The No Set Bedtime Process

When I interviewed Dr. Chris Winters last year, I described how we’ve been using a No Set Bedtime method with our daughter Carys.  He used it with his children starting in the Elementary years, and his eyes nearly fell out of his head when I told him we’d been using it since Carys was about three.   In the email about the Dr. Winters interview I asked any listeners who wanted to learn more about this method to be in touch, so in this episode we’ll meet listeners Katherine and Gila.  Katherine’s daughter is three and Gila’s son is seven, and in this episode I explain the No Set Bedtime approach and then they pepper me with questions about how to make it work in their families.     We recorded our conversation back in November 2021, and in January I followed up with them to see how it’s going.  I share their feedback and my ideas on what’s going well and what they might adjust.   [embed]https://vimeo.com/671735528[/embed]     [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"]   Jen Lumanlan  00:02 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We all want her children to lead fulfilling lives. But it can be so   Jessica  00:11 Do you get tired of hearing the same old intros to podcast episodes? Me too. Hi, I'm not Jen. I'm Jessica, and I'm in Burlesque Panama. Jen has just created a new way for listeners to record the introductions to podcast episodes, and I got to test it out. There's no other resource out there quite like Your Parenting Mojo, which doesn't just tell you about the latest scientific research on parenting and child development. It puts it in context for you as well. So, you can decide whether and how to use this new information. If you'd like to get new episodes in your inbox, along with a free infographic on 13 reasons your child isn't listening to you what to do about each one. Sign up at YourParentingMojo.com/subscribe, and come over to our free Facebook group to continue the conversation about this episode. You can also thank Jen for this episode by donating to keep the podcast ad free by going to the page for this or any other episode on YourParentingMojo.com. If you'd like to start a conversation with someone about this episode or know someone who would find it useful, please forward it to them. Over time, you're gonna get sick of hearing me read this intro as well. So come and record on yourself. You can read from a script she's provided or have some real fun with it and write your own. Just go to YourParentingMojo.com and click Read the Intro and I can't wait to hear yours.   Jen Lumanlan  01:32 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. Today, we're actually going to do something that we have not done before. We have two parents here with us today, they reached out to me after the still recent to us as we're recording here, that's going to be a little while before this episode is really on the episode with Dr. Chris Winter, where we were learning about sleep and we talked about our no set bedtime process. And at the beginning of that interview, I said, if anyone's curious about this and is interested in applying this idea with their own children, feel free to reach out and maybe we can set something up. And so we have two fabulous parents here today, Gila and Katherine. And each of them reached out and we're curious about various aspects. And we're also kind of hesitant about various aspects. And so today we're going to talk through with them what it might look like to have a no-set bedtime routine in their house. So I'm gonna ask each of them to introduce themselves. And then I'm going to talk for a bit about how this has played out for us and for what I've seen with the families that have implemented it. And then we're gonna go into a q&a, and they're gonna poke holes in this on your behalf, dear listeners so that you can really see how this could play out with your family if you decided to try this. So hello, and welcome to Gila and Katherine, Gila doyou want to go first and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you and your family and where you are in the world? And what made you reach out when you saw this offer?   Gila  02:54 Thanks for having me. So I am a single mom of a seven-year-old boy, and we're in upstate New York. And I reached out for a couple of reasons. One is that my son, while sometimes he falls asleep relatively easily, sometimes, relatively frequently, he falls asleep more than an hour after lights out. And I'm a little familiar with the insomnia literature. And my understanding is that it's not good to be in bed for that long and tossing and turning. And I want to establish healthy sleep habits. But I also really think sleep is so important. The other piece is that sleep is a time when behavioral challenges can come up. And I think there's a lot of reasons why that's the case. But one of them is the power dynamic that this is a place where there can be a power struggle. And I've seen in other places how better things go when I can shift away from the sort of power-over dynamic and have a more collaborative approach. But I struggle with that with bedtime because I do think that sleep is so important. And because it's a place where I think structure and consistency are helpful. So but I was very intrigued and I'm very curious to learn more.   Jen Lumanlan  04:07 Okay, super. And my understanding is you have more than a passing professional interest in this topic. Is that right?   Gila  04:13 Yeah, so I am a psychologist and a neuropsychologist. And so I recommend to my patients all the time to improve sleep habits with is just so critical for cognitive functioning, emotional functioning, psychological and physical.   Jen Lumanlan  04:27 Okay, cool. Well, thank you very much for telling us about you. Katherine. Who are you? Where are you in the world? Who's your family?   Katherine  04:33 Yes, I'm Katherine, based in Southern Maryland, just outside of DC. I have one daughter who's both three years and three months now. So our bedtime routines have been a little bit inconsistent over time. And lately, at one point we had gotten to a pretty good timing where she was usually in bed and we left the room by 8:30. And now it's kind of crept up to 9:30 by the time we leave, and that leaves very little time for my husband and I to spend time together or just relax, I think that the no set bedtime approach would be exciting to her.   Jen Lumanlan  05:16 It is to most children, yup.   