Parenting

Yeah, just talk to them about it in a transcendental way. Tell the kid:

"Your brain needs to rest. At night is when your brain does all the important work if remembering all the new words and places and people in your life. If you don't let your brain rest, you won't remember any those things and you won't learn all the new stuff you want to do. Most of your brain is busy working your eyeballs, so the first thing to do is close your eyes and keep them closed. This will let your brain start to wrap up your day. Tell your brain what you want it to do, and it will do it, say to yourself: brain, it's time for me to go to sleep now and for you to do your thing; I hope you make me some cool dreams and that you'll let me remember them in the morning." That's the transcendent thought, the idea that your conscious mind is actually in charge of your unconscious mind. You can tell it what to do and it will listen, and you can ask it questions about your ego and id and it will answer.

Starting this trancendent ways of thinking early is key to a happy stable life. Some people never learn it and they're fuck ups.

9 pm and or 11 pm is way too late for a kid to be going to sleep. It's stunting, no doubt. Their brains need like 11 to 14 hours of sleep to handle the exponential sensorial, motor, and cognitive growth they are experiencing. Their brains are sponges.

Sometimes with my kids they'll say they weren't tired and I'd say "okay, your not feeling tired, but let's ask your brain if your brain is tired and ready to sleep?" And then pause for a second and I'd say "what did your brain say?" And they say "my brain says it's ready for sleep." If brain says no, tell them "hey it should be, it will be soon, take a few minutes and think about places you like to go, who you might see there, and what you might do, and then check in with yourself again."

Use a white noise machine; don't need any bullshit waking them up. Definitely no screens in their room.

Another helpful thing could be to just reassure them that "mommy and daddy are going to bed in a little while too, we just have to clean up the house and get ready for tomorrow." We'll be around for a little while if you need one of us, but then we're going to sleep too."

Before bed I read three to five books with my kids, and it's mostly just to learn and talk, and to focus their brains on something. Tonight one of those books was flipping through the ULINE catalogue and talking about some of the pictures of the different things they sell (that's an industrial and office supply, business catalogue). We have a lot of great kids books in the rotation but also the kids dictionary, kids thesaurus, kids encyclopedia. We go to the library every few weeks and get like 25+ books. There are lots of great books about sleep, bedtime, the dark, that are staple reading. One favorite is Lemony Snicket's "The Dark." Do voices when you read? Try and make it immersive. Ad lib.

After books we do "best part, hardest part, looking forward to" where we each say the best parts of our day, the hardest parts of the day, and say what we're looking forward to tomorrow.

The last thing I say to my kids at night is "see you in the morning to...." And it could be to play, to go to breakfast, to get ready for school, to work, whatever. They want to know what their plan is for tomorrow and feel like they are a part of planning the day, so tell them what's on deck. It's part of that forward, goal oriented thinking.

Obviously the two year old is just starting with a lot of this stuff, but it is remarkable how much language a two year old understands even if they can't speak it back yet. So for my two year old most of her sleep hygiene comes from how we speak to her about sleep. I tell them often "we go to sleep every night, you've done it every night so far, and you'll do it every night for the rest of your life."

Kids are in bed for books by 7 pm at the latest and on their own after 8 pm or 8:30. If we do have to go in after 8 pm, its short and sweet. Back rub, calm talk, hold them and let them hear you do some deep breathing (they will syncronize to your breathing and demeanor), offer them water, make them blow their those good and hard (nasal drip is a big thing that keeps kids awake), give them a tums (reflux is another big thing that keeps kids awake, avoid acidic foods for lunch and dinner) retuck them in. For my two year old if she's struggling I'll say "show me where you're going to lay down for sleep tonight...." And she'll go right to laying down in a comfy position. Both of my kids are excellent sleepers. They've never once slept in our bed; "everyone sleeps in their own bed." Sometimes they have to cry it out, go in after to help them blow their noses.

If he's rolling around and kicking you guys, which is totally normal, we try "go to the potty and check in with your body." But especially as a dad with a son, he's going to get a lot of self-confidence from rough housing with you. You can't rewind the day at that point and you don't want to get him fired up right then before sleep, so roll around with him a little. We do "steamroller" where we take turns pretending to crush each other flat, then we blow ourselves back up. If hes still buzzing we say "play for one book" and he can bounce around the room a bit during one book. That helps him start to wind down, kind of puts a self imposed time limit on his shenanigans. More physical activity during the day will help with this, too. Rain snow or shine, get the kid into proper clothing and get them outside even if it's for 15 minutes.

This stuff waxes and wanes too. The other day my two year old fell off the side of the couch and full body landed on the wood floors and smacked her head. For the next four days she was in sleep regression. If one of them is sick, it might be a night where we're up and down feels like all night. Push through.

This is hard shit. I'm sure you're doing a great job. Keep at it.