I will not start this by saying that bedtime is a smoothly oiled machine in my house. I have a three and a half year old son and an 18 month old daughter, so there are plenty of antics. Like any parent of small children I have carried sopping wet, screaming and kicking toddlers from the bath and into their rooms, forced pajama's on them, shut off the light, closed the door and prayed on the other side that they wouldn't come pounding on the door the next moment, and they usually do. However, bedtime is not a place where I give in easily.
Other parents have different philosophies when it comes to bedtime. Their children stay up with them until the wee hours in the morning sometimes. Hours are spent getting drinks, bathroom breaks, new stuffed animals, one more story, one more show etc... before the kid finally collapses into their bed. Or the kids never even make it to their own beds and snuggle up with mom and dad in the big bed. These things don't work for me, but who am I to judge if they work for you?
For us though, getting those kids to bed at a decent hour is absolutely essential. The reason it is essential is not for the kids though. It's for us, for my husband and I. Sure there are probably benefits to getting kids into a regular sleep schedule, and refusing to give up and let them dictate the situation likely has some good discipline and life lesson benefits as well. But in the end it comes down to the preservation of our marriage that makes me so determined to win this battle.
Evenings are family time in our house. My husband works long hard hours but is home most nights in time for dinner so I always try to make sure that the few hours we have each night go well. We eat dinner, all of us, at the table. After dinner everyone chips in on clean up. If there is time my husband and son will watch some television together then the bedtime routine starts. Bath's if necessary, brushing teeth, changing diapers and taking potty trips, determining what to wear to bed (here I am ultra flexible, as long as it isn't going to strangle them while they sleep I pretty much allow whatever they want), bedtime stories and songs... then the lights go out and it is officially sleep time. For the kids that is.
When their evening with dad ends my evening with my husband begins. This is a special time for my husband and I. We have a Netflix account and always have a show that we are binging on, luckily we have enough common interest in television shows to make this possible. So we get something to drink and maybe snack on, grab a blanket and snuggle up on the couch to watch an episode or two of our latest fix (currently we are into the original Star Trek series). We talk during the show, about the show, about our friends and family, about the kids, about work, about whatever weird thing we read on the internet or heard on the radio... whatever. We talk, we snuggle, we watch TV. We have been doing this since before we even started dating. Back when we were just college friends we did this, and I wanted to make sure we didn't lose it just because we had kids.
It doesn't always work out perfectly, life never allows that. Just last night Star Trek had to be stopped twice to tend to my son before he finally settled down. But each time he was redirected to his room and we came back downstairs and picked up where we left off. The important thing is that we are trying, trying to connect with each other each day and trying to keep alive the memories of when we were young and so much in love we couldn't even fathom being apart. We need this time, so our children must get to bed.
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