7 Ways to Beat the Bedtime Blues

Most strong-willed kids struggle with sleep, so if bedtime feels like neverending pulling teeth at your house, join the club!

While I'm always going to advocate for nuance and individualization, confidence comes from having a diverse set of tools in your backpocket, so this episode is here to help you have a few more "tricks" up your sleeve.

Here's to a shorter bedtime routine for the kids and more time for revenge bedtime procrastination for the adults! :)

IN THIS EPISODE I SHARED:

• Why you might need to rethink TV time before bedtime
• How to embrace your "dread" + commiserate with your child
• The script to say when you leave their room 

DON'T MISS:

• What to do when they're acting like your old drunk college roommate

// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
Mighty and Bright - Kids' Daily Routine Chart
Honeybee & Friends Bedtime Stories

// CONNECT WITH DANIELLE //
Website: parentingwholeheartedly.com
IG: @parent_wholeheartedly
APPLY: parentingwholeheartedly.com/apply

Transcript

Danielle Bettmann  0:04  
Ever feel like you suck at this job? Motherhood, I mean. Have too much anxiety and not enough patience? Too much yelling, not enough play? There's no manual, no village, no guarantees. The stakes are high. We want so badly to get it right, but this is survival mode. We're just trying to make it to bedtime. So if you're full of mom guilt, your temper scares you, you feel like you're screwing everything up, and you're afraid to admit any of those things out loud - this podcast is for you. This is Failing Motherhood. I'm Danielle Bettmann, and each week we'll chat with a mom ready to be real, showing her insecurities, her fears, her failures, and her wins. We do not have it all figured out. That's not the goal. The goal is to remind you you are the mom your kids need. They need what you have. You are good enough, and you're not alone. I hope you pop in earbuds, somehow sneak away, and get ready to hear some hope from the trenches. You belong here, friend, we're so glad you're here. 

Danielle Bettmann  1:14  
Hey, it's Danielle. Your Positive Discipline Certified Parenting Coach for strong-willed kids ages two to 10. I help defeated parents find validation, support, and proven techniques to parent their strong-willed kids with composure, connection, confidence, and cooperation through a four-month group coaching program based on the Wholehearted Framework I've developed over years of working with families one-on-one. I am so glad you're here. If you've just been on the podcast, go to failingmotherhead.com to view a playlist of our most listened-to episodes, as well as where to start if you have a strong-willed child. 

Danielle Bettmann  1:50  
Now you'll have to forgive me for my voice. This entire week, my whole family has been battling all of these things, tis the season. I have not had a voice, so I'm trying to get this done in time, it still is not there totally, but it's way better than it was for the last few days. So I'm gonna have to make it work. And if you are struggling with bedtime, you are probably not going to mind. You are just going to be taking notes anyway. So this is going to be a well-loved episode. I know if that's a struggle for you, the struggle is real. So I got permission from one of my clients to read her question to you as she was new to the program and wrote this inside our community within the first few weeks that she joined the program, and I got her permission to share some of the advice that I shared with her here, because I say, if you have a strong-willed child, you're going to either struggle with sleep, picky eating, constipation, or all three. So if you win that bingo card, lucky you. 

Danielle Bettmann  2:58  
But a lot, a lot of families are going to struggle with sleep, especially bedtime, if they have a strong-willed child. So this is one of those very universal struggles. I went ahead and what I recommended to her, I'm going to read. But ultimately, sleep is a beast. It requires more solutions than one, so it does require more than just a list of tips and hacks and, you know, get-out-of-jail-free cards. Because frankly, if an easy button worked for these kids, we wouldn't be here talking about it, right? You have seen the Instagram posts. You have followed the sleep experts, you have tried all of the things, believe me, I was the one late at night finding a Merlin, the magic jumpsuit for my strong-willed kid, because I was desperate. I get it. 

Danielle Bettmann  3:55  
So trying to share bedtime tips over a podcast episode is never, ever, ever gonna do the trick. But for those that have mild cases, or for those that just need a point in the right direction, I hope this episode gives you something to go off of. So here's how my client ordered it. She said, 'Hey, we are really struggling with bedtime lately. We have a consistent routine. We have a chore chart so she should know what to expect, and anytime we mention starting the bedtime routine, she starts running back and forth in the house, avoiding everything we say and yelling, no. We are trying all the scripts, and she just doesn't listen to anything we say. It normally ends with a full-blown tantrum, and then we're just doing what we can to calm her down and get to bed. She gets individual attention from her dad and me during the bedtime routine. So I'm wondering if this is all for control. 'Now, when we work together, we talk about how the motives for money behaviors are either attention or control and then we triage accordingly. So she says, 'I guess I'm looking for advice on how to make our bedtime routine work better.' So I told her to go check out the sleep modules in our bonuses section inside our program curriculum because it has its section and it is such a beast. But I will walk you through some of the ways I pointed her in the right direction. 

