When Your Kid Realizes Bedtime Is a Scam

I am well-aware that Wirecutter is a NYT enterprise. Our dog, Kurt - a German Shepherd - used to go to sleep with the sounds of an alarm clock in his ears. It sounded like a mother's heartbeat to him. At least that's what some wise old man told us. It worked. White noise likely works, too.

When my oldest daughter was around 6, she complained that she couldn't sleep at night because of the sound of the crickets (which were barely audible). So I bought her a noise machine with different settings (wind, white noise, rain, etc.). Which sound did she choose? Crickets. (But she slept, so whatever.)

compromise? seriously? the simple answer to 'why' is 'because I said so'

A couple of decades have passed since was raising children this young, but I'm pretty sure this is more "parent training" than "sleep training."

Every bedtime story I ever read or told to my two offspring and offspring's offspring ended with a character getting very, very tired. If such an event was not actually in the story, I exercised parental editorial intervention and added it. That sleepy character yawned (we'd practice yawning) and her/his/its eyelids got heavier and heavier and harder and harder to keep open. We'd practice letting our heavy eyelids fall and then opening them very slowly. The tempo of the story would get very, very s l o w, moving from andante to adagio, a creeping adagio. This program ALWAYS worked. One of us always fell asleep.

With my four (I had four children in five years) I did exactly what my parents did (they had five in five years with two additional much later). Until they were in junior high, all were in bed during fall, winter, and spring by no later than 8 - generally at 7:30. Bed followed a bath (clean children sleep better) and a story. They did not have to go to sleep but they needed to be quiet and stay in their rooms (there were no toys - just books and stuffed animals). I gated their rooms so doors were open and the hall light was on low for those "afraid of the dark". SInce we were early risers - out the door for the commute to school, work, and sitter by 6:30 - it was rare for anyone to be awake longer than fifteen minutes. When my grandchildren come to visit, I follow that same plan that I used for their parents. Amazing how consistency makes for happy children, happier, parents and grandparents.

Three words: room darkening blinds. In the summertime the room can still be very bright into the evening. Blinds down - dark room - signals time to sleep.

Having your kid only wake up at 4 every. Single. Night. I am sorry to say but is pretty good! You just don’t know how good you have it because of your number 1. My number 1 woke up every. Two. Hours. Full on screaming until 20 months. And sometimes took an hour to get back to sleep. Yes, we tried everything, trust me. Then every four. Now he sleeps 11. My number 2 only wakes up 1-2 times a night and it feels like a present. So just, know that someone always has it worse. The best present my colleague told me during the every 2 hour time was that he had a former colleague who had a child who woke up every 20 minutes, some type of sleep problem that didn’t have a cure. That shut my whining / poor me up pretty well.

My kids (8, 10, 12) all have the same bedtime, sort of. We all gather in the bedroom shared by the younger two, and I read them all a few chapters of a book. Next, I tuck in those two. Then I walk the oldest to his room, we get a couple minutes of conversation, and I give hugs and say goodnight. I double back to the others to "check on them." They all read on their own after I leave.

Want you kids to share a room without killing each other? Simple. Don't have any other option. I lived in India with middle class and working class (poor) people where entire families slept together on one mat (no beds) and the entire house was a single room. In summer we all slept on the roof. The problem is that every knife cuts two ways. The individualism and "independence" that we cherish here might b e intrinsically inimical to family values. And with that individualism comes an insane amount of self centeredness, self entitlement, narcissism. I am pretty sure at levels that exist nowhere else in the world. All i am saying is its a double edged sword. I am not so sure we need more experts hawking books with technqiues, so much as a little bit of honesty and common sense. And humility. Notice the family traditions of the poor here and abroad. My Indian friend who is very traditional, and a Biochem researcher at Salk, fed his kids by hand (out of affection) long after they could feed themselves (and did) and the entire family slept in one bed at least through prepuberty. Only had one bedroom. His kids fight. Sure. But they also have a keen keen sense of family i dont see so often w/White Americans

For those complaining about the moving graphic, here's a tip straight out of parenting 101: Pick your battles! There's great content here. Get past what annoys you and focus on the positive!

