Montessori bedtime???

[LeAnnie]

So does anyone know what the Montessori application of 'bedtime' would be? Wouldn't it be that a child would sense their own need for sleep and go to sleep when they feel tired vs. an imposed time for bed set by the clock?

My dd (sigh) is in primary Montessori and she goes to bed when tired, which is consistently 10-10:15 at night. She gets up a 7am. I do think she is burning the candle at both ends, but generally feels well during the day. Doesn't nap. I wish she would go to bed earlier, but she is just plain not tired until 10, then goes out like a light in 2 minutes. I try to keep the evening actiities quiet, but that's hard because she and dh like to 'party'-play fantasy, games, fun stuff, occasional tv-which I discourage like crazy. They are the night owls of the family. I've tried a thousand different things to make bedtime happen earlier, to no avail.

Anyway, anyone want to share how bedtime is done at your house and if you think bedtime can be done in a Montessori fashion?

[Drummer's Wife]

I know in most primary classrooms the children generally don't nap but my experience working with infants and toddlers in a montessori environment was that the children went to sleep when they needed to. They slept on futons on the floor and would crawl or walk over when they needed to nap and wake up when they were ready. So my understanding was that would have been how Maria Montessori intended, children know when they need sleep.

We also kept the blinds and curtains open during daytime as to not mess up their internal circadian rhythm. We do that in our home as well, I've noticed if it's darker inside my kids sleep in longer.

We are homeschooling now and so it works out well to let my children sleep and wake when they want. I'm not sure if it would be different if we had to be somewhere early each day but I would still follow their lead as long as they weren't cranky and seemed to be getting enough rest.

As far as falling asleep in a Montessori way, I would say allowing your child to brush their teeth, etc, etc, and then climb into bed by themselves and fall asleep on their own (no backrubbing, sippy cups/bottles, help from parents) but this of course varies by family. In our M classrooms we would generally play classical music softly and while that could be considered a sleep aide it was what worked for us.

[Flor]

This is what I found:

Ok, it took me forever but I found it. It is in the chapter called "The New Education" and it is inside the paragraph which starts "The adult must aquire the sensitivity to recongnize all the child's needs" It says:

To extend to the child this hopsitality, that is, to allow him to participate in our lives, is difficult but costs nothing; it depends solely on the emotional preparation of the adult. . . .the extension of the adult hospitality is opposed by the prejudice, supported tyrannically and cruelly by health science, that a child must get a great deal of sleep, like a vegetable. Why force him to sleep? If we allow him to stay awake as much as he likes and we keep him near us, we will see that he needs to sleep a great deal less.

She goes on to say that "condeming children to sleep" is unnecessary and with out reason. In my book it is page 56-57, but I have the 1970 edition. Hope that helps!



That is quoting myself from an earlier thread. How old is she? 9 hours of sleep doesn't sound THAT off, though my own 3-year old goes to sleep (crashes and burns) at 7pm.

[RomanGoddess]

Right, well, if we let our daughter "decide" when she would go to sleep, she would be up until at least 10pm every night and she would definitelly be burning the candle on both ends. (She wakes up before 7AM no matter what time she goes to bed!!)

Chidren DO fight sleep. There is no question about it. You are in the middle of playing with the most fascinating toy and you have the option of going to bed. Which will it be, toy or bed? I think toy, at least for a little while longer, even if your body is tired.

I think, from a Montessori perspective it is up to the parent to observe the child very closely and watch for signs that the child is ready to go to bed. I would then tell the child that it was time to go to bed, whether or not he or she wanted to. Our daughter often does not initially want to go to bed but once she is lying down in her bed, she doesn't get up again and she is asleep within a few minutes.

[LeAnnie]

Thanks for all the posts-have to read over them again some more (crawling baby banging on keyboard!)
Internal circadian rhythms are so easily influenced. Last night dh was out so I turned off all the lights. Without anything to do, we all got in bed and dd was asleep an hour earlier than usual-9pm.

Thanks for that quote Flor-I assume that is from Dr. Montessori's book?

[Cassiopeia]

Personally I can not parent until 10pm on a regular basis. I think 9 to 7 is a lot more reasonable and I think 10hrs is probably close to average sleep at her age.

I love Montessori as an educational philosophy but I don't think that nec. means it has to be melded with parenting philosophy.

