NOTE- the date on this post is one year before it was actually written. It started as me going off on a tangent from another post and I decided to leave it as a link from the original post (which is probably how you got here) in case anyone wondered.
No naps. The only one napping in our house is E2 (2 mos old) G2 doesn’t usually nap- I know other people are having their 2 yr old nap but we don’t. Sometimes she will melt down in the middle of the day, when that happens she brings me a story to read (a signal that says she’s tired) and I will take her to bed and snuggle up under the blankets to read it to her. She falls asleep in the middle of the day maybe once a month. If she’s tired, she’s tired and sometimes a toddler might be growing or battling a germ and need more sleep.
We get ready for bed right after Dinner (which is generally around 7pm). Once dinner has been eaten, the kids are putting on their pajamas and brushing their teeth. Then play in their pajamas for a while, while my honey and I hang out in our nest (he’s watching ABC News Nightline and I’m writing this)
Bedtime at our house is determined by the collective internal clock, not the clock on the wall. Just because the clock says 9pm doesn’t mean that’s bedtime. If they’re not tired, they’re not tired. I don’t go to bed when I’m not tired, why should I expect a child to?
With that said, you might be picturing us up all night or something, but that’s not the case. When kids get tired, they melt down and turn into whining little monsters who can’t cope with anything. And it’s contagious. In one instant G1, M2 and G2 will all be in tears and I will say the magic words “Give Daddy kisses and come listen to stories now” and they will all meet me in the upstairs kids bedroom and fall asleep snuggled up to me and each other while
I read the stories they have chosen (youngest to oldest)
We have the same 3 hours between dinner and bedtime that the family on the news had, only our time is spend doing enjoyable things, not fixated upon forcing the kids to sleep.
The older kids (ages 14 and 11) put themselves to sleep. They’re usually already in their room or talking my honey’s ear off while he mutes the TV show he wanted to watch. They’re sent down to bed when I come out of the littles’ bedroom. M1 has been playing her Nintendo DS to fall asleep, and E1 has been reading Don Quixote.
E2 (2 months old) goes to sleep usually around the same time I do. Sometimes I go to bed after she does. Sometimes before. She’s a baby so her internal rhythm isn’t totally synced with ours yet, she’s still adjusting to life her in our house. She naps most of the day, depending on what other stimulation is available.
We don’t live by the clock. I don’t know what time we eat Breakfast. I wake up before the kids so I can have my coffee in peace. I wake them up about an hour later, so I can be sure they’re not up all night long (sometimes the older two will giggle and giggle into the night inventing things, writing songs and stories, and not falling asleep at a decent hour. Our day starts around 8am, and if they’re not up and dressed with their beds made by the time breakfast is on the table, they don’t get breakfast.
After breakfast, we do school work, starting with the 3 R’s and then we have lunch. While I am putting lunch on the table, the girls have a few minutes to be wild, play outside, and clean up their chore, whatever it is it probably isn’t very messy since the only people who haven’t been focused on a task is G2 (who never has to do schoolwork) and M2 (who does math and reading and writing sometimes she’s only 4 so she doesn’t really have to do it, but sometimes, she does.)
After lunch, we do Science and History as a group, then we have a snack. G2 and M2 are free to play at that point, having heard the main History or Science story before snack. E1 and M1 have to seek out materials to study further and then write about it. G1 and M2 have different activities that they do of History and Science each day. One day they’ll give me a narration of what they have learned. Other days, they’ll color in blackline maps of the area we’re been studying, or maybe a coloring page based on the life of a Scientist, or other historically noteworthy person place or event, or whatever we’re studying in Science. Sometimes the older girls are researching something for a writing assignment (E1 chooses her own topics) Other days we’ll have an experiment or project, and the older kids and younger kids will have to work together to help each other reach their goal. Most days these projects run until 5 or 6pm.
One by one, they’ll float away from schoolwork to play. I’m usually scrubbing something or writing something, and as they float away, I send them back to clean up their mess. When we’re down to just one or two girls focused on schoolwork, I usually start making Dinner. I’ve got 2 girls learning to cook right now, so one of them will be in the kitchen with me.
Sometimes the Dinner will be easy enough that they don’t need my hands-on help, but I’ll read a book in the kitchen while they’re working anyways, just to make sure things stay sanitary, and, well, because I just can’t let go, I guess.
We eat Dinner (and almost every other meal) at the table as a family, and After dinner the kids bring their plates to the sink and then the whole bedtime thing starts all over again. Life is a cycle. We don’t need to look at the clock to know we’re hungry or tired. We don’t wake up to alarm clocks most days, our life isn’t structured that way.
My Disclosure Policy
Subscribe to me 
Use Live Bookmarks, they’re fun.
Add to Onlywire
