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What bedtime taught me about patience
You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. — Franklin P. Jones
It was 9:30 pm. I had been lying in my son’s room for about an hour—after reading to him for half an hour. Yet he was refusing to sleep. As I watched the clock tick closer and closer to my own bedtime, I grew more and more frustrated. “That’s it,” I declared, “if you don’t want to sleep, I’m going out.” I stomped out of the room, and he burst out in tears. It wasn’t my proudest moment. I felt both irritated and guilty at the same time.
I read about creatives and entrepreneurs working a second shift after their children go to bed. Nicholas Sparks was a traveling pharmaceutical salesman when he wrote the novel The Notebook. He wrote from 9 pm to midnight, three to four days a week, after his two small children went to bed. But by the time my son is asleep and I can finally emerge from the dark cave, I’m all cranky and too tired to do anything. I’m frustrated, annoyed, and grumpy.
Just a few days earlier, I read a dad’s comment in r/daddit: “Oh man. I tucked in my sleeping four year old boy the other day and, when he was covered, stood and marveled at how beautiful he was. It brought me to tears.” I felt ashamed. Where is the loving father I’m proud to be? What’s so hard about lying down with my son? I suspect my frustration came from two things: One, losing the precious evening in a dark room. Two, being uncertain about whether I’ll have time to hang out with my wife or do more work before my bedtime. I doubt my three-year-old refuses to sleep to annoy me. But I often wish I could speed up time and skip this phase. Maybe things will just get better. This too shall pass, right?
Mencius told a story of a farmer in the state of Song who was anxious that his crops were not growing fast enough. After a long day at the farm, he returned home and boasted to his family, “I’m worn out but I helped the seedlings grow!” Worried, his son ran to the farm and discovered, to his horror, that the plants had all withered. The farmer spent the entire day pulling every single sprout up by a few inches. Some things cannot be rushed. We all learned that lesson before we became dads: However eager we are to meet our little ones, pregnancy takes nine months.
There’s a famous saying of Confucius, 欲速则不达, which loosely translates to “if you wish for speed, you will never arrive.” His disciple had just become a magistrate and came to him for advice. Knowing that his disciple was ambitious, he cautioned him not to rush to show results. His advice can also be applied to parenting and bedtime. My son will not fall asleep faster because I rush him. In fact, it will be the opposite. The more I rush, the less sleepy he will be, and the more frustrated I will become. Nobody falls asleep faster by rushing.
But how do I make peace with that while having all that pent-up frustration boiling in me? A slight poke from my son, innocent as it might be, will make this volcano erupt and shoot lava everywhere. Even though my dad friends deem me the most patient in the group, I’m an active volcano with several recent eruptions.
When I melted down before my son did, I was demanding that he act like a wise adult while I acted like a child. If I, at 34, cannot control my emotions, how can I expect my 3-year-old son to master his emotions? I’m skeptical that any parent can be perfectly patient and has never lost his cool before. But we all try. We try to make it an exception rather than the rule. If I want my son to learn to regulate his emotions, I have to show him how to behave in tough situations. I have to be the wise adult.
Again, I found some guidance from Confucianism. Confucianism advocates for 德 (de), virtue and moral character. Confucius said, “If you try to guide the common people with coercive regulations and keep them in line with punishments, the common people will become evasive and will have no sense of shame. If, however, you guide them with Virtue, and keep them in line by means of ritual, the people will have a sense of shame and will rectify themselves.” Isn’t parenting leadership of our children? We can use punishments, or we can lead them by example. We can use bedtime to practice patience and to demonstrate self-regulation. (Fun fact: my Chinese name is 勇德 (Yong De); how can I not practice it!)
An unlock for me is realizing I can hate the behavior but still love my son. Bad behavior isn’t him but a window into him. Then, instead of treating him as the problem, I should consider us to be on the same side. How can we solve the problem together? Even before that, what is the problem?
Eager to resolve this once and for all, I had jumped to solutions even before defining the problem. Some parents swear by Yoto players, proclaiming how the tiny radios captured their children’s attention and freed up their evenings. I found the silver bullet! I excitedly bought one for my son’s third birthday and waited for that day, and night, to arrive. On that fateful night, my son told me... to throw it away. Pfff.
While reading How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen, I realized my mistake. Every kid is different. (So is every parent.) For every parent who loudly swore by Yoto players on the internet, there is probably another parent who quietly cursed at it and chucked it on the shelf. Our problem is he wants my company while I want my precious hour before bed. A Yoto player, while mesmerizing, isn’t me. My son wants me! (When I actually sit with that, it makes my heart full.)
I wish I can tell you I found the perfect solution, and we all live (and sleep) happily ever after. I’m currently iterating through a list of experiments, with various degrees of success:
I leave the room without explaining. This is the worst; he will bawl his eyes out (understandably).
I lie on a bed beside his cot in the dark until he falls asleep, and then I creep out. He is probably the happiest with this approach. But because this can take an hour or more, I’m usually frustrated at the lost time. Sometimes I doze off before him, and when I finally realize I have fallen asleep and get out of the room, I can barely do anything but head to bed.
I tell him I’m going to brush my teeth and I’ll come back to check on him. I brush my teeth and return in about 5-10 minutes and lie down in his room. I slowly extend the duration until he falls asleep while waiting. But he asks many questions and has many requests in between, and he gets rather upset the next day that I never returned.
This past Monday, I started my latest experiment: I told him I’d sit outside his room, with the door open, and read my book. I didn’t know how he would respond to it, but I thought it was worth a try. Surprisingly, he seemed fine with it. On the first night, he even offered me his favorite pink chair! On the second and third nights, he fussed and wanted to sit with me instead. I refrained from getting angry and insisted, with no visible emotion, that he stay in his cot while I read outside. Eventually, he accepted it. I had always wanted total darkness to help him fall asleep faster, but I made a compromise because I needed some light to read. He could see me if he stood up in his cot, but he wanted me to read out loud. I was reading How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen, so I thought it wasn’t a bad idea for him to listen in. My throat got really dry, so I spoke softer and softer, and then stopped. When he asked, “Papa, why are you not saying the words?” I patiently explained myself, and he accepted it. This still took about an hour, and I was on the verge of erupting a few times. But he got my company while I got to read.
Isn’t all this song and dance excessive for something we do every night? I don’t disagree. But to me, it is also a cocktail of patience, self-regulation, problem-solving, and willingness to try and fail. Until I can simply tuck my son in bed, marvel at how beautiful he is, and leave his room, I’ll slowly sip this little cocktail.
(I don’t even like drinking.)
What is your children’s bedtime routine like? What works best for you? Tell me your stories!
Actual bedtime routines from other parents
I hate people telling me how to parent. But I found it helpful to hear stories from other parents and then decide for myself which methods to try.
If you are struggling with bedtime, I compiled a list of bedtime routines shared by my parent-friends, other parents in How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen, and dads on Reddit. Examples from the book have names.
Remember, every child is unique. Parents have different preferences and tolerance levels, too.