My parents would laugh hysterically at this column. We kids went to bed when they told us to go to bed because THEY TOLD US TO GO TO BED. There was no game-playing, no negotiation. We respected our parents and did as we were told. And we kids grew into successful adults who love our parents and had healthy relationships with them. What's wrong with that?

My three were all so different. The first, still a morning person, would go immediately to sleep and never had a sleep problem. My second, a night owl, needed lots and lots of reading and fought sleep, She's still not a morning person and suffers greatly getting up early for work. The last one extreme night owl and he too still struggles with waking up early, but could stay up all night. I thing biology really trumps training, but I realize that as parents, we need to get up and go to work in the morning, so I wish all newer parents well.

I'm looking forward to more editions of this. My take, father of three children--do what works for you. I am a firm (very firm) believer that there is not one right way (even when there have been studies) to parent your children. Don't compare to other parents and take any advice with a measure of cynicism if it doesn't seem to fit with your experience or feeling after careful consideration. Parenting is hard. Don't try to live up to unreasonable standards. Do what works for you. Love your kids, care about their wellbeing, and do what you think is needed. Good luck!

"When Your Kid Realizes Bedtime Is a Scam" That's all you need - to hear your child yell "FAKE SNOOZE!" Especially annoying, I should think, in kids with red hair who like to play Monopoly and gloat over the fact that they land on Pennsylvania Avenue after exaggerating their hidden cash reserves, and avoiding drawing the Go To Jail card ...

Don't overlook the possibility that abnormal sleep patterns might signal a special needs child. Horror stories? Our infant son slept between two and six hours a night, every night, no matter what we tried. He cried and screamed and was inconsolable--and he was completely healthy. My wife and I are both teachers, and we'd have to go to work after getting three hours of sleep...for two years. We finally put a sleeping bag on the floor next to him, and took turns sleeping in his room. He would wake up, start crying, then see one of us and lie down again. It broke the pattern, and he started sleeping. Then we had him assessed: He is a child with Autism. Shortly after, we started ABA therapy, which lasted nearly five years, 15 hours a week of home visits. Now he's is 11 and thriving, and he sleeps like a champ to this day. Just a bit of food for thought- if your child's sleep is terrible, seeing a behaviorist might be just the ticket.

It’s all about status. Letting the younger, more difficult kid go to bed after her older sister makes her feel important.

You casually say that you "barely had to sleep train", but the implication there is that you are an advocate of sleep training. I think the jury is still out on whether sleep training is the best approach. Will you consider covering this topic in a future newsletter?

Just wait until they are teenagers! It gets even worse . . . .

My "compromise" with a 4-year-old who didn't want to go to bed yet...I'll keep the hall light on, and you can read anything you want...but you have to be in bed. This made it seem (to her) like she was winning something. And invariably she'd be fast asleep in 15 minutes... Worked every time.

My husband and I never made any specific bedtime for our daughters. We instead taught them from early on the signs of being tired- yawning, grumpiness, lack of concentration. When they started exhibiting them we would reply "seems like you're ready for bed" and the nighttime routine would begin. When they got older we related the ability to wake up in the morning for school as part of the equation. We also established a "respect for those sleeping" policy and whenever the first person went to bed, any noise making device (games, tvs, stereo, etc) was shut off - adults included. When they got to be teenagers part of their going to bed at a reasonable hour centered around the "shutting down the house- taking out the dog, etc" jobs that needed to be done and not wanting to get stuck with having to do them. As a result my girls learned to self-regulate their own sleep needs and did very well and appear as recent college grads to be happy well-adjusted adults.

Your #2 and our #2 seem to have much in common. We dealt with the sleep issue thus; "I don't want to go to sleep!" "Oh goodness, no one says you have to go to sleep, just be in bed reading, you can stay awake for as long as you want to" Invariably he'd last about 10 minutes and we'd sneak in & turn off the light.

Some constructive criticism: You need to work on your external link placement or referencing. I didn't find there to be a strong connection from the "share a room article" link to the "get your kids to sleep" summary, so when I first read the email I was fairly disappointed by the lack of substance. Once I figured out that this was all covered in the main article, it clicked (no pun intended). All that said, I'm always happy to get more input on parenting techniques, so subscribe I shall!

