One of the most common challenges parents face is the bedtime battle. As a mother of three-year-old twin daughters I have experienced a lot of difficulties with getting my children to bed. I’ve read books and articles, I’ve watched parenting shows and still hadn’t found anything to be effective with my daughters. Finally, after days of relentless battling and struggling I implemented my own bedtime technique based on a few different sources I’ve read.
The first step is setting a routine. With my daughters we have established a nap time of 1:30 and a bedtime of 8:00. I start the routine about 45 minutes before bedtime, just because we are still in the early stages of this process and it does take us some time to get ready to go to bed.
Pick exactly what you want in your routine; remember you cannot change this later so try not to make it too long. In our house the kids first get changed into their pajamas, then brush their teeth, get a quick drink of water and go to the bathroom. I choose to incorporate these into the bedtime routine because they were the most common requests from the children once they were in their room. Next we go into their bedroom and they each pick out one book. We read the books, they get tucked into bed, get quick backrubs, a hug and a kiss and they are off to bed.
Next comes the fun part (yes, that was sarcastic). The kids generally stay in bed for a few minutes before starting to pull every excuse in the book to get out of bed. Remember, you have included everything they need in your bedtime routine, do not give in now. I completely ignored the children until they came out of their room. Then I simply take them by the arm (sometimes kicking and screaming), put them back into bed, say “it is time to go to bed” and walked away. They key is not altering your behavior at all during this time. The first time I tried this it took the kids 49 minutes to fall asleep and there were many “It is time to go to bed” reminders. It got a little ugly at times but I stuck to the same response and did not alter my behavior one bit. After a couple of days your children will be sure to go to bed without a hitch.
