Parenting is…

Bed time routine is considered a panacea for all baby sleep problems.  Frustrated parents like myself often find the experts’ insistence that once a bedtime routine is in place, the baby will respond consistently to it, to be an insult added to injury. I remember telling my aunt, a pediatrician, that at 18 months, Alex’s well-established naptime suddenly broke down and I was having problems again.  “Like,” I pointed out, “so many of my friends who have children of that age.  Her response, “Well, if you have a baby on a schedule, he stays on a schedule, and you won’t experience such problems.” I withdrew and figured there was no sense defending our situation by pointing out that he’d gone down for a nap like clockwork for several months!

Melissa,  a mom to a 21-month-old Gabriel, who commented on my post <a href=”http://parentingis.com/separation-anxiety-at-bedtime/”>Separation anxiety at bedtime</a> has motivated me to write about this issue.  Like me, she is left defenseless by her son’s routine suddenly breaking down.  “Nothing changed except for Gabriel!” she wrote in her comment, and my heart went out to her.

You and I have no means of imagining the magnitude of the ever-constant change our kids are going through.  Every time they learn to interact with the world in a new way (learning increased mobility or communication skills, developing new emotions, new understanding of the world, the change in their manipulative ability and senses), they walk through a door into a different universe.  I often see my son Alex trying to cope with his physical and cognitive abilities, losing emotional control, then learnin to cope and becoming stronger through it… Again and again and again… Surely, I don’t expect that the right sequence of hugs, kisses and lullabies will make him feel the same way at bedtime through months and years of his growth!

I often find that he specifically asks to do away with things that used to soothe him.  For months, he loved the classical lullabies playing in the background as we cuddled in bed. Now he says, “Mommy, quieter!” and eventually, “Music off!” Months prior to that he let me know in no uncertain terms that he didn’t like me singing to him. (Gosh, am I that bad at it?!) Each time I comply and find new ways for his growing mind.

I have quit trying to defend this.  I am certain, that for my son and many other kids, if not most, mom and dad will have to be creative and adapt all of his routines over time. I also noticed that varying it just a little day to day and week to week fills bedtime with a little novelty and keeps him happier through it.

My final point has to do with bed time stress. Beware of being firm and consistent if you find it isn’t working.  The consistent message you may be sending is - bedtime is stressful. For Alex, each time we get into that cycle, bed time deteriorates into a struggle. The only thing, which gets us back to norm is my flexibility, creativity, and most importantly, observation of his current needs.

Your child is not being manipulative when he wants to exercise some control over his world. After all, would you prefer to send him the message that he has none? When a few weeks ago, Alex started refusing to lie down with me and instead asked to “sit a while” and “hold fingers” and “talk”, I missed it completely… and had a disaster for a couple of days.  I remembered, regrouped, and let him have his way.  He immediately turned back to cooperation and problems went away. We did reach a compromise - I lie down, and he gets to sit next to me in bed because mommy is tired.  A few minutes later he says, “Baby tired too!” and we are off to the sleepy races.