When I was a child, my official bedtime was 8:00PM, but I could stay awake longer as long as I was reading. Since I've always had both night owl and bookworm tendencies, this was a perfect solution.

That's some rough -- and innovative -- bedtime juggling! Bedtime survived much longer in our house due to uniform bedtimes among younger and older (not always possible, I gather) -- or that's just how I remember it due to sleep deprivation from that era.

Long ago I realized many of the rules we setup for our youngsters are to serve the need of the adults/parents not necessarily the kids. Sleeping regiment is one of them. I recall that many moms would follow “baby Wise” regiment to make their baby sleep at certain time. They would let the baby cry for increaments of 10-20 minutes until they fall asleep. I cringed hearing babies cry for 20 minutes. If baby is crying, it means they need something. They need comfort, love, someting... I had no bedtime wars with my kid. Never. I let her dictate her schedule based on her needs. I picked her up when she cried. I let her play longer when she had energy. I let make decisions based on her body clock. The bedtime regiment is mainly for the convinience of parents to have their peaceful time. I’m a believer in collaborative parenting. Empowering kids with love and boundaries with assessed risks. What is the risk if my child goes to bed late? So what if they are tired next day? When kids resist, I do not insist. No need for power struggles. I stop and think, what am I trying to achieve? For whose benefit? Taking the time to address their needs help us to understand kids perspective is refreshing and insightful way. Listen, ask question, instill confidence, and guide them with values and tools. Build a collaborative relationship. Not authoritative. Not permissive. Not hierarchical.

For me, it's not about when they go to bed, or go to sleep. It's about the time at which the parenting is done for the day (unless they are bleeding or puking). If they are old enough to figure out it is a scam, they are old enough to quietly entertain themselves so that I can go do other things. So that's what I tell them: we did the bedtime routine. The parenting is done. Go away.

It took only three sentences for Ms. Grose to declare that this newsletter is for women (as a man, I don’t think about my “fertility”). That’s a pity, because there’s a male parent called a father who’d love to know that the writer of a parenting column is rooted in parenthood and not just motherhood. We’ll see what happens.

I am SO excited for this new parenting newsletter! It is refreshing to read and recognize issues written here. I have a seven-year-old and a three-month-old, but our broken nights never really went away, as our older child has struggled with sleep her entire life. BUT, a couple of nights being woken up by her younger sibling crying in the middle of the night has cured her! Now, she goes to sleep with ease, in her own bed and sleeps peacefully through the night. One down.

This worked for us 30 years ago with a sleep resistant child: she did NOT have to go to sleep, she just had to stay in bed. many nights she fell asleep (finally) with the lights on surrounded by crayons, books, toys. But the nightly power struggle stopped, we got to sleep and so did she. Now an adult she still needs very little sleep.

Great to know we’re not alone with the 9pm bedtimes! It’s a nightly challenge to settle our two little ones to sleep anytime earlier. If we do make it happen, it’s a big victory. Parents who get their children to sleep soundly by 7 or 7:30 are like characters in a fairy tale for us. Maybe one day. . .

This never-stopping icon is extremely annoying.

My kids are almost 4 years apart and they always had the same bedtime... When the big girl was in kindergarten, she needed to go to bed early to be ready for the next day, and the little one just needed to go to bed. 7:30 for both. We also had a long transition period: Dinner together, then both in the tub together, and then on my lap for stories. All leading to a more relaxing night for me.

This is very exciting. Wirecutter for parenting. WooHoo.

This is great, Jessica! My just-turned-3-year old was going through the same thing. We found that days he decides he's not napping are the days he falls asleep early, so we have done our best to iron out naps altogether. We started by reducing the nap times to an hour or less, and then my son just decided he never wants to nap at home anyway. Sometimes we get that dreaded late-afternoon crash, but we just wake him up after 20-30 minutes. He was never a great sleeper until he turned 2, so I get it! Good luck!

Excellent! We are expecting our first grandchildren (twins!) in June, and I hope you will spend some column space addressing the unique challenges for parents of pairs. I’m sending a link to this column to our daughter and son-in-law. I look forward to more. Maybe a podcast is in the works....?

