Procrastinet

The Saga of "Big Boy Bedtime"

filed under: Dadditudes

I had a dream the other night, where I suddenly found myself on a long set of railroad/subway tracks with walls on either side. There were three or four different tracks, and a train was coming from around the bend. I didn't know which track it was on, or where to go to get away from it, or how I'd gotten there to begin with.

Which reminds me of Max's bedtime.

Here's why: somehow, and we don't know exactly how, we made a tragic error in the rearing of our child. We allowed him to get in the habit of going to sleep only with one of us lying down with him.

The most effective way to get him to fall asleep is for the attending parent to fall asleep first. I have a weird built-in snooze function, and usually pop awake again after precisely 12 minutes. But when Lisa goes down, she tends to be out for the night.

We first tried to address this issue over a year ago, tagging the idea of "Big Boy Bedtime" to his 3rd birthday. We branded the parent-assisted method as "Baby Bedtime" and talked for a long time about doing away with it. Baby Bedtime prevailed in a storm of sobbing and tantrums.

This time, we decided to attach Big Boy Bedtime to the start of Pre-K, to avoid another bedtime bugaboo: the nap. Max doesn't nap at home anymore (weekends, vacations) but he still napped at preschool. Even a short nap pushed his fall-asleep time from it's god-intended 8:30/9pm to 10:30/11pm. Which, let us say, drastically impacts Mommy and Daddy's quality of life.

So for weeks I've been prepping him for the return of Big Boy Bedtime. I proposed a new way to ease into it: we'd read two stories, sing two songs, and then I'd leave for five minutes while he tried to Big Boy himself to sleep. If he was awake after 5 minutes I'd come back. The second night would be 6 minutes, etc.

Max has been stoked about this plan for weeks. He knew September 10 was the date. We woke up Monday morning and he immediately shouted "Big Boy tonight!" This is going to be CAKE, I thought.

So Monday night we get ready for bed after his bath. "Two stories!" he shouts. "Two songs!" I shout back. "And then... BIG BOY BEDTIME!" we chorus together. Nice.

We do our two stories. We sing our two songs. He snuggles up with Pearl Bearley and Baby Pearl, and I kiss him good night.

"Oh..." he says, like he's just remembered something.

"You're okay, buddy," says me, heading for the door.

"Daddy!" he says, panicked.

"You're okay. I'm very proud of you. You can do this." He flops back down and snuggles up with the Pearls and I ease the door shut.

I wait a moment outside the door, then head for our room. It's 9:12 pm, and our boy is in bed by himself. A brave new world, one where we can watch movies and tv and have sex and actually see each other dawns before my mind's eye. "Well," I say to Lisa, beaming proudly, "now we'll..."

Behind me, Max's door opens.

And there's our little guy in our doorway, clutching Big Pearl, Baby Pearl and his pillow. He has the stoic face on that he wears when he's truly upset - eyebrows up, eyes wide and brimming with tears, mouth pulled down in a cartoon frown and chin quivering.

"Daddy?" he says, tears starting to streak down his cheeks. Then he climbs up in our bed and lies down.

So much for Big Boy Bedtime Take 1. I comfort him and get him back in his room, wind up my childhood teddy bear Theodore, with the music box innards singing "Teddy Bear's Picnic," and promise to stay with him for five minutes then try again. He relaxes a bit while I count down the minutes and rub his back. After five, I kiss him goodnight again, and ask if he's ready. He nods.

I get up to head for the door. He gets up and follows me.

"Okay," says me. "Let's try something else. If we can't do Big Boy, let's do Middle Boy."

"What's Middle Boy?" he asks.

"It's where you lie in bed and I'll sit in your chair. I'll still be in the room with you. Okay?"

He nods. I tuck him in and sit in the chair, with my feet on his mattress. He climbs out of bed, pulling his pillow onto the floor, and lies down under my legs.

"What are you doing, buddy?" I ask.

"I'm going to sleep below you."

I sigh and get him back into bed. "Okay," says me, "how about Lower Middle Boy? I'll sit at the foot of your bed..." So I did. He rested for a moment, then got up to leave.

"Where are you going?"

"Your room."

"But," I say, "if you leave I'll be in here alone and I'll be lonely."

His eyes soften. "Awww," he says. "I'll give you a hug..." he says gently, resting his head in my lap like a little faun, "...on my way OUT."

And he's gone.

From the other room I hear Lisa laughing so hard she almost falls out of bed.

Finally, at about 10:15pm, he went to sleep by the Lower Middle Boy Bedtime method. Patent pending.

Sigh.

We later discovered a partial culprit - he had taken a nap at pre-K. NOOOOO! Turns out, during "quiet time," he sits with a book and nods off. Rather than pinch him awake, the teacher let him take a 15 minute nap. Not as bad as before, but still good for a 10pm bedtime. Double sigh.

Last night, having already given him the Big Boy Bedtime reward (a black-and-white cookie) for achieving Lower Middle Boy Bedtime, I encouraged him to move up to Middle Boy, to get a new treat (ah, bribery). So around 10pm he fell asleep with me in the chair and my foot resting against his (which was the only way to get him to stay in bed rather than back under my legs on the floor).

Tonight I'm at Youngblood, so we'll see if Mommy can pull off Middle Boy. From there, we can prepare our assault on the summit of Big Boy Bedtime, like failed climbers attempting Everest again...

Posted by rjt at September 12, 2007 02:48 PM