I've written a few things about sleep over the years, but as I'm looking through the archives, I seem to have written mostly about what we do instead of bedtimes and not much on co-sleeping.
We have always coslept with the kids. From the day E was born, her bassinet became a clothes basket and she slept on my chest. When she was two and I was pregnant with L, we wanted to prepare her for the baby's birth by getting her out of our bed before L was born. So we started doing a routine before bed, and I would lay down with her in her bed and nurse her to sleep. Sometimes this took an hour! Then I'd sneak away and she'd wake up not long after. It became a source of frustration for all of us, and we decided that she was clearly telling us that she was not ready to be in her own bed. So she came back to our bed, and when L was born we slept with both of them.
After a while, we put both beds in our room. We had a king and a twin pushed up against each other, so we all had enough room. Then Z was born. Right after Z was born, we moved and got new beds. We have had a double and a bunk bed pushed together for the last few years.
Technically, the top bunk has been E's and the bottom bunk has been L's. In reality, we've had all combinations of sleeping arrangements depending on the night. D has often taken the couch, both because he finds it more comfortable than our bed, because he likes falling asleep to the noise of the tv, and because the kids want to sleep with me. Four people in a double bed is not comfortable though, so I often move one or two of them to the bottom bunk after they fall asleep. Or one of them falls asleep with D on the couch. Or I move to the couch with D after they are asleep. Or D and I sleep on the bottom bunk until Z wakes up wanting to nurse. In other words, we get creative!
Then for the last few months, E has started wanting to sleep in her own bed. I can't say exactly when this happened, but somewhere around 7.5 years old. Yes, that's right, she bedshared that long. Shocking in western cultures, but completely normal in many, if not most, parts of the world, for most of history. All of a sudden, she was just ready to have her own space. She would still fall asleep with me sometimes, but instead of moving her to the bottom bunk, I was able to start just nudging her awake and telling her to climb up into her own bed.
We are waiting on the possibility of being able to move into a new house. This will give us more bedrooms and allow E and L to have their own rooms. E has been really excited about this and wanting to prepare herself for sleeping in her own room. So she started sleeping in their room (which is used as a play room) on their couch. She told us she was ready to have her own bed in there. After a few successful nights, we agreed to move it and we did that today.
She's so excited! I tucked her in tonight with her night light and some books. L laid with her for a while, but then came back to bed with me. It remains to be seen if this is truly a permanent move for E, but I'm pretty sure it is. She's getting older and needs her own space.
So if you're cosleeping and getting flack from people about it, just tell them that you're 100% sure the kid won't be sleeping with you by the time they go off to college. If you're feeling cheeky. Otherwise, tell them to mind their own damn business. Parenting doesn't stop at 8pm. Kids still need us at night and sometimes all they need is to be able to reach their hand out and know that we are there. That doesn't last forever. They grow and change and THEY recognize their own needs for space without being pushed into it.
Oh and the big question that seems to concern amusing numbers of people..... "Where do you have sex if the kids are in your bed?" Seriously? If you can't imagine other places in the house to have sex, you really need to spice up your sex life. If it's a surface you can sit on or lay on, you can have sex on it. It's not complicated, people.
Showing posts with label bedtime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bedtime. Show all posts
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Friday, October 4, 2013
Late Nights
E and L could have stayed up all night tonight. They choose to go to bed at 9:30.
We have never had set bedtimes in our home. When they are babies, they usually nurse to sleep. Z still does at nearly 3. Sometimes in bed, but often on the couch while I watch tv or read or use the computer. As they have gotten older, we've done a variety of things to encourage sleep.
We've had routines of taking a bath, reading a book and laying down in bed together.
We've let them each pick a tv show, they watch it, and then we lay in bed together.
We've all camped on the living room floor with a movie and slept there for the night.
They've fallen asleep in the living room many times, and we've carried them to bed.
Sometimes we watch a show on the computer in bed, and they fall asleep.
Recently, we've had audio books on the computer in bed.
We've sang them to sleep, rocked them to sleep, scratched and massaged their backs, rubbed their heads or feet, played a relaxing game, and gone on late night drives.
We play all kinds of musical beds with our bed, their bunk bed and the couch. You never know who's going to be sleeping in which one, with whom, and for how much of the night.
It might sound chaotic, but it works. It accomplishes the things I believe to be the most important things about sleep.
1) that everyone sleeps as much as their body needs when it needs it.
2) that no one else is kept awake by someone else's lack of sleep late at night.
3) that they kids learn to associate sleep with good and peaceful things.
4) that they learn to recognize their own body's signals that it is tired.