Danielle Bettmann  5:18  
Now, the one that I didn't share with her because she said she already has a chart, and in our program, we build in charts. But if you don't have one at your house, then find the link in the show notes that I'm going to add for the Mighty and Bright Routine Charts. You definitely need some type of visual representation of your routine so that it is your backup so that it's not just your child thinking you just like to tell them what to do and boss them around, and you kind of like to be a jerk. It's a lot easier to just say, what does your chart say? What's next on your chart? Are we done with your chart yet? Can you go read what's next? Can you go check your chart? It puts the chart in charge of telling what to do, rather than you. That already puts you one step ahead again. None of these tips are going to be the end-all-be-all-be-all guaranteed fix that makes every bedtime cupcakes and rainbows and butterflies. That doesn't exist when you're parenting strong-willed kids, but it's going to help you round out your toolkit, and you need several of these things working for you. So if you don't have a bedtime routine chart, that would be the lowest on the totem pole. Start there, go check out Mighty and Bright. They have several different options that are either the super high-quality metal and magnet version, or they have a silicone stick-to-everything version with little clings, highly, recommend it. Or you can do a Pinterest version. You can do Velcro. Doesn't matter what it looks like, but it might matter if you have a strong-willed child, that they have some buy-in and ownership of it. So you have to kind of make things their idea. It's all in the marketing campaign with these kids. So that is tip number one. 

Danielle Bettmann  7:15  
Tip number two, make bedtime happen earlier, which, believe me, I am the first one to say we have to live our lives. We have other kids. Weeknights are a struggle bus. We only have so much time, especially if you work full-time, I get it. I have been there years and years and years. However, even though they don't act like it, strong-willed kids actually do need more sleep than we think. 99.9% of strong-willed kids could benefit from more sleep. If they are even a little bit overtired, they might hit a second wind, and by the time they hit a second wind, there is no script or way that you can positively parent them out of being overtired. You are now fighting their nervous system, and no logic and reasoning is going to be able to override that. Every sleep consultant will tell you, that sleep begets sleep, and when they're over-tired, it is so much harder to even get them to sleep initially, and then it's a vicious cycle when they're getting less sleep that night because it takes them forever to get to sleep, and so on. So what I tell my clients is typically 11 hours, of course, depending on the age, but 11 hours is the golden amount of time that strong-willed kids need, in 24 hours, they are hard kids to get to sleep. They are hard kids to stay asleep, and they need the most sleep out of most kids. So if you are in a cycle, coming off of being sick, coming back from a trip, having a rough patch where they were co-sleeping or just a hot mess, then you absolutely need a couple of days to hit reset and have an early bedtime. Whether you have to delay that to be able to do that over a weekend, or whatever you got to do, just know that that is going to make it so that you are no longer fighting an uphill battle that you genuinely can't parent your way out of because their nervous system is on the fritz. These kids not only have strong dysregulation but also their nervous systems are hypersensitive, so they are going to need support to be able to ratchet down and just calm and like chill at the end of the day. It is hard for them. So if it's hard on a good day, it's going to be 10 times harder coming off of a bad day or a bad week or a bad month. So move bedtime earlier. 

Danielle Bettmann  9:58  
Tip number three. Start high energy. Now that is going to sound very counterintuitive, but if you talk to sleep consultants, they will typically recommend starting off the bedtime routine with high energy and then slowing it down so that the lowest energies at the end of the night. Now, sometimes we sabotage this, and we get really low energy before the bedtime routine even starts, and we'll be like, watching a movie or watching TV, and everything is like, super chilled out. And then we start the bedtime routine, and what ends up happening is then they ratchet up the energy so that it's back up by the end of the bedtime routine, and then we are, in no way, shape, or form, falling asleep quickly. So it is better to start off the bedtime routine, like trying to not if you have that routine and then your child really struggles to fall asleep at night, delays or procrastinates or only do you know, really, really chilled out lights are off type watching movies or TV on the weekends and a weeknight, stay a little bit more stable energy and then go high energy with like a one song dance party to start off the bedtime routine and get all their willies and sillies out then. And then you can use that music to keep setting the tone and slow it down and put another song on while you're they're getting their Jamie's on, or brushing teeth or something, and then play the next song, be slower and more of a lullaby or slow song, and then put on just an instrumental. So you can create, like a bedtime routine playlist that starts kind of crazy and then ends super, super calm, and that's kind of the way that you need to scaffold the vibe. So if you don't already do that, and they seem to still have energy at the end of the night, burn it off sooner, peak, and then come down. 