The thumbnail .gif in this article hijacks one's attention away from the text. Please, NYT, keep moving graphics and text apart.

The content of this article is laudable, but I object strongly to the revolving, attention-demanding visual accompanying it. I'm trying to read other articles and the editor's picks sidebar shouts for my attention. Please don't set up visuals like this. And by the way, I haven't been a young parent for sixty years. Never had any problems with bedtimes.

We had friends who would tell horror stories of their kids getting out of their toddler beds constantly throughout the night and waking them up. We were lucky. It never occurred to either of our kids that they could leave their bed at night.

OK. So I realize I'm a baby boomer and have some troglodyte notions of child rearing, but what about she goes to bed because you tell her to -- and then you enforce that? No bribes, no tricks, no "deals". Just. Go. To. Bed. NOW. Worked for me and for all the kids I babysat. I realize that will probably scar her for life, but maybe she'll learn that there are consequences to not doing what she's told to do...

So this is Motherlode lite, without KJ and the warm and engaging commenting community that had grown over several years. It was a shame that the Times dismantled a good thing, only to have to rebuild from scratch.

I'm not a parent, but I have a question. Wasn't it counter productive to reward your child for not going to sleep by giving her "glasses of water, tummy rubs, hugs," etc.? By acquiescing, you were reinforcing the undesired behavior.

I have also been letting my younger child (almost 4) stay up later than my older (6). On weekdays she naps at daycare and isn't tired until later, while he's falling asleep standing up. Fortunately they aren't in the same room or I don't know how we'd get away with it. They are both really hard to get to sleep.

Why not just give bedtime an age and day-light saving time agenda? It worked for me. 1-3 years of age: 7:30pm except in the summer when they didn't have to go to bed until 8:30 but could choose to take a nap or lay in bed and play quietly in the afternoon if they were being grumpy. 3-5 years of age: 8pm except in the summer when it was 9pm. Same things about naps. 6-10 years of age: 8:30pm on a school night, but on non-school nights they could stay up until 10pm IF their room was clean and they didn't act like savages. 11-13 years of age: 9:30pm on school nights IF they homework and chores were done by 8pm. On non school nights they could stay up until 11pm but that would be chance back to 9:30pm if their grades faltered in school. If the teacher reported they were turning in incomplete homework assignments then ALL entertainment was shut off until they brought that grade back up. 14-18 years of age: 11:30pm, on school night as long as I didn't have to pour cold water on them to wake them up. They curfew was midnight on non-school nights but they could stay up and read until dawn as long as they understood that they would have to get their chores done the following day before they were allowed to play games, bicycle, talk to friends on the phone, visit friends, go to activities. For the most part it worked pretty good.

I did not read the article, but the animated photo for this article under "Editors' Picks" on the sideline of the article I was reading is very annoying.

How do I turn off this graphic? It's very distracting as I try and scan the front page.

the circling graphic is very distracting and more than a little irritating

The ad for this column is beyond annoying. Please stop that thing from going around and around!

Please turn off that bundle of blue fuzz circling the child's bed. It's making me dizzy while I try to read the NYT on line. Thank you

NYT, please get rid of the animated GIF on the "teaser" for this article—visible on most of today's NYT webpages. It turns reading every other story on your website into a distracted slog. Thie is the Times, not an arcade game.

I can’t say I am excited for this column. The New York Times has been a refuge from parenting for me, a place where I can come and not be told what I should be doing with my kids or passive-aggressively judged in print for decisions I make on their behalf. I don’t want to read about how this one mom puts her kids to bed. I already have friends that I ask, and a pediatrician who is definitely more highly trained and than the author. The Times should report on AAP recommendations and safety, not interpret those advisories or offer commentary on them. For example, this author mentions that the AAP recommends keeping the infant in the same room as parents (in a separate bed) for the first year. She could have linked to the multitude of research studies that back up (this and all) AAP advisories. Instead she links to a column about why parents should disregard the AAP’s recommendation. How is this unbiased journalism ? With this column the Times is essentially given a platform to mom/dad-on-the-street to share their layperson opinions, when every parent knows that the opinions of other parents are freely given out daily on the street without solicitation. Wouldn’t it be a better use if space to invite an actual expert to write?