Katherine  05:18 Potentially be really helpful for us. But I am hesitant about, alright, I can see potential challenges with getting her to actually stay in her room while we go do something else. We usually like to just watch a TV show together or, you know, spend time together and I could see her begging to leave her room and spend time with us.   Jen Lumanlan  05:42 Okay, so also like Gila feeling pretty excited about the possibility of this and also like, how on earth is that actually going to work in real life with my real child? Is that right? Okay, so let me tell you how we put this in place for us. And then we can answer all of your questions on behalf of all the parents who are listening to this. So I will say that I'm not sure that everybody who's listening to this necessarily needs to try this approach or to use this approach. I think that one of the main indicators that we can use to say, should we try this approach is maybe something about bedtime is not working for us right now, either, It's not working for the child, and we'll know it's not working for the child because we see them resisting. We see them stalling, we see them not wanting to go to bed, or something isn't working for us. And Katherine, I think you're a great example of that, where you're not necessarily sort of that you're seeing the stalling and eventually the child's getting into bed, and then you get your downtime. It's like your downtime has kind of evaporated at this point. And so something about that is not working for you. And so if the way that we're doing things right now is not working for one or both parties involved, then I think that's a really good reason to consider doing something differently. So we introduced this when my daughter was about two and a half, which even Dr. Winter was pretty shocked by how young she was and basically it came about through resistance to bedtime, and thinking, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this every night, this is harder than it needs to be. What can we shift that can make this potentially easier? Our routine definitely shifted a little bit with how light it is outside and it has also shifted as she's gotten older as well. But in general, what we end up doing is dinner is at around 6:45. And I've cooked every other night. Usually I cook one night and then we have leftovers reheated the second night and dinner itself takes about 20 minutes. So we're coming into the period just after seven o'clock and then we have a good deal of flex time in that hour, that almost hour until about eight. I keep a learning journal for her and I try and keep that out on the end of the dining room table, and so that's my period of the day to write in there. She takes a bath every other day. Sometimes she wants to have playtime if something interesting came in the mail, or we're just back from a trip where we've been exploring national parks, and she didn't finish some of her junior ranger badges and she wants to finish those. So that's sort of a good deal of flex time in that almost hour. And then at eight o'clock, we used to have brushing teeth right at eight o'clock. And we've sort of flex that a little bit as she's gotten older to have stories first, and then she brushed his teeth after. If your child has strong resistance to brushing teeth, I would definitely advise having brushing teeth before stories. So that you can sort of use that as a light touch logical consequence. If you're having trouble getting the teeth to brush that we might not have time for stories if we don't get the teeth brushed in an expedient manner. We're at a point now where that's not so much of a challenge as it has been in previous years. And so we can allow a little more flexibility there. So but at eight o'clock, we are starting our storytime and Carys actually sleeps on a pile of blankets on the floor in her bedroom. By her choice, certainly not our preference. And that does mean that her bedroom is not a very comfortable place to read stories. But if your child is sleeping in a bed like most children do, and that is a comfortable place then you could certainly read stories in your bedroom. And many parents find that the fewer transitions that they have around bedtime, the better. And so that's one more reason to get the teeth done early so you don't have to come out of the bedroom if that is potentially a challenge. For us. Again, that's not so much of an issue so we have stories in the living room, and then after that we're transitioning to this mythical time that you're all wondering about what actually happens in this time. So our basic parameter is you can do whatever you like. It needs to be mostly in your room and we took a harder line on this when she was younger, and I am not going to be involved in this. So if you need help with stickers, or glue or tape, or anything like that, that is not a project that we're going to be doing during this period after storytime that it needs to be something that you can do without asking for my help. In the early days with a younger child, what you will probably find is that if you just set up the options of you can go to bed, even if you're not tired, or you can play in your room quietly by yourself, that you will probably find the child will be quite attracted to this idea of not lying in bed, which they may have been forced to do for some period of time before that. I think the key idea that a lot of parents are struggling with here is that this period of time has to meet both party’s needs and really everything that we're doing in our interactions with our children, ideally is going to be meeting both of their needs. And the important part to distinguish there is the difference between needs and strategies. And a strategy is a way that we can meet a need. Firstly, let's look at it from the other way, I might think to myself, well, I want to read a book every night.  