Danielle Bettmann  12:15  
Tip number four, when the initial transition point into the bedtime routine is a struggle, and like this client was saying, her child runs away, ignores them, or yells no - don't play that game. Do not play that game, because the more that you reinforce that behavior with your negative attention, the more they see that it works, and they're like, cool. No problem for me. I'll just keep doing this. It gets me out of the jam, and I get my parents kind of chasing after me, and it's a whole fun thing. So to not play into that game, you need to be able to say, hey, I can see you need one more minute. I need one too. I'm going to go upstairs and start getting your bed ready. When I get back, it's time to start the routine and then walk away without an audience. It's much less fun to protest without an audience. It's not inadvertently reinforced by taking yourself out of the equation, letting them just like have another minute that is not winning, their winning is them getting attention for an attention-seeking behavior, instead you being the Wise Leader and adjusting that time constraint and changing your demand to better set the whole night up for success, are you winning. So you being able to say, I'm going to take a minute before we start this, that way, it goes much smoother. That is a win. Then when you re-enter the room, have an engaging choice to choose from right off the bat, or start with empathy that we're going to talk about next. So that's tip number four, don't play that game. 

Danielle Bettmann  14:12  
Number five, co commiserate. If you know what your child is trying to say through all of that attention-seeking misbehavior is basically just, I don't want to, I want to stay up. I don't want to go to bed. I mean, who doesn't think that or want that? They are not bad or wrong for thinking that. You do not need to be the poster child for how amazing sleep is and how great it's going to be to lay in bed and not be able to fall asleep right away. You don't have to try to talk them into it or list out all the logic and reasoning about why their body needs sleep and how it makes sense. They're never going to see your side and finally go, Oh my gosh, you're so right. Thanks, Mom for always looking out for me. You always know what's best, and like, pat you on the head. Says no strong-willed child ever, right? So be honest and tap into your actual authentic emotions too. If you are dreading bedtime, if you wish it was over, if it's not your idea of fun either, then co-commiserate. If you wish it wasn't already 7:30, you wish you wouldn't have to spend the next two hours fighting them, and you wish you could sit down and watch your favorite show. Tap into that energy. That's how they're feeling, right? Act like you don't want to be there either, and straight up, agree, as in saying to them, how is it already 7:30 I don't want to do bedtime. This isn't fair. I want to keep playing with you, right? Yeah, come on the clock. Why are you saying it's 7:30 I wish I could snap my fingers and it would be tomorrow and we could play again. Bedtime is boring sometimes, and if you're stomping your foot or you're sitting down sheepishly on the stairs, then you're going to have their attention. They are either going to agree with you, or at the very least they are not going to need to feel like they need to double down and escalate their behavior out of defensiveness, because you're already saying what they're trying to say, you have now connected, you have something in common, and you have grounds to build upon and move forward with momentum. And then you can say, okay, okay, if we have to, I at least want to listen to some music to start us off. Would you rather listen to this song or this song, you choose if you offer control and give them something else for their brain to consider, instead of just what's in their brain already, which is, will I or won't I cooperate? Then you already have you're cooking with grease, you're going to move forward, and you're going to build off of that energy, and it's going to feel so much more positive than when you double down with seriousness, which leads us into our next tip. But this does take time and energy. It feels like you don't have and it feels very unorthodox. It feels very against your best instinct, but when done well, there is a nuance to this, and there are a lot of ways to do it wrong that kind of backfire and blow up in your face with strong-willed kids. So if you've tried this and said it doesn't work for my kid, I guarantee there's a way that it does, you just haven't found it yet. And I mean, that's why we enlist in parenting support, right? But it can unlock so much cooperation and teamwork when you really find that core common thread you have in common. So that's number five, commiserate. 

Danielle Bettmann  18:16  
Number six, when you experience that resistance, when they're dragging their feet, when they're stalling out when they're ignoring you, when you have dishes and laundry and a million other things to get to before you can even clock out for the night and you are burnt out to a crisp, your go-to is going to be to get serious, because you think that if you just get serious, then they are gonna kick into gear and you're gonna be able to knock out this to-do list together, and typically with strong-willed kids, that is going to backfire when you get serious. The vibe that you just gave them to feed off of, is then going to make them dig their heels in deeper, and now you're playing tug of war. You are knee-deep in power struggles, and you're only gonna find more and more things to resent them for and be frustrated with. So as hard as it is, you are going to be able to get so much more done when, instead of getting serious, you get silly.

Danielle Bettmann  19:28  
I'm not saying this is easy. I am not saying this is your instinct. I'm not saying it's your strength. I am not even saying that this is something that your brain is capable of right now because it's so depleted. But simple things like offering a piggyback up the stairs, pretending to forget how to use a toothbrush, and having them reteach you having no idea what comes next, like you're an alien that has just gotten to Earth, and they have to remind you what happens at bedtime, that is going to get you so much farther. Getting silly when you want to get serious is going to win their favor. It is going to offer them control when they start to boss you around, rather than you boss them around. And ultimately it's just gonna feel better because you're not, quote, unquote, taking the bait and arguing the no. What I tell my clients is you and I both know that it's getting done. So let's talk about the 'how', not whether or not it's getting done. You do not need to entertain conversations about the 'what'. You're having conversations about the 'how', it's happening, how you can be flexible about the 'how', but you don't need to argue the 'what' and that they have to. That's unproductive, and that's blowing your oxygen onto the fire, and that's typically rewarding negative behavior by doing that. 

