Tag Archives: children and bedtime

A mother’s Thursday night

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Me: “Right come on, upstairs. Now.”

Son1: “But it’s the weekend. And I haven’t finished watching YouTube!”

Me: “Well, how many more minutes are left? Eighteen. No way. Too many. It’s getting late.”

Son1: “Can we have a day off from shower?”

Me: “Yes, if you come upstairs, RIGHT NOW.”

Me: “I said, NOW!”

Me: “Pajamas on. Quickly. Stop messing around. Just put them on.”

Son1: “Can you bring me my toothbrush?”

Me: “Only if you promise to brush them well. No, longer than that. Those teeth have to last you 70 years, you know.”

"So the little boys who missed their bedtime were eaten by a monster .."

“So the little boys who missed their bedtime were eaten by a monster ..”

Me: “Just one book okay. Then lights out. That one’s too long. How about this one? No, I can’t read it twice.”

Me: “Now, I know the tooth fairy didn’t come last night, but I sent her a message and she said it was because she didn’t see the note on the door about swallowing the tooth, and she’s going to come tonight.”

Me: “No, I’m not lying!”

Son1: “Did you send her a message on Facebook?”

Me: “Erm, no. I mean, yes. I did. But she’ll only come if you go to sleep quickly.”

Son2: “What colour is the tooth fairy’s skin?” [Might sound odd, but with so many nationalities in Dubai, it’s a question that children here often ask about someone.]

Me: “It’s fair, like yours. Now settle down, or she won’t come.”

Me: “And are you sure you don’t need the toilet? Really? Are you sure? You must do. When did you last go? Are you really, really sure?”

Son2: “Stay for two minutes.”

Me: “Just two minutes. That’s all.”

Me: “You want to know why mummies have squidgy arms?”

Me: “Don’t wake me up too early in the morning. Alright, if we’re playing Thursday Opposites, then do wake me up.”

Me: “Okay, two minutes is over.”

Son2 [sits up in bed and signals with his hands time rewinding]: “Guess what Mummy? I’m starting two minutes all over again!”

Meh! I love Thursday nights, but they’re not what they used to be.

School narcolepsy

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So from the high that was Amsterdam, comes the bump of real life, and dealing with a problem that presented itself just before half-term.

You know something’s not right when you get a call from school asking you to pop in. I duly did so, the very next morning. And while everyone I spoke to couldn’t have been nicer (or more helpful), the writing was already on the wall.

My son fell asleep (twice) at school.

He denies it, of course. Son2 is not stupid and knows sleeping at school is frowned upon. He has an elaborate story about his friend L telling him to lie down on the grass outside and close his eyes. When the teacher found him snoozing on the little, landscaped hill, he was actually awake and just playing a game, he claims. Hmmm, nice try!

It’s possible, I suppose (a pig might have been flying past too), but I happen to know that the teachers are right; my 5YO is too tired for school at moment, because HE WON’T GO TO BED.

He resists sleep like there’s no tomorrow. Like he’ll get kidnapped in the night by the bogeyman and injected intravenously with vegetables. However tired he is in the late afternoon, at bedtime his eyes snap wide open, as though propped apart by matchsticks. He clamours for attention: “Just one more book!”, “Stay with me, pleeeeeease!”

What should be a fairly quick routine turns into a marathon, and it’s little wonder that there are many bedtimes where I feel like this afterwards…

The school wants him in bed at 6.30pm: I wish!

The school wants him in bed at 6.30pm: I wish!

Sometimes, 45 minutes later, I’ll creep past the boys’ bedroom, treading with a feather-light step so as to make no sound, and notice that Son2 is STILL kicking his duvet around.

What happens next is, because the schools start early here, his owl-like ways catch up with him: we have to literally drag him out of bed and prop him up downstairs. He’s caught up on some sleep over half-term, but mainly by sleeping later in the mornings, which doesn’t bode well for tomorrow, his first day back.

When the alarm goes off, I’ll be yanking him from a deep slumber again – what he doesn’t need to know is that I’ll be as good as sleep walking too.

Wish me luck!

The bunk beds

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When siblings born not too far apart reach a certain age, the question often arises: Should they have bunk beds?

I first thought about bunk beds for my boys a year or so ago, but decided it would be bedtime hara kiri. Images of them jumping off the ladder and diving from the top onto the hard, marble floor quickly filled my mind.

Twelve months later, at 4 and 7, I revisited the idea, because the lovely Dubai Mum over at Dubai Mummy told me there was a sale at Kids’ Rooms with up to 75% off.

I’ll admit I also had an agenda. Years ago, on holidays in North Wales each year, my brother and I experienced the joys of wooden bunk beds with a rickety ladder and chicken-wire base. I’d take a torch up to the top, while my younger brother made a den below, and I distinctly remember wanting to go to bed so we could whisper in the dark (very clever, Mum).

Worth every dirham!

Worth every dirham!

At Kids’ Rooms, they showed me some colourful bunk beds that matched the paint in the room, and before I knew it I was spending DH’s hard-earned cash on not just the beds, but on pirate duvets and cushions, a drawer to go underneath and a thick-pile rug that looked like it would make a good crash mat.

Delivery wasn’t smooth, of course. There was a whole day waiting at home, at the end of which they told us they’d meant the next day. And when the truck did arrive, they’d forgotten all the bedding and managed to knock over a post just outside our villa, leaving a pile of crumbled concrete behind.

But it was all worth it: the boys love the beds and so do I, especially because it means, after reading their stories, they no longer expect me to lie down with them until they fall asleep.

There was a moment’s hesitation when this dawned on them: “But Mummy, how will you take us to bed?” asked BB, the penny dropping.

“Oh, I don’t think I can darling. Mummies aren’t allowed on the ladder,” I replied, peering through the rail at his top bunk.

And he was okay with that.

That, dear readers, is progress.