All that said, I think you should go with whatever bedtime brings balance and health to your family.

[LeAnnie]

[QUOTE=Cassiopeia;6305710]Personally I can not parent until 10pm on a regular basis. QUOTE]


That's really my issue. When dh is home he doesn't mind taking over the parenting until ten, but for me I'm done-especially since I nurse and cosleep our ds!

I've lately been considering how much of the Montessori philosophy can be implemented in the home or melted in with our parenting style-which for the most part is very Montessori compatible. Just running into this problem of practical execution-allowing a child to stay up until she is tired if that hour is beyond when parents want to go to bed or want to keep parenting.

[RomanGoddess]

Honestly, there are very few children whose natural sleep pattern is to go to bed at 10pm, except perhaps during summertime. Most children's natural sleep rhythm is "early to bed, early to rise". There are definitely exceptions to this rule. One of my sister's four children, for example, was always up at night and woke late in the morning but most children's bodies do not work this way. What's more, the best sleep takes place before midnight. .

I would absolutely not hesitate to take your child to bed at around 8. I bet that she will still get up at 7AM - which means that she did need that sleep and was not getting it before.

Best way to get into the habit of an early bedtime is to put her to bed at her usual bedtime - 10pm - tonight and then put her to bed 10 minutes earlier every night thereafter until you are at a bedtime that works. And make sure that you have the exact same routine for going to bed every single night.

Personally, I don't think Dr. Montessori would have shunned routine bedtimes when it is clear that a child needs that much sleep. It is when the child's natural sleep requirements are not being taken into account that forcing a child to go to bed at a certain hour becomes silly

If it is very clear that your daughter is just not tired but you need a break from parenting, maybe you could tell her that between 8 and, say 9 is resting time and she needs to look at books in bed. She may just fall asleep on her own in this way.

[LeAnnie]

Originally Posted by cmlp

Best way to get into the habit of an early bedtime is to put her to bed at her usual bedtime
If it is very clear that your daughter is just not tired but you need a break from parenting, maybe you could tell her that between 8 and, say 9 is resting time and she needs to look at books in bed. She may just fall asleep on her own in this way.

One of my problems is that from birth we have coslept and it is natural for all of us to sleep together vs. alone. I guess that's not very Montessori, as I always nursed her to sleep (for 3 yrs) and slept together. She's never been 'put to bed'. When I've tried to have her look at books in bed alone, she really wants to spend time together with us. I wish that would work! It sounds like a great idea to me, but ends up in a situation where I would have to coerce or demand she stay in her room alone, which just doesn't sit right.

My dd is one of those rare ones who naturally has always slept until 8 or 9am if not awakened. Even as an infant she slept late.
We joke that if only there were a night Montessori school, it would be perfect for her. I've seen that she does some of her best work and is most curious between 7-9pm, reading, writing, asking questions, drawing, etc.

[Drummer's Wife]

We also co-sleep and nurse to sleep and you're right that neither of those stress independance so MM would probably discourage these things. FOr example when I worked with infants we were told to take the bottle out of their mouth before they close their eyes and lay them on their futon still awake so that they could put themselves to sleep. And it worked well and I believed in it then.... But that's not how we do things in my home and that's okay

My oldest will also stay up late, 10-11pm (or later) and if left to wake on her own gets up between 9:30-10:30 am (or later). And she is one to adjust her sleep schedule on her own, like if she goes to sleep earlier for some reason, she is generally awake earlier... and if we are out late at night, she sleeps in with everyone else.

DH and I are up late most nights so I don't mind parenting past 10 pm or whatever time for the most part, if I do dd knows that she need to quietly keep herself busy... and she does. And a lot of my dd's great learning experiences happen at night, especially once her brother's have fallen asleep. We have one on one time or she works on her own if DH and I are relaxing, watching tv, reading or using the computer. But it is valuable time to her and she is not whiney and fussy or getting into things she shouldn't so it's not a problem for us. And like I said in my pp, we don't have anywhere to be in the am so it's what works for us.

Coercion and forcing wouldn't work for me either but it just happens to work out for our lifestyle that our children can sleep when they want to, just as they eat when they want to. Those are two basic needs that I don't want to have to control for someone else.

[Flor]

Originally Posted by LeAnnie

Thanks for all the posts-have to read over them again some more (crawling baby banging on keyboard!)
Internal circadian rhythms are so easily influenced. Last night dh was out so I turned off all the lights. Without anything to do, we all got in bed and dd was asleep an hour earlier than usual-9pm.

