Bedtime Battles ("Losing Myself in Motherhood")

0:28We always recommend Shopify. Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I'd like to respond to a parent who wrote to me. Her subject line is bedtime battles, losing myself in motherhood. She makes a comment towards the end of her note that always gets me and makes me want to help. And that is, I don't enjoy motherhood right now. And that's painful to admit because I love my daughter so much. So it can be so easy for us to get to this point with our children. And there's no shame in feeling this way. It happens where we're not enjoying parenthood. And yet we feel we're supposed to.

1:13And we know it goes by so fast. And it's guilt-inducing. It just makes us feel sorry for ourselves. and it's almost always a sign that we just need more help with boundaries. We're not sticking up for ourselves. We're letting our child be the one to decide things that they really need us to decide. So those things are evident in this parent's note and I want to speak to that. I'll read it first. Dear Janet, I love your podcast. Your words have brought me comfort and perspective through many hard parenting seasons, and I'm so grateful for your work. I would love to hear your thoughts about something that's been consuming me lately, our bedtime routine and how it's made me feel like I'm starting to hate motherhood.

2:02My daughter is five and a half. Two nights a week, bedtime goes beautifully. She's asleep by 7.30, and I have to wake her at 7 a.m. for school. But the other five nights are a two-hour struggle that leaves us both exhausted and disconnected. We start our routine around 7 o 'clock. Milk, toast, bath, teeth, book, lights out, and her yodo player on. But once she's in bed, it's endless. She needs to pee again. She wants cucumber slices in bed, which I give because at least it's healthy. Her back itches, or she suddenly has a boo-boo that needs a band-aid. Or she asks for ice. She calls for the cat to sleep with her, but he always leaves, and I find myself running back and forth trying to make it all work.

2:50Eventually, I lose my patience. I threaten to take something she loves away. She cries, I regret it, we repair, and then she usually falls asleep shortly after the tears. It's almost as if she needs that big emotional release before she can finally let go. Lately, she's been saying she's scared, wanting a bright nightlight on, but she'll smirk or start chatting as soon as I come in. It's hard to tell what's genuine fear and what's just another stall, and I feel like I'm constantly guessing wrong. She also tends to have emotional releases after school almost every day. I sit with her through them, even when they're directed at me, because I know she's had a long day.

3:33Daycare before and after school, lots of stimulation and very little downtime. I try to give her space to decompress and feel safe at home. I've taken several bedtime courses and read all the advice. I know I need to hold firm after bedtime and stop responding to every demand. I've tried everything, giving her a bedtime coupon for one extra thing, calmly holding boundaries, but she always finds a way around it. She'll say she has to pee, that she's scared, or that she hurt herself. Things I can't ignore. She knows exactly which needs I'll respond to, and I end up stuck in the loop again. Whether she falls asleep at 7.30 or 10, she sleeps right through the night, and I have to wake her at 7 a.m.

4:19for school. On weekends, she naturally wakes around 7.30 or 8, unless she goes to bed late, past nine, in which case I often have to wake her at 8.30. So I can't quite tell if she's overtired, not tired enough, or something else entirely. By the time she finally sleeps, I'm so wound up that I can't fall asleep until 10 o 'clock, even though I desperately want to go to bed by nine so I can wake up early to exercise, my only real time for myself. My husband goes to bed early too for work, so these long nights leave me feeling completely depleted. I know I'm not handling it quote right. I know threats don't help.

4:58I try to stay calm. I let her have her tears. I remind her that I don't like reacting that way, but inside I feel like I'm drowning in frustration. I don't enjoy motherhood right now, and that's painful to admit because I love my daughter so much. It feels like I'm watching her childhood slip away, and I'm too exhausted to appreciate it. I would love to hear your perspective, both on the bedtime struggle itself and on how to rebuild some peace and enjoyment in this season of motherhood. So I'm glad this parent asked about both because they're both achieved the same way, the way that I mentioned earlier, which is with more boundaries, caring for ourselves with boundaries, if we want to look at it that way.

