batteries. However we have been really struggling with how to get them to go to sleep at night. The usual bedtime for the older two, aged 9 and 6, is 8.30 with lights out at 9. This doesn't mean that they go to sleep easily. We've tried to make their environment conducive to sleep by making sure they eat well and exercise during the day, disallowing screen time an hour before bedtime, having a gradual wind down period, reading stories (most nights), not having tv or computers in their rooms and generally making sure that their bedrooms are comfortable places to sleep. They are allowed to have music or a story cd while they are in bed, which gets switched off at lights out time, and they each have a night light to offset any anxiety issues. Even with all this they take an AGE to go to sleep, some nights I even go to bed before they're asleep. I've been trying to get them up earlier in the morning but I'm so bleary eyed myself that I find it hard to drag myself out of my nice warm bed.
Today was slightly different though. The two older ones got themselves up at stupid o'clock, I believe it was about 6am, an hour which I had heard of, but never quite believed existed. They played together pretty well in that we didn't hear them until nearly 8am and the day progressed well enough. At about 9.30am my 9 yr old called me to say that his little sister was asleep on the settee. This I had to see. Sure enough there she was propped up and asleep. Time for a sneaky photo I thought. She woke about half an hour later and we all went out for a picnic and a visit to a park with friends. On the way home Big Brother fell asleep in the car for a few minutes (hope that doesn't bode ill for his bedtime tonight) but the girls stayed awake, until we got home. Then I realised that Big sister aged 6 was again asleep on the settee at about 7pm. This hasn't happened for so long I couldn't believe my eyes. I managed to carry her to bed and sincerely hope she sleeps through and doesn't get a second wind later this evening.
I think I need to go and get out my copy of 'The No Cry Sleep Solution' (the one for older children) by Elizabeth Pantley and see if I can update our bedtime/sleep arrangements. That's one of the hardest things about bringing up children: you need to constantly reassess what you're doing as the children get older. Everything is fluid, nothing stays the same for long. At least I have some good help in the books that I have found useful in the past. As well as giving some good advice, none of it judgmental, the authors have helped me to hone my thinking skills and arrive at our own imperfect solutions. All I need is to feel awake enough to actually think clearly.
3 comments:
Hey Liz! I'm here and I'm reading, only don't have a lot of time (and brain space) to do sane and/or useful comments.
BTW, have you come across about anybody at all who does one hundred percent autonomous - and hasn't changed to a doormat yet? For that matter, have you come across the 'correct' explanation of autonomous education? Does it have rules? Regulations? It can't, can it? So what's 'right' and what's 'wrong' is entirely up to us, innit? If we educate our children autonomously, does that mean that we *only* follow their leads? Or is there a certain amount of parents' need involved?
Don't want to be rude, but if we'd want to live up to anybody's expectations or educate according to anybody else's standard, we might as well have put them in school!
In my mind, too, sleep is essential. My sleep, that is. As long as I was breastfeeding there wasn't much space to manoeuvre in, but after that I've been working from the assumption that even though my children might not be able to articulate it, I'm sure they wanted sane and healthy parents who were mentally and physically capable to accommodate their needs. I personally need sleep to be that kind of parent, LOL.
Having said all that I have not even the slightest intention of giving you the impression that I've always been able to actually get the sleep I needed... but that's another story....
YOu won't find any arguments from me about the need for bedtimes. I always regulated Mister T's bedtime. Left to his own devices now he is 15, his "natural" bedtime is 1 in the morning. The prospect of social interaction till 1 in the morning makes me lose the will to live. I needed "no people" time. He got Winnicott's "good enough" parent. Shrug.
Fiona
I also want "no children" time and have always enforced bedtimes until this last year with Boy.
But they had bedtimes, but sleep times. In their rooms and quietly in bed reading or drawing for an hour or so before having to turn their lights out.
It got them out of my hair and winding down.
Good luck finding something that works for you!
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