Even though we've never had a set bedtime, we start heading in that direction at a reasonable time. Reasonable being defined as a time when they are tired, depending on if someone had a nap, depending on what is going on the next day, how much in need of alone time we are, etc. Heading in that direction being defined as lights off, sound down, snuggling in bed or on the couch, and otherwise creating a sleepy environment. Usually, they are asleep between 8 and 10.There have been plenty of times where one of the kids has told us they were ready for sleep.
Recently, E and L have started wanting to stay up "all night until the sun comes up." They stayed up until midnight or one for about 3 nights, and then D and I said we really needed some alone time. So we agreed that they could stay up as late as they wanted every Friday night. That worked until last Saturday, when E started getting really upset that she couldn't stay up late that night too. I admit I did not handle it so well the first few nights. I thought our Friday night deal was THE deal and I value the time I get alone with D. She did go to sleep, but it was not peacefully.
It was Sunday or Monday when she was having a tough time getting to sleep again, and I took a deep breath, reminded myself of my principles and told her we could figure out a solution. I had no idea what! All I could think of was that she would stay up late every night, and D and I would NEVER BE ALONE AGAIN. But I knew that kind of fearful thinking never leads to peace or working together, and we had to think of something.
So I asked her why staying up late was so important to her. She said that she never gets any time alone. I said she could go in her room or my room and be alone any time. She said it's not QUIET. She liked the peace and quiet and stillness of being up when everyone else was asleep.
What we came up with was a bit complicated, but she was thrilled. We decided to trade off every other night. One night she would go to bed like normal. The next night, she could stay up and have the living room all to herself for half an hour, while D and I hung out in the bedroom, quietly. And on Fridays, they could both still stay up as late as they wanted. To make this happen though, we all needed L and Z to be asleep. So we agreed that she wouldn't mention it to them, and would pretend to go to bed like normal on her staying up night. Then once they fell asleep, she could get up.
So we did that for a few nights, and it worked great! She loved it, and happily came to bed after her half hour and happily went to bed on the nights that D and I stayed up. Tonight is Friday, so E and L were excited to stay up. They asked me to play some video games with them, which I did. Then I said I was going to hang out in the bedroom. They wanted to come, first just to snuggle. But on the way down the hall, L said she knew she needed to go to the bathroom before bed. She wasn't planning on staying up. As soon as E laid down, she said said she was ready for bed, because she had "stayed up as late as [she] wanted."
That was at 9:30.
It's so true that when they get their needs met, whether it's a need for trying out something new, experimenting with how something makes them feel, or just for peace and quiet, they figure out what works for them, and it all balances out.
We have never had set bedtimes in our home. When they are babies, they usually nurse to sleep. Z still does at nearly 3. Sometimes in bed, but often on the couch while I watch tv or read or use the computer. As they have gotten older, we've done a variety of things to encourage sleep.
We've had routines of taking a bath, reading a book and laying down in bed together.
We've let them each pick a tv show, they watch it, and then we lay in bed together.
We've all camped on the living room floor with a movie and slept there for the night.
They've fallen asleep in the living room many times, and we've carried them to bed.
Sometimes we watch a show on the computer in bed, and they fall asleep.
Recently, we've had audio books on the computer in bed.
We've sang them to sleep, rocked them to sleep, scratched and massaged their backs, rubbed their heads or feet, played a relaxing game, and gone on late night drives.
We play all kinds of musical beds with our bed, their bunk bed and the couch. You never know who's going to be sleeping in which one, with whom, and for how much of the night.
It might sound chaotic, but it works. It accomplishes the things I believe to be the most important things about sleep.
1) that everyone sleeps as much as their body needs when it needs it.
2) that no one else is kept awake by someone else's lack of sleep late at night.
3) that they kids learn to associate sleep with good and peaceful things.
4) that they learn to recognize their own body's signals that it is tired.
Even though we've never had a set bedtime, we start heading in that direction at a reasonable time. Reasonable being defined as a time when they are tired, depending on if someone had a nap, depending on what is going on the next day, how much in need of alone time we are, etc. Heading in that direction being defined as lights off, sound down, snuggling in bed or on the couch, and otherwise creating a sleepy environment. Usually, they are asleep between 8 and 10.There have been plenty of times where one of the kids has told us they were ready for sleep.
Recently, E and L have started wanting to stay up "all night until the sun comes up." They stayed up until midnight or one for about 3 nights, and then D and I said we really needed some alone time. So we agreed that they could stay up as late as they wanted every Friday night. That worked until last Saturday, when E started getting really upset that she couldn't stay up late that night too. I admit I did not handle it so well the first few nights. I thought our Friday night deal was THE deal and I value the time I get alone with D. She did go to sleep, but it was not peacefully.