5:44And this parent knows this. Again, like so many of you or really all of you, when you write to me, you all know in your heart the answer, but you're getting stuck maybe doubting yourselves. Or you're getting information from different sources that's confusing you. That plays into your doubts as well. So it really is about just not being sure if it's okay to say no to her saying, I need to pee again, or now my back itches, or wait, what are the ones that this parent said were the ones that she couldn't ignore? Those were she has to pee, that she's scared, or that she hurt herself. So the thing is, our child knows what pushes our button.

6:26And it's not like they really want to push our button deep down. They want to know that we've got it covered. And they know that here's some little slippery spots for you. Let me see if you have those covered too. Because what I can't tell you as your child is that I really need you too. Especially a strong-willed child like this child sounds. She's an intense person. I need to know that you're bigger than me, that you're stronger than me, that you can have this whole force field of boundaries around me to help me feel safe and to help me let go and go to sleep, which is what I need to do at bedtime.

7:04I need to be able to let go of trying to see what you'll do or not do, kind of pushing back, trying to control the situation. I need help letting go of that. I'm showing you through this repeatedly happening that I'm not able to do that. So those are the kinds of things that kids unfortunately can't directly tell us. In fact, they'll tell us the opposite. No, I really need you to help me? I have to go pee. But the way to handle this again is not to ignore all her requests, but to find a way that we can feel comfortable about letting go of them with nothing more than maybe an acknowledgement, if that.

7:47So we're not ignoring, but we're letting go of them as this child's stabs at trying to see if we really can let her go so that she can go to sleep. So let's go over this bit by bit so I can explain what I'm suggesting here. This parent says two nights a week bedtime goes beautifully. So it's the other five nights. And I don't know, it seems like she hasn't seen any correlation between what her daughter had for dinner, maybe if she had sweets, anything like that. It sounds like she hasn't seen a correlation. So maybe there's nothing that she can look at there. She has seen that her daughter is a venter, as a lot of kids are, especially these strong personalities, these intense personalities that some of our children have, at least at this time when they're young.

8:34This is what they're showing us, that they have a strong, intense personality. These are venters. These are also usually often children who don't let go of us easily, who don't kind of give us permission. Oh, go to bed now, mom, I'm fine. I'll just go to sleep. This girl knows instinctively she needs a really, really strong leader for a parent. So how can this parent feel comfortable letting those things go and not coming in and trying to cater to all these requests that aren't really genuine requests? Again, not that her child is pretending. It's like a real need that children have to explore the strength of our leadership.

9:15So this is what I would recommend. She says they do milk, toast, bath teeth, books light out, and her Yodo player on. And I'm assuming that's relaxing for her. This parent doesn't seem to think that's a problem. It might be too stimulating for some children. But hopefully that's not an issue here. If it is, then the parent can say, you know, I know you love your Yodo player. We're not going to do it at night, though, and have it out of the room at that time. Then she says, once she's in bed, it's endless. She needs to pee again. She wants cucumber slices in bed. So this is where beforehand, when you're doing your routine, your milk, your toast, your bath, your teeth, your book, your lights out, knowing that this is a transition and that children do have a hard time with transitions, especially this end of the day transition.

10:06This is the hardest one of all for kids that struggle in transitions. So she needs you to help move her forward through all of these. And as you're doing that, maybe while she's in the bath, or maybe even before that at dinnertime, before you even start the bedtime routine, you know, sometimes you have a hard time at bedtime. It's not good for you, not good for me. We're not going to do that anymore. So I want you to tell me, I'm going to go through the list ahead of time of all the things. And before we have our book, let's go over all the things that you might need. We'll bring the cucumber slices for bed if this parent thinks that's okay.

10:46If she doesn't want to do that, she can also say, no, we're not going to do the cucumber slices. You can have those earlier. Let's give you this back scratcher or I'll scratch your back now. And then if it itches again, you can scratch it yourself or it'll just have to wait till tomorrow. So she suddenly has a boo-boo that needs a band-aid. Maybe you even leave a couple of band-aids in her room and just say, we're not going to do boo-boos. Those can wait till the morning. Sorry if it hurts. So we're not telling her she can't ask for those things. We're welcoming her to feel like she wants all those things, but we're letting her know with certainty and confidence in ourselves, because we deserve to love this job, or at least like our job as a parent, we're going to take charge here.

