Those were the hashtags I used last night as I live tweeted our bedtime battle. We all got kinda relaxed over the summer - the kids are older (10 and 8) and we let them stay up later. It got out of control when we went to the beach. Since returning (early August) Katy hasn't fallen asleep in her bed OR stayed in her bed for the whole night. Once school started, I would BEG her to come in my bed so we could all get to sleep. Let's face it, 8 year olds need more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep. (And I couldn't fight her at bedtime for hours and hours each night.)
Fast forward to Saturday. DH came and sat in my office and I ended up venting my spleen on him. I just let it all go. (It has been building up for quite a while.) He acknowledged that we had some real issues that needed to be addressed. So we planned out a family meeting. (I'll have to blog that separately. It was.... interesting.)
So the plan developed at the family meeting was this:
8:00 Showers
8:30 Nightly reading
9:00 Lights out, I sit in the hall in my comfy chair while the kids fall asleep
We moved the chair, my laptop was charged, and I downloaded some e-books just in case. And I commenced to tweet some of my hardest parenting moments to date. (I'll lead off with a few tweets from Saturday and earlier Sunday to set the mood...)
The tweets tell the tale. We were at it for 3 hours (after the final tweet, DH and I swapped one last time - after I password locked Katy's computer. I had taken some Tylenol PM and don't remember much.) Unbelievable!
Thankfully, I had some great friends on Twitter sending support from all over the place - @LiberalGranola, @3catsandababy, and @CarelessCampers were wonderful. Knowing that there are other parents out there, going through similar stuff at one time or another really helped me stay strong.
I'm hoping tonight will be ever-so-much better - after all, can it really get worse?
No, wait! Don't answer that!
(You can follow the action for the next few nights by following the #bedtimesucks hashtag. It doesn't appear to be used often and really suits the situation.)
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