Own Your Own Bedtime
Do you struggle to keep your eyes open as you sit through your favorite shows with a steely determination you’ll never quite understand? Do you feel your bed calling at the same reasonable hour, yet find yourself skulking into your bedroom only hours later, arduously ignoring the clock and that all-too-familiar sinking feeling in your stomach?
This was me - every single night for years. Long after my three daughters’ own sleep patterns had ceased to provide a valid reason for my sleep-deprivation, I was still stumbling through my days on far too little shut-eye.
As soon as the girls (aged 7, 5, and 1) were tucked up in bed, I would sit down on the couch for the first time that day and, more often than not, get lost in the world of reality TV. This would not have been a problem (aside from my questionable taste in television), had I not developed major issues with bedtime procrastination. As the clock ticked around to 11pm, I would suddenly decide it was imperative I check the latest news on my phone. Next, I would urgently require Google’s help in finding the name of the actress in that new HBO series because hadn’t I seen her in something else recently? Oh, and what was the name of that girl from school who did the really good impression of said actress…and on and on it went until, one day, I decided I’d had enough of inwardly berating myself for my inability to get to bed on time, and instead came up with a three-step plan to transform my evenings.
Make the Decision to Stop Going to Bed so Late
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Trust me, I know and fully understand all the reasons stay-at-home moms stay up late instead of getting the sleep they need. In those precious couple of hours once the kids are asleep, no one asks you for anything, no one touches you, and you finally get a break from the sound of your own voice. Once you’re happily ensconced on the couch, you refuse point-blank to put a limit on that gloriously free time. After all, you fully deserve this reward for getting through a long day of taking care of everyone else’s needs. Plus, there’s no escaping the fact that, once you actually go to sleep, morning will hit you before you know it, and the incessant demands on your time will start all over again.
Unfortunately, creating more hours in the day is simply not possible, so our first step has to be recognizing that, by staying up late, we are choosing to deprive ourselves of the rest we so desperately need.
Without a good night’s sleep, I had become increasingly irritable, fallen into a habit of overeating in the evenings, and was beginning to suffer anxiety about the damage I knew I was doing to my immune system. Yet it wasn’t until I heard Dr. Timothy Pychyl make the following analogy on his iProcrastinate podcast, that I finally realized I needed to make a change:
“It’s similar to how we go to the mall, and we feel that we deserve a new pair of shoes, but we know we don’t have the money for them. In the same sense that we can sometimes spend money we don’t have to feel better, in the case of bedtime procrastination we are spending time we don’t have...but we feel we deserve it.”
This hit me like a thunderbolt - yes, of course I wanted to relax at the end of the day, but that did not mean that I could continue to spend time I didn’t have!
Believe You are Capable of Making the Change to an Earlier Bedtime
It’s an all-too-familiar scenario - you’ve decided that you need to start going to bed at an earlier hour and the very next evening valiantly turn off the TV after just one episode of your favorite show. Yet you still end up crawling into bed at a ridiculously late hour because you find yourself choosing to spend your precious sleep time in a scroll hole instead!
After falling into this (self-made) trap over and over again, I finally realized that my bedtime procrastination came down to one key issue - I was just not in the right mindset to make the change I so desperately wanted to make. I needed to truly believe that I was actually capable of transforming my evenings but, instead, I felt I was simply too disorganized a person to get it together. So I continued putting off going to bed, even though I knew I’d regret it the next day.
And then, of course, I’d feel even worse about myself.
As a stay-at-home mom, I had become incredibly self-critical over the years, and, sadly, never even realized it until I came across the book “Mirror Work” by Louise Hay. This 21-day program introduced me to the concept of affirmations, which are positive statements spoken out loud while looking in the mirror. An example would be: “I am a wonderful, capable being”.
Now, I know you might be guffawing at this - or maybe point-blank refusing to even entertain the idea of doing such a thing - but let me tell you that, after just one week of following the program and pushing through the discomfort, I had become aware of how I was speaking to myself for the first time in my life! And instead of continuing to indulge in constant self-criticism, I was slowly starting to turn my thoughts around and feel good about my ability to take control of my entire day, including bedtime.
Create an Evening Plan with Habit Stacking to Get Yourself to Bed on Time
Just imagine how wonderful bedtime would feel if you were to climb into your warm, comfortable bed in a state of calm relaxation, rather than stumbling under the weight of a panicked, self-imposed pressure to get what little sleep the remaining hours allowed. To make this happen (and it’s easier than you think!), all you need is a notepad, pen, and to follow these six simple steps:
Note down what time you usually start to feel tired in the evening. This is your new bedtime! You should not pick a random hour because we want our bodies to be tired enough for sleep. Consistency is key here - bedtime and wake-up time should be the same every single day.
Write down what time you usually close the door after putting your kids to bed.
List every single task you do each evening after closing that door. This could include loading the dishwasher, putting on a load of laundry, watching TV, flossing and brushing your teeth, changing into pajamas...
Over the next day or two, time yourself to see how long it takes for you to actually complete these activities - you may be surprised!
Add up the total time taken for all of the essential tasks listed and note how much time remains before your new bedtime. You’ll probably see that you only have time to watch one episode of a show, or read just ten pages of your book. These new, realistic times have to go down on the page in place of the old ones.
Put all of your evening activities in order, and make sure it’s one that makes sense for you. I recommend putting whatever task you dislike the most at the very start of your plan - for me that’s brushing my teeth. Getting this task out of the way first ensures that it cannot become the reason you stay sitting on the couch for longer than you should.
The key concept here is that the act of shutting your kid’s bedroom door each night sets your evening plan in motion. One activity flows directly on to the next...from walking to the bathroom, to brushing your teeth, to changing into your pajamas, to loading the dishwasher, and so on, until you are happily tucked up in bed. There are no decisions to be made at all once you close that bedroom door, so your bedtime is not up for negotiation at any point during the evening.
Naturally it’s possible that you might get distracted some nights and end up missing bedtime, but it’s very important to catch yourself when you then inevitably start thinking you might as well stay up really late now. Remind yourself, once again, that you cannot continue to spend time you don’t have, and go to bed as soon as you can. Most importantly, be kind to yourself and truly believe you are doing your very best.
If you feel you need extra motivation and support in getting yourself to bed on time, please join me in my Facebook group ‘joyFULL mamas connect’ for my 5-day “Own Your Own Bedtime” challenge where, at the end of the week, we’ll celebrate our success - by going to bed early!