It was Sunday or Monday when she was having a tough time getting to sleep again, and I took a deep breath, reminded myself of my principles and told her we could figure out a solution. I had no idea what! All I could think of was that she would stay up late every night, and D and I would NEVER BE ALONE AGAIN. But I knew that kind of fearful thinking never leads to peace or working together, and we had to think of something.
So I asked her why staying up late was so important to her. She said that she never gets any time alone. I said she could go in her room or my room and be alone any time. She said it's not QUIET. She liked the peace and quiet and stillness of being up when everyone else was asleep.
What we came up with was a bit complicated, but she was thrilled. We decided to trade off every other night. One night she would go to bed like normal. The next night, she could stay up and have the living room all to herself for half an hour, while D and I hung out in the bedroom, quietly. And on Fridays, they could both still stay up as late as they wanted. To make this happen though, we all needed L and Z to be asleep. So we agreed that she wouldn't mention it to them, and would pretend to go to bed like normal on her staying up night. Then once they fell asleep, she could get up.
So we did that for a few nights, and it worked great! She loved it, and happily came to bed after her half hour and happily went to bed on the nights that D and I stayed up. Tonight is Friday, so E and L were excited to stay up. They asked me to play some video games with them, which I did. Then I said I was going to hang out in the bedroom. They wanted to come, first just to snuggle. But on the way down the hall, L said she knew she needed to go to the bathroom before bed. She wasn't planning on staying up. As soon as E laid down, she said said she was ready for bed, because she had "stayed up as late as [she] wanted."
That was at 9:30.
It's so true that when they get their needs met, whether it's a need for trying out something new, experimenting with how something makes them feel, or just for peace and quiet, they figure out what works for them, and it all balances out.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
How Sleep Happens Without Bedtimes
Sometimes when I've said we "don't have bedtimes," people have imagined chaos until midnight or later until exhausted kids eventually crash. I wanted to explain a bit of what we do at night. We don't have set bedtimes, where kids are in bed at a certain time of night, no matter what. We do support them, provide information, and create a sleepy environment. To me, that is different from saying "8 o'clock is bedtime, lay
down and sleep."
We have done different things at different times, depending on the ages of the kids, what shift D was working, the time of year, how much we need alone time, and what was working for their individual personalities at that time.
Most often, we have done a loose routine of dinner, clean up, play until they're looking/acting sleepy, put on a movie, and they fall asleep while watching it.
We have also done routines of dinner, clean up, play, read books/watch movie, then lay down in bed with them until they fall asleep.
If we need to go somewhere in the evening, my kids aren't phased by staying out late. They will fall asleep at someone else's house or in the car.
A few things I keep in mind:
1) The important thing is *sleep* not bed, and sleep can happen just about anywhere.
2) It has to be working for the whole family.
If dad has to get up early for work, his sleep is more important than their noise.
If mom is an introvert and needs that alone time, that's important. It doesn't make sense for tired kids to be cranky while mom needs to be alone. BUT if the kids are actually night owls, then maybe mom needs to find a different time to be alone. I get my alone time at different times- sometimes when D is home, I sneak away. Sometimes during the day while they are busy playing. Sometimes at night after they have gone to bed. Sometimes in the morning before they wake up.
If a kid is usually ready for sleep at 8, there's nothing wrong with doing a bedtime routine that gets them to sleep in bed by 8. But if they are still jumping around at 8:30, you might want to rethink that. Don't be stuck on 8 just because that's typical for kids that age or what your mom did for you or simply because it's convenient.
3) Provide information.
"We need to get to bed early tonight, because we've got to get up early to go to the museum with grandma."
"Mommy and daddy really need to be alone for a little while tonight."
4) Support them and create a sleepy environment. Turn lights off, sound down, snuggle and stop talking. My 6 year old talks non-stop sometimes, and I have said, "I'm done talking now." When I have kids who are clearly tired, but still jumping around, I've said, "It's time to relax now. We can watch a movie, read books or go to bed, but we need to be still." Then I help that happen by snuggling, rubbing their backs, etc.
5) Sleep patterns change with age, season, and what is happening in our lives. That's even true for many adults. If you are the type of person who has had the same routine for 20 years, this might not make sense to you, but try to understand. Sometimes I go to bed at 10 and get up at 6. Usually I sleep more like 11 or 12 to 7 or 8. Sometimes, I'm more of a night owl and sleep from 1 or 2 till 9 or 10. Kid's sleep needs change as well. Work *with* them, rather than insisting on the same thing every day. If a routine is working for everyone- great! If it stops working, do something else.