Danielle Bettmann  21:07  
So side note to this, some strong-willed kids, when overtired, will seem drunk. They will seem like you can look in their eyes, and they are not fully there, and they are on that edge of being kind of goofy, but if you look at them wrong, then they're going to turn from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde, and you know you're walking on eggshells, and you know they need to get to sleep, but it feels like you are holding a grenade. When they are in that state, you have to get playful, and if you don't, sparks will fly. If you try to treat a drunk college roommate with seriousness, they will freak out and panic. You just have to kind of talk them through it in a really light-hearted way, where it's fine, no big deal, and they're still doing exactly what you need to get them to do. And if that doesn't come naturally to you, if you don't, you know, negotiate as a hostage negotiator with 100% confidence, then that is the work we do together, friend, to get you doing that with 100% accuracy, but if you can't do that right now, just know, don't get serious. It's gonna backfire. 

Danielle Bettmann  22:27  
Number seven, say, I'll be back to check on you. If you typically leave your child to fall asleep without you, then for strong-willed kids, there is something to say, I'll be back to check on you. That is very reassuring that they need to hear. Now, for some kids, they'll want to know where are you going and what are you doing, because the FOMO is so real, and you need to tell them something boring, right? I'm gonna go load up the dishes from dinner. I'm gonna go get your backpack ready or pack your lunch for tomorrow, or something that they would typically not want to do with you. Otherwise, they'll invite themselves along, right? Or some kids, like this client, particularly when we had a follow-up from the next call where we talked about this, she said that she ended up telling her daughter something to think about and that she would ask her about it when she came back to check on her. So she said, I'll be back to check on you in five minutes, and if you're still awake, I want to hear from you what would be your very favorite dessert. And then she left the room, and it gave her daughter something to think about. And then when she came back, she was able to tell her favorite dessert. And then she gave her kind of another little micro task, and she said, I'll be back in another five minutes, and if you're still awake, we'll talk about that. And you know, more often than not, she was asleep and she came back, but when she wasn't, then she was ready to tell her the thing that she had told her to think about. But the thing about strong-willed kids is they will be thinking about something, and if you don't implant something preventative and positive, then it is going to work against you. So they are going to be thinking about, should I stay in my bed? What is Mom doing? It's more fun out there. Let me just get up. I'll get the answer myself, and let me go find out. So you have to give them a replacement or a substitute that not only just shuts down that behavior because you can't just eliminate a behavior. You have to replace it. You have to replace it with something better that works for you. So whether that is something that they can think about, something that already answers their question for them, so they don't have to find the answer themselves, or just gives them something to fixate their attention on, that is a better replacement. So for some kids that might be putting on a kid's meditation or bedtime story or podcast episode for them to listen to, that allows their brain to have something else to think about. So they can stay in their bed, give them a second to settle in, and maybe even fall asleep without them realizing it. 

Danielle Bettmann  25:07  
So those are my seven tips and ways to beat the bedtime blues. Again, they are not comprehensive. They are not going to solve all of the world's problems, and they are not a guarantee of cupcakes, rainbows, and butterflies at bedtime, but I hope that you found at least one that gave you something to go off of so that you can feel more hopeful and more equipped and empowered to have a better bedtime routine. Tonight, I am sending you all of the sanity, and if you know you need more than just a couple of tips, then you're going to start with my Master Class. It is free and on demand. On my website, it's called Calm and Confident- How to Master the Kind and Firm Approach Your strong-willed child Needs without crushing their Spirit or walking on eggshells. I highly recommend watching that with your partner, so you can both identify which of the three archetypes of a strong-willed child parent you are, and then you can break down what exactly you're trying to do that isn't going to work and what to focus on instead. And when you are ready for support to make that happen much sooner than later at your house, then you can go ahead and apply to work together. I am so glad you're here. I believe in you, and I'm cheering you on. 

Danielle Bettmann  26:31  
Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Failing Motherhood. Your kids are so lucky to have you. If you loved this episode, take a screenshot right now share it in your Instagram stories, and tag me. If you love the podcast, be sure that you've subscribed and leave a review so we can help more moms know they are not alone if they feel like they're failing motherhood daily, and if you're ready to transform your relationship with your strong-willed child and invest in the support you need to make it happen - schedule your free consultation using the link in the show notes. I can't wait to meet you. Thanks for coming on this journey with me. I believe in you and I'm cheering you on.