Second Wind

\My son doesn’t get enough sleep, and it’s probably our fault.

It drives me up the wall to be trying to relax in the living room at a decidedly late hour and hear the intermittent snap of Legos being put together, or the hollow sound of his closet door rolling open, followed by the rustling of plastic as he rifles through toys that he doesn’t give a second look to during the day. Post-bedtime is his second wind, and seemingly the only time he decides to investigate the possibilities of creative, independent play. We insist on jammies and teeth brushing at 8:30 every night, then one of us typically hangs out in his room for a little while, intending to help him calm down for bed but in reality just serving as an audience (or gym equipment) for late-night horseplay. I won’t put up with it past 9:00, when I say goodnight and lie to him (and myself) that if he wants to be tucked in, it’s now or never. I also claim that he’s not allowed to leave his room after bedtime unless he needs something—and forgetting a Lego piece doesn’t count.

But it doesn’t stick as much as it should. You try turning down a tuck-in request from a sleepy little boy at 10:00, even if you’ve already tucked yourself in on the couch to watch a TV show. You try disciplining a child who brings out a Lego creation made specially for you, even after you told him not to come out of his room anymore. You try going into his room at 9:30 and stifling the creativity evident in the toys and drawing papers strewn across the floor. It’s frankly reassuring to see that stuff, to remind me that he’s not all Minecraft and Star Wars and screen time. I know I should encourage more of that activity during waking hours, but the hours between the end of my workday and my son’s theoretical bedtime are so few, and my attention so divided.

I keep trying to erect the bedtime boundary because I want so badly to reclaim a couple hours of focus time for myself before I go to sleep. Plus, parenting wisdom holds that we need to create structure and not let him have the run of the house, which calls for a demarcation between kid time and adult time. I feel entitled to this even though I’m supposed to be the one to make it happen. We’ve tried to do nighttime rituals that magically invoke sleep signals in our son’s body (dimming the lights, etc.), but parts of that routine have gotten sloppy over the years. It seems like more often than not, we get distracted/lazy and let him watch a movie later than he should, or let his bath go on too long if he’s having a good time splashing around, which pushes the whole schedule back. Or we get tired of nagging him to put on pajamas, and instead let him continue with whatever bedroom toy has captured his attention. (By the time we insist more firmly, he yells that he can’t find the pajamas, forgetting that they’re right beside him or maybe under his butt.)

Then there’s a sheer sense of futility that comes from feeling like we’ve done all the right things, yet his internal clock still won’t let him go to sleep at the prescribed time. He might just have an unusually low need for sleep. He stopped napping during the day when he was about three, and has not been worse for the wear. He’s often chipper in the mornings. However, I’m sure that night after night of staying up late affects his mood and attentiveness, and could be bad for his health in ways we don’t see yet. My husband and I are trying to find a balance between enforcing good sleep habits and letting the kid enjoy himself. We both oscillate between getting fed up with the nighttime free-for-all, and indulging the sweetness of our son’s play and conversation. It’s lovely to hear his little voice singing behind his closed bedroom door, even if we wish he was asleep instead, and even if it’s “The Imperial March” instead of an innocent lullaby.