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Bedtime Battles. Now there is a term I never thought would apply to my toddler. I was going to school her in being a perfect angel, the way a good mother should, teaching her that bedtime means listening sweetly to a story, kneeling next to the bed with her hands together to say her prayers (not forgetting to bless Mommy and Daddy), giving us both a kiss goodnight, and rolling over and going to sleep. After which we would have a glass of wine, before enjoying a Jamie Oliver style meal prepared by my loving hand.
And then I actually had her. I could say with absolute honesty that bedtime battles in my house started at age 1 hour. Being a colicky baby, Megan was not much of a sleeper. Gone were my ideas of putting her quietly in her cot to enjoy an evening of peace. Bedtime at age one hour meant walking the passage for a couple of hours, hoping the screaming (hers) and tears (mine) would stop anytime before nine pm, at which time instead of that glass of wine, my husband would put her in the car and drive for a few more hours to get her to sleep (only for her to wake up the minute he pulled into the driveway… sound familiar?). Things improved at about month six, by which time there were no longer any tears, but bedtime meant pacing up and down the passage for at least an hour (usually more), and then s-l-o-w-l-y putting her in her cot, hoping against reason that she wouldn't wake up the second I moved my arms out from under her… and if I was lucky she actually held out until I got to her bedroom door.
Things were looking up. By a year we managed to do away with the pacing. Our bedtime routine now involved patting. Lots and lots of patting. Sitting on the floor next to her cot, with one arm pushed in an unnatural angle through the slats, patting and patting and patting, swopping arms and positions occasionally to avoid complete dislocation of the wrist. If after half an hour I had not emerged for that promise of the cork popping, hubby would come and take over, and so started the patting shifts. And patting was a fine art too, something they should teach in antenatal classes. You need to learn to slowly decrease the force and momentum of the pat, to a point where you can actually move your arm away without baby noticing that you have in fact stopped… and timing is critical. Slow down and stop too soon and you need to start from scratch.
At about age two and a half, with baby number two on board, we decided that Megan was ready for a bed… or more accurately, we needed the cot for the baby. So after much hunting we found what we were looking for, moved the new bed, toybox, bookcase and pedestal into her brand new room with new curtains, duvet, the whole shebang, and what turned into pretty much the best room in the house. Megan was so excited with her new room, and going into a ‘big girl's bed', until about 7pm that is when she realised that yes, she had to actually sleep in it. After much negotiation the toybox was moved out and the cot moved in, so that she could spend a few nights in her new room in the familiarity of her cot, before being moved to the bed. Well inevitably a few nights turned into a few weeks, and eventually one day while she was at school the fairies came to take away her cot (i.e. put it in the roof for just long enough for her to forget that it was hers) and after a night or two she was happily installed in her new bed.
The end of the bedtime battles at last. You'd think. Oh no. Now she was a big girl. With a will. And the power to leave the bed. And the room. And with a mommy who would do anything for her to go to sleep. And so started “one more story”, “another prayer”, “no I don't want the pink blanket, I want the green blanket”, and the latest, as I walk out the door, “Mommy, I'm hungry!” We tried a star-chart, but unless the reward was NOW! she wasn't interested in adding them up. So we struck a deal. With the fairies. For every night that she went to sleep without a battle, the fairies would bring her a picture on her wall and a sweetie next to her bed. Well it cost me a load of paper, ink cartridges and time surfing the net for the most obscurest of requests (“Mommy, I want a picture of a frog”), but it worked. She now has a wall covered in pictures, but has thankfully now settled for just a sweetie every night. And on the odd night that she plays up, she comes to me the next morning and informs me that the fairies didn't bring her a sweetie because she didn't want to sleep last night.
And as for being hungry every night? Well a piece of cucumber won't hurt…
© Sally Hetherington .
