Tag Archives: putting children to bed

On saying the sweetest things

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Bedtime isn’t my favourite part of the day. I’m talking about the children’s bedtime obviously. My own is something I look forward to. The boys’ bedtime, on the other hand, can feel like a round of whack-a-frog – the little toads keep popping up, I cajole them back into bed (without a mallet), then someone randomly springs up again, just as my triumphant lap of honour (walking downstairs to a child-free sofa) is in sight.

But they do say the sweetest things, and that goes a long way towards making up for all the rowdy, mischievous bedtime antics.

Whack-a-frog (bedtime)

Whack-a-frog (bedtime)

“You’re the best mummy in the world,” Son1 told me this evening as I kissed him goodnight.

“Why’s that?” I asked, genuinely curious (because I know I’m far from it). I wondered if he was thinking about the fact that this afternoon I’d left work early and rushed home to take them to their after-school sports activity; waited 2.5 hours (not reading a good book, but listening to whines about hunger, boredom, etc, due to their lessons being at different times); then drilled Son1 on his spellings, and watched at least 10 minutes of YouTube drivel with him while being elbowed and kicked by fidgety Son2.

Or maybe it was down to all the reading we’re doing at the moment. My children seem to have zero interest in reading, until it comes to bedtime, when I’m held hostage for up to 45 minutes (Son2 doesn’t pick the most suitable book, he chooses the longest). Or could I be the best mummy because I’ve just invited 15 boys (help!) to Son1’s birthday party this month.

There’s a pause. Son1 considers my question. “Why is she the best mummy?” he’s thinking. Tricky question.

“I’ve absolutely no idea,” he replies, totally deadpan.

A working mother’s typical evening – in 10 phrases

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“Right, to the table, please.”

“NOW.”

“It’s not YouTube time, it’s homework time. Well, how many more minutes are left? 20! No way, too many. Turn it off!”

“Please don’t throw your pencil.”

[Thinks to myself: Why is it so hard to get my son to just sit upright at the table, with his pencil poised and his books open in front of him. Why, oh why, does he insist on half sliding off his chair, and resting his forehead on the table, as if he were ill, then running off on unexplained missions as they occur to him?]

Cheers to mums everywhere, who put in much longer hours than 9-5 and end their days half-asleep on the sofa!

Cheers to mums everywhere, who put in much longer hours than 9-5 and end their days half-asleep on the sofa!

“Pyjamas on. Stop messing around! Just put them on.”

“Clothes in the bin please. NOT ON THE FLOOR! How many times do I have to tell you?

”Nooo! Be careful with the toothpaste. And brush them well. Longer than that.”

“Just one chapter tonight. No, you read it to me. Okay, deal – we’ll do one page each.”

“Are you sure you don’t need the toilet? Really? You must need to. C’mon, just try.”

“Right, lights out. I’ll stay for two minutes. That’s all. No, I can’t stay all night. Mummy’s tired [and needs to get downstairs for some Mummy juice]. Mwah. Night, night kiddos!”

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 4-year-old’s bedtime shot

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Here in the Circles household, we’re trying hard to yank the children’s bedtime (and mine) forward so that when the new term begins in three days’ time, those red-eye early school start times (7.45am) don’t give us jet lag, all over again.

Of course, stopping wild horses in their tracks would be easier.

536794_639927182698099_1374862493_n“C’mon boys, bedtime!” I said last night.

Repeat x10.

“Can we have a day off from shower? We want a day off from shower!”

“No, look how dirty your feet are. Upstairs, now.”

Son1, who is getting more compliant as he gets older, climbs the stairs, leaving Son2 rooted to the sofa.

“I’m NOT going to bed. I’m not.” [pauses for effect]. “I hate you, and I DON’T LIKE your hair!”

Three days Son2, three days…

That’s all.

Schmaltz alert: I love you all the way to…

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Several months before BB was born, our realtor in the States gave me a gift: the children’s book Guess How Much I Love You.

It was the first story I read to BB and quickly became part of our nightly ritual – a.k.a., my desperate attempts to get him to go to sleep.

How did we go from this at bedtime to a sneaky go at Minecraft under the covers?

How did we go from this at bedtime to a sneaky game of Minecraft under the covers?

The book still holds a special place in my heart because, just as Little Nutbrown Hare thinks he’s found a way to measure the boundaries of love, the children and I like to fondly one-up each other at bedtime.

“I love you all the way to the moon,” BB will say.

“I love you all the way to Pluto and back,” I’ll respond.

And so on, until we find ourselves doing circles round the Universe.

Recently, though, there’s been an uninvited guest at bedtime: the iPad. BB has managed to sneak it up to his top bunk a few times now to play games under the covers (and with a BYOD – Bring Your Own Device – programme at school, it won’t be long until it finds its way into his school bag too).

My 4yo is fast following in BB’s electronic footsteps, and took our little game to a whole new dimension tonight.

“I love you Mummy,” he called out in the dark. “I love you all the way,” he said, pausing for a second to think how to outdo me…“all the way to the highest level.”

Jet lag: The scourge of summer travel

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I’ve never been one for keeping a really strict routine. When the children were babies, the Gina Ford-esque Open the curtains at 6.24am regime didn’t suit me. But, like all mums, I’m well aware that if certain things happen at the same time each day, then life is a lot more enjoyable.

Bedtime is a case in point.

At no time is a routine more appealing than when it’s all going pear-shaped: I’m talking about jet lag here – that dreaded circadian rhythm sleep disorder that can hold you in its steely, fatigue-inducing grip for days, especially after an eastbound flight.

With her jet-lagged children up for hours in the night, Mom felt like she’d been run over by the airport bus

It’s a disorientating condition that people in our community know well, especially the Americans and Canadians who travel half way round the world to get back, with small children, who then spend the next two weeks mixing up night and day.

We only had a three-hour time jump between London and Dubai, but to be honest, even this is enough to play havoc with your family’s sleep.

Making it worse this year was the fact that BB and LB hadn’t really adjusted to British time anyway. After returning from America, and with no school to get up for, they stayed on a mid-Atlantic time zone, treating us to 11pm bedtimes in England.

No surprises, then, that our first full night back in Dubai went like this:

11.30pm: BB and LB finally succumb to sleep

2.20am: I nod off at last

2.30am: Pitter, patter … BB comes running in. “Mum, I can’t sleep!”

5.30am: BB, who I [foolishly] allowed to climb into our bed, falls back to sleep after three hours of fidgeting

6.15am: LB wakes up – for the day

Tonight (yawn), my overtired boys were also resisting bedtime, in a can’t sleep/won’t sleep fashion.

“I’m NOT tired!”

Then, just before nine, BB lost it, despite being allowed to watch some extra telly. “I want Nanny,” he wailed, in between distraught, heart-breaking sobs.

“But you’ve got me,” I soothed, feeling a bit like the booby prize.

I took him and his brother upstairs and tried reading a book, but it didn’t really distract my by-now-exhausted BB.

More raspy, uneven sobs.

So, I pulled out all the stops: I started singing.

“Show me the way to go home. I’m tired and I want to go to bed,” I crooned, trying to replicate a song my mum used to sing to me while drying my tears years ago.

BB went quiet, finally, and his breathing slowed as the song worked its magic. But then LB, who until now had been quite placid, started crying.

“Mum, don’t sing,” he spluttered, visibly shaken. “I really don’t like your singing. “It’s bad singing,” he snivelled, and sat up in bed, wide awake again.

There really is no pleasing everyone, is there?