6) It's really important for them to learn to listen to their own body's signals for sleep. This takes time and patience, but it is really cool when a 4 year old says, "Mom, I'm tired and need to go to bed." If you've started out attachment parenting and letting your babies sleep when they are tired and wake when they are ready, it's easy to just continue this as they get older.
We have done different things at different times, depending on the ages of the kids, what shift D was working, the time of year, how much we need alone time, and what was working for their individual personalities at that time.
Most often, we have done a loose routine of dinner, clean up, play until they're looking/acting sleepy, put on a movie, and they fall asleep while watching it.
We have also done routines of dinner, clean up, play, read books/watch movie, then lay down in bed with them until they fall asleep.
If we need to go somewhere in the evening, my kids aren't phased by staying out late. They will fall asleep at someone else's house or in the car.
A few things I keep in mind:
1) The important thing is *sleep* not bed, and sleep can happen just about anywhere.
 |
| This is how they fell asleep the night I wrote this post. |
If dad has to get up early for work, his sleep is more important than their noise.
If mom is an introvert and needs that alone time, that's important. It doesn't make sense for tired kids to be cranky while mom needs to be alone. BUT if the kids are actually night owls, then maybe mom needs to find a different time to be alone. I get my alone time at different times- sometimes when D is home, I sneak away. Sometimes during the day while they are busy playing. Sometimes at night after they have gone to bed. Sometimes in the morning before they wake up.
If a kid is usually ready for sleep at 8, there's nothing wrong with doing a bedtime routine that gets them to sleep in bed by 8. But if they are still jumping around at 8:30, you might want to rethink that. Don't be stuck on 8 just because that's typical for kids that age or what your mom did for you or simply because it's convenient.
3) Provide information.
"We need to get to bed early tonight, because we've got to get up early to go to the museum with grandma."
"Mommy and daddy really need to be alone for a little while tonight."
4) Support them and create a sleepy environment. Turn lights off, sound down, snuggle and stop talking. My 6 year old talks non-stop sometimes, and I have said, "I'm done talking now." When I have kids who are clearly tired, but still jumping around, I've said, "It's time to relax now. We can watch a movie, read books or go to bed, but we need to be still." Then I help that happen by snuggling, rubbing their backs, etc.
5) Sleep patterns change with age, season, and what is happening in our lives. That's even true for many adults. If you are the type of person who has had the same routine for 20 years, this might not make sense to you, but try to understand. Sometimes I go to bed at 10 and get up at 6. Usually I sleep more like 11 or 12 to 7 or 8. Sometimes, I'm more of a night owl and sleep from 1 or 2 till 9 or 10. Kid's sleep needs change as well. Work *with* them, rather than insisting on the same thing every day. If a routine is working for everyone- great! If it stops working, do something else.
6) It's really important for them to learn to listen to their own body's signals for sleep. This takes time and patience, but it is really cool when a 4 year old says, "Mom, I'm tired and need to go to bed." If you've started out attachment parenting and letting your babies sleep when they are tired and wake when they are ready, it's easy to just continue this as they get older.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
What's Working
As part of living a mindful life, I like to assess every now and then what's working and what's not working. I don't want to get stuck in a rut of doing something one way just because it's easy or comfortable if it's not working out well for all the members of my family. I'm delving into this in the more personal areas of my life privately, but here I'll share the unschooling/parenting aspects.
WORKING: Food, tv, no bedtimes, cleaning and all of those major issues that people balk at when learning about radical unschooling. The way I handle these things has become so easy and natural now that I hardly even think about them.
Food:
I still think about nutrition when I shop and cook, but I don't stress about what they are eating. The only thing I am constantly aware of is E's corn allergy, but she is also very aware of it and we work together. I'm in the habit now of checking labels for corn, and other than the occasional slip up I just don't buy it. She has asked that if her daddy buys something with corn for himself that he will hide it so she's not tempted. Sometimes if she shops with me or if we are at someone else's house she will make the choice to eat corn and deal with how her body feels. I do encourage her not to and try to find other alternatives, but it's her body so the choice is ultimately hers. Besides her corn allergy, I just have an awareness in the back of my mind of what they have been eating and that triggers an occasional suggestion ("You've had a lot of cheese today, how about something with some fiber now so you don't get constipated.") but there's no stress or control associated with it.
Tv:
It's just a non-issue. When we lived in Oregon, I was very aware of making lots of other options readily available, so that they were watching tv if they really wanted to, but not just out of boredom. Now we can't afford cable, but we get movies from the library ever week, occasionally get redbox movies and they can watch things online. And they do, but here we have a yard for the first time and L is at an age now where they can really play well together. So they play together, often outside, most of the day if we are home. Then we put a movie on in the evenings before bed. Movies still spark lots of good conversations and interests.
