An Experiment

Monday afternoon I was so tired that I announced my entire family that I was going to bed at 8:30. Olivia declared she was then too because no one else in the family knows how to get her ready for bed like I do.

Whatever, as long as she didn’t fight the early bedtime, I didn’t care if she went with me or waited until 9:00. Okay, honestly, I knew it would be easier for everyone, including me, if she just went to bed when I did.

So yes, we headed to bed at 8:30 on Monday.

Bedtime is Liv’s time to decompress, to talk about her day to me, to get whatever is in her sweet head out. She usually talks to me for at least a half hour after we’ve turned off the lights.

This means if we go to bed at 8:30, she’ll usually fall asleep between 9:00 and 9:30, which honestly, for a kid her age, isn’t that bad, maybe even a little late.

That first night was so lovely that we’ve gone to bed every single day this week at 8:30, 8:45 at the latest.

Thursday night she talked to me until 10:00, so I’m thinking three nights of early bedtime caught her up on any sleep deprivation she might have suffered. But that’s okay. It’s great even. We’re going to continue this habit of going to be earlier because I certainly feel better and I know she must too.

Of course, the teenager is still keeping teenage hours. I got up at 12:30 one night/morning to pee and take some Excedrin and I saw the light on under her door. I could hear her on her phone too. The next day I made the gentle suggestion that even though she’s not twelve, she still needs more sleep than your average bear and maybe 12:30am was not the best time to go to sleep.

She acknowledged that maybe that was a little late and promised to try and get to sleep earlier going forward.

We’ll see. Since she gets herself up each morning, I don’t have to deal with the crankiness that comes from only six hours of sleep on a consistent basis but there are other ways to discover if she’s getting enough. That’s all she needs to know.