Thanks for that quote Flor-I assume that is from Dr. Montessori's book?

Oops, yeah. The Child in the Family.

My son's "natural" rythm would be up at 8, nap from 4-5:30, up until 11. That's about 10.5-11 hours but it was hard on us. Now that he has to get up early for school, I force him to skip the nap (somedays its so hard but he gets another bout of energy) and he crashes out at 7, up at 6. He was never much of a sleeper, even as an infant, even en utero!

[Oana]

My son is 2. He most easily goes to sleep at or after 10 pm. He wakes up around 8am (some days we wake him up, to get to school on time). He naps two hours at his (Montessori) school. On the weekends he sometimes sleeps later in the morning, or takes longer naps.

This works for us, as much of our time together is in the evening (he is in an all-day program). We tried sliding the bedtime earlier, but any earlier than 9:30pm results in longer pre-sleep stage and same sleep time anyway.

We still nurse to sleep too. Works for us, he is happy and alert most of the day, so we'll continue following his cues.

GL!
Oana

[RomanGoddess]

Originally Posted by LeAnnie

One of my problems is that from birth we have coslept and it is natural for all of us to sleep together vs. alone. I guess that's not very Montessori, as I always nursed her to sleep (for 3 yrs) and slept together. She's never been 'put to bed'. When I've tried to have her look at books in bed alone, she really wants to spend time together with us. I wish that would work! It sounds like a great idea to me, but ends up in a situation where I would have to coerce or demand she stay in her room alone, which just doesn't sit right.

My dd is one of those rare ones who naturally has always slept until 8 or 9am if not awakened. Even as an infant she slept late.
We joke that if only there were a night Montessori school, it would be perfect for her. I've seen that she does some of her best work and is most curious between 7-9pm, reading, writing, asking questions, drawing, etc.

Well, it sounds like she might just be a night owl. The one way to tell for sure would be to try to get her to bed an hour earlier one night. If she wakes up an hour earlier in the morning, she is a night owl. If she still wakes up at her usual time in the morning, she is missing out on sleep and you need to somehow get her to bed earlier. It's not a question of Montessori or not-Montessori. It is a question of your daughter getting enough sleep.

By the way, I don't agree that nursing to sleep and co-sleeping are not "Montessori." Says who?

[LeAnnie]

Well, not that this is a definitive source of information, but I read in the Michael Olaf catalog on Montessori that babies should be encouraged to fall asleep independently from the beginning, which to me sounds like discouraging nursing to sleep.

I don't know what Dr. Montessori would have said on that issue...

[RomanGoddess]

Originally Posted by LeAnnie

Well, not that this is a definitive source of information, but I read in the Michael Olaf catalog on Montessori that babies should be encouraged to fall asleep independently from the beginning, which to me sounds like discouraging nursing to sleep.

I don't know what Dr. Montessori would have said on that issue...

Right, well, I would like to challenge any new mother to preventing her newborn baby from falling asleep at the breast.

Anyway, the way one falls asleep is a completely cultural and normative issue. In two-thirds of the world, falling asleep alone, whether as a child or as an adult, is unheard of and just not done. And if you told someone in those parts that a child needs to learn to fall asleep independently, that person would look at you like you were off your rocker. "What on earth for?", would be the next question.

And I would venture to guess that in Italy during Dr. Montessori's time, most children slept with their parents, at least in the same room if not in the same bed.

There is a reason for wanting children to learn to walk, talk, work and play independently. They need to learn these skills to function as adults one day. Sleeping is not necessarily within this category.

[Lillianna]

The info in Child and The Family that Flor mentioned is, IMO, very important because above all, Montessori believed that children should be active and participating members in the life of the home. There is some related info about this in Absorbent Mind and The Discovery of the Child. In Absorbent Mind, ch. 9, "The First Days of Life" she exonerates the "Western Custom" of "banishing" the child to a nursery when he should be with the family and discusses different customes of babywearing as well as "prolonging the period of maternal feeding", both of which she discusses in a positive light.