No bedtimes:
We have an easy going routine that I lead and they follow of dinner, clean up time, brushing teeth and then a movie or books. They don't always fall asleep in the same place (couch or recliner or my bed or theirs) or in the same way (in front of a movie, after reading books I sing, or we all just lay down) or at the same time (I shoot for somewhere between 8 and 10 depending on whether or not D is home for me to spend time with him, how tired I am, how badly I want to be alone, whether or not L got a nap, how tired they are acting), but it works. Falling asleep is almost always a happy, relaxed time.
Cleaning:
This is another I lead and they follow thing. I set the example and get the ball rolling and they pitch in. We do a clean up time every evening and they do their part 9 out of 10 times. Well, I should say, E does. L doesn't quite as often, but she is more likely to help me during the day with laundry or cleaning the bathroom. E often cleans their room by herself with only verbal guidance from me. The last couple of days she has started washing dishes completely out of the blue.
Academic Learning:
I'm putting this is the working category, because they are learning a lot. E's birthday misses the cut off for compulsory school age by one day, so we do not have to be official until next year, which makes her technically a kindergartener. I don't use the arbitrary school standards as the benchmark for whether or not my kids are learning, but by next year, for legal purposes, I will have to be aware of them. If I were sending E to school, she would fit right in academically with first graders this year. However, I have been struggling with finding inspiration for things to do since we moved here. This town is simply not the bustling center of culture, art, music, and homeschooling activity that Portland is. And that leads into NOT WORKING:
WORKING: Food, tv, no bedtimes, cleaning and all of those major issues that people balk at when learning about radical unschooling. The way I handle these things has become so easy and natural now that I hardly even think about them.
Food:
I still think about nutrition when I shop and cook, but I don't stress about what they are eating. The only thing I am constantly aware of is E's corn allergy, but she is also very aware of it and we work together. I'm in the habit now of checking labels for corn, and other than the occasional slip up I just don't buy it. She has asked that if her daddy buys something with corn for himself that he will hide it so she's not tempted. Sometimes if she shops with me or if we are at someone else's house she will make the choice to eat corn and deal with how her body feels. I do encourage her not to and try to find other alternatives, but it's her body so the choice is ultimately hers. Besides her corn allergy, I just have an awareness in the back of my mind of what they have been eating and that triggers an occasional suggestion ("You've had a lot of cheese today, how about something with some fiber now so you don't get constipated.") but there's no stress or control associated with it.
Tv:
It's just a non-issue. When we lived in Oregon, I was very aware of making lots of other options readily available, so that they were watching tv if they really wanted to, but not just out of boredom. Now we can't afford cable, but we get movies from the library ever week, occasionally get redbox movies and they can watch things online. And they do, but here we have a yard for the first time and L is at an age now where they can really play well together. So they play together, often outside, most of the day if we are home. Then we put a movie on in the evenings before bed. Movies still spark lots of good conversations and interests.
No bedtimes:
We have an easy going routine that I lead and they follow of dinner, clean up time, brushing teeth and then a movie or books. They don't always fall asleep in the same place (couch or recliner or my bed or theirs) or in the same way (in front of a movie, after reading books I sing, or we all just lay down) or at the same time (I shoot for somewhere between 8 and 10 depending on whether or not D is home for me to spend time with him, how tired I am, how badly I want to be alone, whether or not L got a nap, how tired they are acting), but it works. Falling asleep is almost always a happy, relaxed time.
Cleaning:
This is another I lead and they follow thing. I set the example and get the ball rolling and they pitch in. We do a clean up time every evening and they do their part 9 out of 10 times. Well, I should say, E does. L doesn't quite as often, but she is more likely to help me during the day with laundry or cleaning the bathroom. E often cleans their room by herself with only verbal guidance from me. The last couple of days she has started washing dishes completely out of the blue.
Academic Learning:
I'm putting this is the working category, because they are learning a lot. E's birthday misses the cut off for compulsory school age by one day, so we do not have to be official until next year, which makes her technically a kindergartener. I don't use the arbitrary school standards as the benchmark for whether or not my kids are learning, but by next year, for legal purposes, I will have to be aware of them. If I were sending E to school, she would fit right in academically with first graders this year. However, I have been struggling with finding inspiration for things to do since we moved here. This town is simply not the bustling center of culture, art, music, and homeschooling activity that Portland is. And that leads into NOT WORKING:
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