Working evening/nights, and bedtime woes... Xpost in nighttime parenting

[major_mama11]

I work PRN, usually just 1-2 shifts a week, as a nurse. Since I'm PRN, I basically fill in the holes in my unit's schedule, which often means working some odd hours, like midnight to 6 am, or 4 pm to midnight. This schedule works well for our family overall, since I'm able to sign up for shifts at times when my husband will be home to care for the kiddos, thus avoiding finding childcare costs. DH is great with the kids; we probably have a more equitable child care balance between us than any other couple I know...

HOWEVER: DH *does not* do bedtime. It is the one thing where he seems to have a complete blind spot. DD (4) will be clearly exhausted, tantruming, obviously (to me) in need of just going to bed, and he will put in a movie for her instead of putting her to bed, or take her to his computer to watch Youtube movies. Movies don't usually put her to sleep, they just keep her up longer. For a while, when I was still on mat leave, both kids were going to bed before 9 every night, and it was SO AWESOME to actually have time to relax a bit after the kids were in bed, but keeping this routine just seems to not be a priority to DH.

Our kids both tend to be night owls if not actively encouraged to sleep; DD is not at all the type of kid to crawl up in my lap, say, "I'm tired," and promptly fall asleep with no input from me (this is how my nephew is, and it makes me jealous!). She has to be walked through a certain routine, or else she is just up till all hours.

(When I'm home, his inability/refusal to put her in bed isn't a huge issue, since I do intervene in this and put her to bed myself, assuming I'm not nursing my boobaholic infant at the time )

The other night, I worked till 2 am, and came home to find out that both kids had been up till 1 am. I think they both just finally passed out from exhaustion.

Just when the kids get on a reasonable bedtime (by which I mean 9:30-10 pm-ish, for our family), I work an evening or night shift, and then it takes me all week to get them back on a normal bedtime again. And then I work an evening shift again. Then they're set to stay up late again. Rinse. Repeat.

Is this just something I'm going to have to do my best to work around? DH does help walk the baby to sleep, but he just won't put DD in her bed unless she passes out on the couch first from exhaustion. He gets really annoyed if I suggest he put DD to bed while I nurse the baby to sleep, which makes a lot more sense to me. Working different shifts is just not an option at this point, as the only shifts available are usually the ones that make me miss bedtime.

Any suggestions, or do I just need to stop whining??

[mamaofprincesses]

We went through this too, when I started working part-time two nights a week. One of the things that helped my DH was Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It's not very AP, because he does advocate CIO, but it does a good job of explaining how sleep works in children, and why it is important. I'm sure there are other sleep books that do that as well. DH wouldn't actually read the book, but I would read it and summarize parts. I really wanted him to understand how beneficial it was to our DC to not be over-tired.

The other angle I worked for motivation was kid-free time. As in, "if the kids are in bed at 9 every night you have a couple of hours FREE!" That was a major motivator for DH, as he really needs his down time.

Once I had him on-board with the idea, then I worked to help him learn the kids' routine. Ours is pajamas, snack, brush teeth, read stories, say prayers, lights out.

That was two years ago, and now DH is a pro. Any idea what will motivate your DH?

[major_mama11]

Thanks for the book suggestion; I will look it up! He won't read parenting books, but he might listen if I summarize it without mentioning where exactly I got my info.

Yes, I think the idea of a couple hours kid-free (or just more sleep for himself) would motivate him... it's kind of annoying that I have to spell it out for him, but I guess that's just the way he is. He tends to get a defeatist attitude about the late bedtimes, saying that the kids just "aren't the type" to go to bed early, no matter what we do.

Maybe I just need to remind him that they *were* going to bed early during my mat leave. He kind of has a short memory for that sort of thing...

Thanks for responding, it's encouraging to know that someone else has BTDT and gotten their DH on board!

[mamaofprincesses]

I hope you can convince him. I know there are mamas on here whose families all go to bed late (and usually sleep late, or nap) and it works great for them. But for our family, life got much more pleasant when the kids were in bed by nine. Neither of my DDs nap anymore, and if they don't go to bed at a decent hour they are grouchy and tired. I think almost anyone can reset their clock - I'm not a natural morning person, but there have been times in my life where I needed to get up early and I made it work.

One thing I forgot to mention - we made 8 pm the "start bedtime" time. It took a long time to make this a habit, especially for DH, because we might both be off doing things/cleaning/whatever. We set an alarm for a while to go off at 8 and remind us. We told the kids that they could play until the alarm went off, and then it was time for pajamas. We don't need the alarm anymore but it helped us get into the habit. We also actually wrote down a goal time for each step. Like this:

8 pm Pajamas on
8:10 pm snack
8:25 brush teeth
8:30 stories
8:50 prayers
8:55 lights out/kids tucked in

We needed this because sometimes we'd get sidetracked, or the kids would take FOREVER to finish their snack. So then we'd start telling them "ok, two more minutes and then it's time to brush teeth, even if you're not finished." Otherwise they were fully capable of taking 45 minutes to eat a piece of toast.

I think if you can get your DH to be comfortable with the bedtime routine, and see how important the kids' sleep is to the happiness of the whole family, he'll soon come around.

Good luck!

[major_mama11]

Thanks again for the helpful advice!

Having a "start bedtime routine" time would help a lot. We do both tend to get caught up in doing stuff around the house and let time get away from us.

The kids usually get "enough" sleep, but they seem to get much higher quality sleep if it is pushed earlier, rather than the 11 pm to 10 am that DD tends toward.

That "45 minutes to finish bedtime snack thing" happens a lot in this house.

DH will get on board eventually, once he realizes that he can get things done *after* the kids are in bed a lot easier than before, since they won't be slowing him down!

[GuildJenn]

Sleepless in America makes a lot of the same points and is more AP

I really do think that he needs to work a bit on the bedtime issue. It's too disruptive.

[major_mama11]

I have heard good things about Sleepless in America- I will look that one up at the library too Yeah, it's definitely disruptive and not healthy for the kids. He grew up in a household with no set bedtimes and a very night owl mother, and I grew up in an 8 pm bedtime household. Very different ways of doing things. His family's way of doing things is basically to let the kids go and go till they crash, so he just doesn't see the problem with it.

The funny thing is that we both only see the other's part in it: I blame him for letting the kids stay up so late when I work, but then he blames me for letting the kids sleep in the next day to make up for being up so late. Vicious cycle... Maybe tomorrow morning I'll try getting them up earlier and see if they're tired earlier tomorrow night (even if it means some meltdowns in the afternoon).