It’s 10pm and my two little cherubs are still crashing around in their bedroom. Due to lack of space they share a room, which I generally am really happy about. They adore being together and it’s lovely to see how close their relationship is becoming. For the past few months, though, bedtime has been a total and utter nightmare. 

They go bed around 7pm and they are both deffo ready for it. Sophie, my two and a half year old, dropped her day time naps around a year ago which was way too early. She just didn’t want to miss out on whatever her big bro was doing and simply refused to sleep. This means that she is extra ready for bed by 7pm as she is already having less sleep than other kids her age. 

We do our little bed time routine, shut the door and wait for the carnage. They get out of bed almost immediately and start coming out of their bedroom. Here are just a few of my favourite (not) reasons they have given lately for getting up;

• I’m thirsty
• I need a poo
• Sophie pinched me
• Georgie won’t let me sleep in his bed
• I hurt my knee climbing out of Sophie’s cot
• George keeps waking up my bubba (doll)
• I just need to do the code on your phone

Seriously? I don’t know what to do! Help me! I have tried soooooo many things. Putting them back to bed without speaking, taking away a privilege, bribing them with a treat (don’t judge me), audio books. Nothing works. I get so tried of it because the evenings are so precious after a busy day of being a mummy. I need to get stuff done or just sit in a heap or watch a rubbish tv show. I’m so frazzled by the time they finally fall asleep and there isn’t much of an evening left to do anything. It makes things tense because we are all so tired all the time. Occasionally they go to bed perfectly and I think we’ve cracked it, but they are just lulling me into a false sense of security and are back up to their old tricks the next night. 

They are such good children and I know this won’t last forever. I know it’s just ‘one of those stages’ and that it will pass. I know I’ll look back when they’ve left home and wish they were still keeping me up at night. I know all of this and I know it will be ok but it’s hard to see through it when you’re in it.

I need to be a bit more relaxed about it I think because it doesn’t help when I get worked up. If they are staying in their room but still being noisy then I’m trying to leave them to it and carry on with the evening. I’ve done a lot of reading about it all and I came across some wise words in someone’s blog that really helped me. The mother was saying that she puts her kids to bed and let’s them get on with it. As long as they aren’t hurting each other and they stay on their room then she doesn’t worry about it. “I know they’ll go to sleep eventually, how they get to that point is up to them!”

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. They’ve gone quiet now…but I’ve been stung before so I’m keeping a safe distance for at least another half hour.

Gemma