Another point to consider is that Montessori stressed responding to individual differences in needs and aptitudes. She outlined a general structure for identifying universal human sensitive periods and tendencies as well as defining the Absorbent Mind but we apply these theories to the child in a way that respects her individuality. With this in mind, I feel that the Montessori application of bedtime can have some variety in different homes. Every family is a dynamic unit and the child must necessarily learn to accomodate others just as others work to accomodate his needs. This is a learning process, as is normalization, and for every child, he will follow his own unique timetable.

One of the Montessori's "sensitive periods" is important to understand in relation to sleeping. This is the sensitive period for order which guides the child from birth until the age of 3. This period peaks at 2. The child observes and absorbs patterns of activity and familiar objects. It is distressing to the child when order is disturbed. Order in the environment and in the routines of the day help the child to feel secure and to feel trust in the world. To support the child in this stage, the adult should provide a natural, consistent environment including routines and rhythms. To me this translates to having a bedtime that is fairly consistent each night, whether it be 7 or 10, and having a consistent bedtime routine. So, each family can decide for themselves what the daily routine should be. Of course, because the child has absorbed the routine throughout the first 3 years, it may be extremely difficult to change this pattern at 4 or 5 and later. In other words, whatever you set up as a routine for your child (falling asleep on own/falling asleep together and the time for going to bed) in the first 3 years, will be what she is most comfortable with. "The impressions the child's mind receives, and the emotional consequences they provoke, tend to remain permanently registered in it". (Absorbent Mind)

Helping the child to fall asleep on his own (just as we look for ways to help him develop every independence) during this sensitive period can help the child feel secure and confident in his sleep habits. This is the point that the M.Olaf catalogs (S. Stephenson) and "Montessori from the Start" (Lillards) are expressing. I wanted my daughter to develop a healthy attitude towards sleep including the ability to fall asleep on her own. Even as an infant, I would take dd off the breast for her to fall asleep and put her down in a dark quiet room for her little naps. I didn't think that teaching her to depend on me to fall asleep would be healthy in the long run so I started from a very young age giving her the opportunity to fall asleep on her own and then gradually extending this skill (though she did fall asleep nursing many times). When she was about 4 to 12 mths, she was great at napping and falling asleep at night on her own. Interestingly, she became more dependent on me at nap and bed time between the ages of 1 and 2. Now, she goes to bed on her own between 9 and 10 (or with me if I am ready) if she has napped during the day, at 7 or 8 if she hasn't. She is in a transitory stage between napping/not napping so each day we go with the flow. We do sort of cosleeping because she has always come into our bed in the middle of the night. Even this she is gradually outgrowing.

[mehndi mama]

I'm still learning the ropes on this, but I do have some experience on influencing a different bedtime routine.

My kids would stay up 'till 10 or later every night, which I though was fine for a long time. But in the last couple of years, it got to be that *I* could not handle having to be "on" as Mom that late into the night. So I sat the kids down, and told them that I was concerned that everyone in the family was not getting enough sleep (because we weren't). Because of that, I'd like to start a new bedtime ROUTINE.

Now, I don't know if I should be ashamed of this or not, but this new routine starts with something that could be controversial - 1mg or sublingual Melatonin 1/2 hour before they should be settling down to sleep.

After the Melatonin, they did snack, vitamins, potty, tooth brushing, drink of water, hugs, kisses, and 2 bedtime stories. Then the lights went out. And so did they.

It was amazing. And our nights are SO much nicer, because the kids SLEEP, and they don't drag their feet about it, either. The older ones are to the point where the melatonin isn't necessary for them anymore, but they ask for it because they say they feel more well-rested when they take it.
Honestly, I could have kicked myself for resisting the bedtime routine for as long as I did (13 years, I tell you!). And it sure sounds sweet to hear my 4yo say "I'm going to bed, Mommy."

[LeAnnie]

Originally Posted by Lillianna

The info in Child and The Family that Flor mentioned is, IMO, very important because above all, Montessori believed that children should be active and participating members in the life of the home. There is some related info about this in Absorbent Mind and The Discovery of the Child. In Absorbent Mind, ch. 9, "The First Days of Life" she exonerates the "Western Custom" of "banishing" the child to a nursery when he should be with the family and discusses different customes of babywearing as well as "prolonging the period of maternal feeding", both of which she discusses in a positive light.

: : YES! Rock on Dr. Maria!

Lilliana-thanks for taking the time to post that. Your Montessori insight is fantastic!

It's been helpful to me to hear about what has and hasn't worked for everyone.Thanks!