Nighty-night, Sleep tight....

Bedtime....
Parents pine for it.
Children resist.
They battle, for some inexplicable reason, this precious opportunity for rest and recuperation. While there must be a plausible explanation, it continues to evade and baffle exhausted parents to this day.
Does the paranoid mind of a child feels panicked to relinquish conscientiousness?
Do they suffer from separation anxiety?

Very, very early on, I would guess as early as day four of life, once the brain-compressing trauma of entry into the world has passed, a baby begins to convey opinions regarding how, where and when they will sleep.
And, so it begins...
Any parent who believes they will draw a line in the sand about how a baby shall sleep, will immediately be tested as to their resolve.  Baby wants held, carried, swayed, bounced, rocked, driven in a vehicle at no less than 49 mph sans stop lights...  Baby can only sleep swaddled, or in a Moby, or car seat, swing, Boppie, mommy and daddy's bed....  Baby needs binkie, blankie, stuffed orangutang, music, air purifier, a mobile, an aquarium, and lets not forget: a breast...  You name it, baby wants it, or will develop the preference for it, if not throttled or squelched.


One would think a creature in need of no less than 20 hours of sleep per day, wouldn't want to put up much of a fight.  One would also think a baby, weighing less than a bag of potatoes, with the eyesight of a mole, would be easy to control.  Did you know that a young child may fire an estimated 1 quadrillion synapses per day in their abnormally large heads?  Why wouldn't they just pass out from utter mental exhaustion?  What's the deal?  Why can't they just be like a cat and curl up to the fat laziness of it all?  It's the only time in life that a person is entitled to sleep their days away--the only time people around you will beg for you to nap.

I started training my firstborn to fall asleep on her own on day five of her life.  Standing beside her bassinet, to reassure her of my presence, patting and soothing, I faithfully followed the guidance of a "baby whisperer"...at least that's what the book called her.  Grandmothers stood outside the bedroom door, pacing and wringing hands at the absurdity of leaving an innocent, newborn--their newborn, mind you--to cry and flail.  But, eventually she did it.  I could lay her down, tip-toe out of sight and admire the sight of a baby drifting quietly to sleep.

Still...it didn't last forever.  She got older, gained more awareness and increased her mobility.  By the time she was school-aged, she developed a weird sleep-walking thing and wandered a lot during the night.  We developed an awareness of where we stepped when we got out of bed so as not to step on her body curled and twisted with blankets on the floor.

Still, all my kids have slept through the night since they were eight weeks old, that is...when we manage to get them to bed.  They're not babies anymore, so we don't physically carry them to bed.  They use their own legs.  Legs that apparently need a GPS to find their bedroom.  And, while we do have an established bed time...it still doesn't mean much, not in practical terms anyway.

Asking the children to "get ready for bed" usually falls on deaf ears.  Not to get off topic, but the ears of a child are fascinating in their function.  I can whisper from the opposite end of the house a plan involving family fun, the misbehavior of a child, or the topic of dessert, and they crawl out of the woodwork, tipped-off from their super-human hearing. When I test the hearing of my children, I simply say "ice-cream."  I will say it randomly, as a normal adult would speak in a library, and it never fails to expose the perfection of their young, tight eardrums.

Bedtime is not a Hallmark commercial around here.  We would literally have to start the bedtime "routine" at 6:00 to make the soft-lit-bedtime-story-giggle-and-tickle-in-a-quilt-made-by-grandma moment with four children.  I often wonder how many parents literally "tuck in".....every night.  We are probably failing our children in this regard.  Our "tuck in" process isn't exactly consistent or "tender."  It is random and contingent on circumstance.  Some days end too late.  Some days are too fatiguing.  But, some nights we cuddle deep in blankets and read and talk and pray.
 
Getting to that place, though, is only after the period of time in which they bump around confused, splintering off and dividing to create diversion and chaos, so that two parents find it challenging to herd them all in the same direction.  It buys them time.  They are so young that they have enormous quantities of time to burn.  Time is the one true advantage they always have over us.  No one on the planet has more time ahead of them than a baby or young child.

More often than not, we prod and plead for the children to go to bed....with clean teeth, which is usually way too much to ask.  And, once the bathroom sink and mirror are adequately splattered in toothpaste and spit, and clothes, still warm from their bodies, are strewn about the bedrooms, we make our parental appearance to button up the process and inspect for pets or siblings hidden in unauthorized beds.  Cheeks and foreheads are kissed and shoulders are hugged, love expressed and requests for water denied.  This is when they reveal an injury or illness that has suddenly become too much to bear.  We will inspect for fever or pus, but, otherwise, relegate such matters to the light of morning.

It's quittin' time, that's what bedtime is.  The official end of a parental work day.  I announce, "It's quittin' time, people!  I don't get paid overtime, so no getting out of bed!"  But, they do.  I'm always amazed at their brazen need to interrupt the only time we have to ourselves, although I have also told them it's "party time," when the cake and brownies and ice cream, oh, yes, ice cream comes out, and dad and I party while they lie captive in their rooms.  Sometimes this is true.  We have been known to bust out some snacks, fire up the internet, with a book at our side, and by the flicker of the TV, we end up dozing off in our exhaustion, until we pull ourselves up and stumble off to bed.  Grateful.  Falling head-first into the down and Egyptian cotton of our bed, only to wake up in the morning, anticipating bedtime to come again.