That's part of how I want to spend my time. And I need to read a book, I need that for myself. Actually, that reading that book is a strategy to meet a need, which could be depending on what kind of book it is—it could be intellectual stimulation, it could be relaxation, it could be self-care time, it could be any one of a number of needs that I'm meeting by reading this book. And when we bring this back to the level of needs, rather than strategies, we can see actually, there might be a whole bunch of other ways to get those needs met. So if my need for that time is for intellectual stimulation, I might be able to listen to a podcast just as easily as like, as I can read a book, if my need is for self-care, maybe a bath in the bathroom with the door locked, would be another way to have that need met. And that doesn't involve anything to do with books necessarily. So if we can see this at a level of needs, then all of a sudden, a whole bunch of different ways of meeting that potential need can be met. And so we're always looking to understand what is my real need here, not the strategy I'm using to try and meet that need. And what is the child's real need here, maybe the child is not tired and that's why they're not wanting to go to bed. Maybe they don't feel as though they've had enough connection time with you during the day, and that's why they don't want to go to bed. And we need to understand what is their needs so that we can help them to address that, because if their need is for connection time with you, then when eight o'clock or whatever is your time or you know, 8:30 once you get to the end of the story, storytime rolls around, they're probably still going to be coming out of their rooms saying I want to spend time with you because they're not feeling as though they've had that connection time with you. So if you're seeing behavior that is difficult for you to navigate, like coming out of the room, when you're hoping that they're going to be spending this time in their room, then you always want to be asking yourself, what need is the child trying to fulfill by doing this behavior? And so if it's connection time, well, what can we do about that, maybe you could have connection time with them earlier in the day, and so their cup is full by bedtime, and thus they don't mind the Separation from you as much. If you don't have time to do that earlier in the day, maybe an hour and a half of kind of irritated, you know, I told you to stay in your, room I told you to stay in your room is not meeting your need for relaxation and self-care at the end of the day. And perhaps 30 minutes of one-on-one time with your child could refill their cup for connection. And also then get you an hour of time on the back end, for your self-care time, your connection time with your partner, and so on. So I think that's really at the crux of the well what do I do if my child doesn't stay in their bedroom idea? On the younger end when they're not necessarily as able to communicate their needs, you know, do you want to be in bed? Or do you want to play in your room quietly by yourself can be useful? But as soon as they're old enough to start expressing what's actually going on for them, then we can start to bring in this idea of needs and meeting theirs, and meeting hours as well. And in the meantime, we can always hypothesize we can always sort of taking an educated guess at what we think is going on for them and try to help them meet their needs to the best that we can understand it. So that's a super important piece. Then of course you get to what happens if they go to bed late.   Jen Lumanlan  14:27 And when we first started this yes, I will say there was a period of maybe it was probably two weeks at the most where we had gone from sort of an 8:30 lights out to it was heading towards 9:30 and 10. And at that point, we had been making up songs or story. I would lie with her for a little bit and make up a song or a story based on some funny thing that happened in the day or she would suggest a character and I would make up a song or story based on that. And so, of course, it gets to 9:30 or 10 and she's like, “Okay, it's song time now!” And I'm like, “It's not song time.” It's 10 o'clock at night, it is not time for making up songs and stories. And so I put a boundary in place to say, after nine o'clock, I do not have the mental capacity to be able to make up songs and stories. So if you choose to go to bed before nine o'clock, then I will be able to tell you a song, and make up a story, if you choose to go to bed after that, then I'm not going to be able to do that and I don't have the mental capacity to do that. And so there was then a period of time where she chose to go to bed at nine o'clock, so she could get her song or her story, and there were other days where she's like, I don't really care that much—I'd rather keep doing what I'm doing, It doesn't matter to me. And so yeah, there will be a period of time where they're learning what it is like to self-regulate, and they may end up tired. And if you were to start this on a Monday, you know, they're in preschool, and they would just spend those days in school. Would that be the end of the world if you were not the person who had to deal with that? My hypothesis might the way I approached it was no, it would not be the end of the world if I was not the person who had to deal with that. So yes, we very deliberately did this on school days, and yeah, that means you're gonna get woken up at a certain time, and I'm gonna be super upfront about that. I'm gonna say we need to be out the door at 8:15 and it takes you a bit of time to get going. I'm thinking 7:30 is a reasonable time. We're simplifying our morning routine as much as we can so things like getting dressed, brushing teeth, and eating breakfast, those were really the only three things we were doing in the morning at that time. And at 7:30 rolls around and waking her up, she's pretty tired, and she's not super happy to be woken up. But within a couple of weeks, she had learned that if you go to bed at 10, you are probably going to wake up very tired, and the day is probably going to be kind of rough. And there may be a period of time where you have to sort of say, “Hey, it's 9:30 Are you sure you want to stay up?” And you can see they're still in whatever they're doing, and they don't want to stop. It's like, okay, I'm waking you up at 7:30 No matter what. And then pretty soon, you get to a point where the luster of staying up until whatever time I like wears off a little bit. And they don't feel as though this is something you're going to take away. And thus, they have to do it to the max in case my parent changes their mind and won't let me do this anymore. They realize this is a long-term thing. And so all of a sudden, staying up until super late becomes something that it's not a big deal. And I will say for probably a year now, right off to storytime on most nights, Carys has been going to bed at 8:30. And so we're kind of where I might want to be if I was forcing her...