The Stages of Bedtime
My toddler, my Whoops Baby, wasn’t always a terrible sleeper. Clear up to 18 months old, the bedtime routine for our little cherub was to put her in her pack-n-play, turn off the lights, turn on the noise maker and say “Nigh-night!” before closing the door to our walk-in closet.
Apparently, she has been playing the long game because it’s been a full year now what I call “the Stages of Bedtime.” This is anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours of acrobatics, and I am so tired of it.
I am a simple woman. If I was a complex wind-up toy of some kind, you could power me up by putting bacon into some hatch between my shoulder blades, or slotting tacos directly into my mouth. And when I wind down, for God’s sake leave me wound down for at least 8 hours a day.
Whoops Baby doesn’t understand this, apparently. Tonight as I sat in the doorway to her new room (another closet, this time her brother’s) I realized that she views me as some sort of emcee for bedtime, or possibly a martial arts instructor.
Stage 1: The Wind-down. God bless my husband, but if he’s in charge of bedtime, it doesn’t go much past Stage 1. He has an entire lovely bedtime routine that involves singing songs in German and telling little stories and whispered I-love-you-so-much-es, and his grand finale is…falling asleep. I’m not mad about it; he’s been falling asleep during this routine since 2012. Eventually I’ll hear a door open and see a baby walk out of their room in their footie pajamas and I say, “Oh, did you put Daddy to bed?” and the kid proudly says, “Yep!”
Adam will sometimes forgo this routine entirely, to the same result. I’ll walk in our room an hour later to see Whoops Baby staring slack-jawed at Miss Rachel on the screen while Adam madly tries to finish his homework (fall asleep to her favorite show? Whoops Baby would never).
WB is neurodivergent and doesn’t transition well between activities, so my gift to myself on a school night is to have her bathed and dressed in tomorrow’s clothes. So my routine is this: (sometimes) a bath, clean clothes, teeth brushed, and then to bed.
Stage 2: The Pointer. WB goes willingly enough into her little closet bed. I lay her down on her little mat, tucked around with a robot quilt my dear friend Toni made for my firstborn in 2011. She has her special pillow and blanket and stuffies. I lay her down and tuck the blanket around her feet, just like Grandma Anne does in daycare. I take my position 18 inches away, propped across the open doorway.
Then WB stands up and makes like a pointer dog, beginning what looks like a spear tackle at close range, so I catch her in midair right beneath the armpits. I then lay her back down on her mat, and we repeat this action for up to 30 minutes straight.
Stage 3: The Scissor Legs. I have never had a child who wouldn’t lie down for me until WB. Even for diaper changes, if WB suspects she is about to descend to the earth, she will stick one foot behind her and lock her knee. Her feet now jammed akimbo like an open pair of craft scissors, my next move is to lift her slightly off her feet and try the move again, like a moron. After three attempts she is giggling and I am starting to break a sweat, so I’ll lift her high and fast, bringing the back of her heels into contact with the ground first so she doesn’t have time to lock her knee.
WB uses Scissor Legs to great effect when we’re battling at bedtime, and every time she thwarts me lying her physically back down, she thinks it’s hilarious.
Stage 4: The Slow-Mo Carnie. At some point WB is tired of lunging directly at me in a bid for freedom, so she will decide to climb over me through the open door. I’m trying to keep things uninteresting for her so she doesn’t think it’s a game (ha! fat chance!) so at this point I sit up cross-legged, completely blocking the door, and close my eyes. I’m big and tall enough that she can’t get past me.
Not to be deterred, WB steps her feet on my folded knees and hoists herself up until her tummy is balancing on my shoulder. At this point I’m worried about her high-centering herself at that elevation (or worse, falling) so I pull her off my shoulder and try to place her back in her bed.
Because she’s already mostly bent in half for this move, I don’t have Scissor Legs to worry about. Instead, she goes into Slow-Mo Carnie mode where she tries to inchworm through the gap between the top of my lap and the bottom of my arm, stretched across the doorframe. This is a move that makes me doubt everything I ever knew, like “I wanted to have children, several of them” and “I am stronger than a toddler.” I have to narrow that gap and then hold her, gently but firmly, and sort of pretzel her into herself so she will fit back into her bed again. At this point she is giggling again. Repeat ad nauseum.
Stage 4: Bargaining. At this point WB realizes I’m not going to quit, so she starts asking for each of her siblings by name. She asks for “Sweetheart” (my husband). She asks for a drink of water, a bowl of cereal, a tortilla, and she starts to cry real tears. I hold firm, but she’s finally lying down at this point, so I go into Slow-Mo.
Stage 5: Slo-Mo Singing. I know I’m supposed to keep it boring, so this is my contribution to the process. When I have gone into Slo-Mo Singing, a board book can take anywhere from 5-8 minutes to complete reading. The Itsy-Witsy Spider will take 90 seconds to complete. My rationale is this: WB is like me in only one respect: when she decides to sleep, she will wink out immediately. If I can drag out the activity until it becomes interminably boring for just long enough, sleep will claim her between one of the waves of mania. (Note: this has rarely worked, except in the car. But I am out of options.)
Stage 6: Hardball. My temper is outrageous at all times, but with years of practice I keep it at a pretty low simmer, even at bedtime. But after an hour plus of shenanigans, this is usually where the castle drawbridge is starting to come down and allow over a big bunch of bloodthirsty crusaders. So, with my remaining strength, I invoke the dreaded mantra: “If you don’t choose to lie down, I have to close the door.”
I usually only have to close the door once before she is ready to admit defeat. When the door comes back open, WB lies down on her bed, crying in resignation.
Once she’s lying down and rolls to her side, facing away from me, I know it’s over.
The Stages of Bedtime are Complete.