The Magic of an Early Bedtime

How you “sleep” your child is as controversial in the world of mothering as breastfeeding and drug use during labor and delivery. So I write this blog with a little trepidation. But I’m not claiming to hold up one kind of mothering approach over another here. All babies and children are different; what works for one is not necessarily going to work for another. But in case you have a baby like my SJ, I thought I’d share the magic I’ve discovered in putting her to bed early.

The consequences of putting my almost-one-year-old daughter to bed at an early hour go so completely against what my (and I think other’s) intuition would tell me that I’m shocked every time I rediscover them—and I just have to share, in case the trick might work for you as well. If you’ve read any of them, you know that “sleep books” will lead you to believe that once you’re “sleeping” your child the “right” way, everything will be easy; there will be no variation in schedule; he/she will sleep well and sleep well always. Once you get past that initial hard part of “letting them crying it out” or “teaching them to self soothe” or fixing whatever it is you’re doing that’s “wrong”, it will be easy. In my experience, this hasn’t been the case. Just like my days vary (sometimes I fall asleep immediately and sleep all the way through the night; sometimes it takes me forever to fall asleep; sometimes I have hours of sleeplessness in the middle of the night; sometimes, even though I’ve gotten enough sleep at night, I’m tired and cranky all day long), I believe my daughter’s days and nights vary, and no amount of “control” I attempt to wield over her schedule will eliminate the individual human factor.

But the one thing that has—so far (I keep dreading the day it stops working)—always seemed to hold true is that if I put her to bed early (6:00 or 6:30pm at the latest), she sleeps better (not always perfectly, but better) than if I put her to bed even a little bit later. Whenever I feel like she’s not sleeping well (she wakes up multiple times at night and won’t go back to sleep without help, doesn’t nap well during the day, protests a lot going to sleep for naps or bedtime), I look at the time I’m putting her to bed at night and realize that I’ve let her bedtime slip to a later hour (even 6:45pm seems to make a difference to SJ’s biological clock; after 7:00pm is disastrous). It’s really hard to get her to bed so early. Often dh isn’t even home yet; having church until 4:30 makes it almost impossible. Or sometimes I rationalize: she’s getting older, she can handle staying up a little later, and I just keep her up later. So I often find myself “adjusting” her bedtime back to where she needs it. And every time I do, the following things magically start happening over several days to several weeks (if I can sustain it that long). She

1) sleeps through the night
2) wakes up later the next morning
3) goes to bed with little to no protesting
4) goes down for naps with little to no protesting
5) sleeps longer during her naps
6) takes two rather than one nap
7) wakes up happy
8) is generally happier through out the day

Obviously, these things don’t all happen at once. But usually within a couple of days, at least one of them has happened. And they happen magically. I say magically because it feels like I’ve done nothing to make them happen. I haven’t let her “cry it out” when she goes to bed or when she wakes up in the middle of the night; she just stops crying at night and stops waking up at night. Or I haven’t “helped” her sleep longer during the day by ignoring her unhappy wakings; she just sleeps longer. It’s really magic.

But let me say again that just because this works for SJ doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for your child(ren). In fact, I’d love to hear alternate experiences. Have any of you had the exact opposite experience? Does putting your child to bed early mean she/he wakes up unacceptably early? Is there another trick that seems to have magical powers for you? Does it feel like nothing works?

Please, do not misunderstand this blog: I am not an expert. I have only a year of mothering experience. And I'm not telling you how to raise your child. I fully expect my next child to be completely different. As it is now, even with my magical early bedtime, I feel like I’m constantly juggling, adjusting, and analyzing SJ’s needs. I never really know what they are or how to meet them. I feel like almost every minute of the day presents a choice, and if I choose wrong, the results could be horrible: like an hour of crying before she finally falls asleep (still happens more often than I’d like—anyone have any other advice?). But I often find myself saying things like, “Wow! She just slept a half hour longer this morning than usual!” or “Wow! That was easy! She closed her eyes and went to sleep when I put her down in her crib.” And I usually find myself saying these things after I’ve put her to bed early. So if you’re struggling with any sleep issues, you just might want to try an early bedtime. The magic might work for you too.