11:32We're not going to let her call these shots. It's not good for her. it's not good for us. And I wouldn't do the cat sleeping with her if the cat always leaves. So I would say, you know, the cat's not going to sleep with you. You can cuddle with the cat in the daytime. Maybe make a list with her. What are the things that you need before bedtime? So you're putting all of that into the routine in a way that works for you. And again, the ones that don't work for you at all, don't do like the cat. And if you don't want to do the cucumber, don't do the cucumber. What she needs here, again, is you to take more control of what's going on.

12:08So it's not all left up to her. And this parent seems to know that's what she needs to do, but she still gets caught up in the details. She's doubting herself. She's doubting that it's really kind and loving to say no to a lot of these things. And I promise you, it is. Because what does this little girl want most of all? Her mom to enjoy her, to light up when she comes home and enjoy even the bedtime ritual. And to know that if she has to vent, this parent's going to let her vent, but we don't have to sit there waiting through it as if this is a terrible, unhealthy thing. We can keep moving on to what we have to do.

12:50I'm going to go in the kitchen now. And oh yeah, you're just having a rough one this afternoon, aren't you? Letting her feel the way she feels, being even more accepting of it, so accepting of it that you don't need to stop your life or the things that you want or have to do to make sure she's okay with it. That will free her to be able to move through those feelings more quickly too, when she's not holding you captive to them. That's not a comfortable feeling for kids. Again, it's another one they can't tell us about. So we got the cat, we got the bandaid, and the ice, and the boo-boo, and the back itching.

13:29And this parent says, I find myself running back and forth trying to make it all work. So that's not a good optic for her daughter to have her mom running back and forth. That makes it feel like my mom doesn't have a handle on this. My mom is uncomfortable with me asking for ridiculous things that, again, you're going to put in the routine so it's easier for you as a parent to say, nope, we did that. You had your chance and not in a mean way, but the rest can wait till tomorrow, even peeing. Now's the chance to pee. Otherwise it's going to be till tomorrow or she can get up herself and go pee.

14:04I'm assuming at age five and a half, this girl doesn't need her mom to help her with that. So, you know, that's always an option. If you need to pee, get up and go pee. But I'm going to be done for this parent to think no to herself. I'm clocking out. After I do my job here, I'm going to be done. I'm not going to get sucked back in. And that's what's going to help my child to let go. That's going to be the most loving thing I could possibly do. So this parent says, eventually, I lose my patience. Yes, that makes sense. Who wouldn't lose their patience? I threatened to take something she loves away because now we're mad at her, right?

14:43Because she's making us do this boundaries thing. And as somebody that doesn't like setting boundaries themselves, I really understand that. You're not making this easy for me. Why are you making it so hard for me? But really that's on us. It's not on her. That's our job to be able to do this, even when she makes it hard, Even when she yells at us and gets mad because this parent knows, and this is the next thing she says, she says when she makes a threat about taking something her daughter loves away, her daughter cries, the parent regrets it, we repair, and then she usually falls asleep shortly after the tears.

15:20It's almost as if she needs that big emotional release before she can finally let go. Yes, yes, yes. That's her letting go of all this work to control my mom and think of new ways to get her to come back in the room. Why am I doing this? I don't want to be doing this. You know, if her daughter could be that conscious of her motivations, it would be, oh, I wish I could just stop. Like, let me stop. Okay, get me upset. Get me mad about it. And now I can let go and cry and get mad at you. Okay, now I can go to sleep. I'm safe. My job is done. I don't have to try to control my parent anymore. This is what we can so easily let ourselves get caught up in.

16:04So seeing this from our child's point of view, she's not a passive little weak girl that just needs all these things and we're letting her down. It's the other way around. She's a strong girl who really needs to be able to let go of all this control she's trying to assert over us. That's the visual I hope this parent and all parents can practice. Okay, Nicola, Quizfrage. Homeoffice-Bastaddle oder Fahrtkosten? Was bringt uns mehr?

16:57The mom says lately she's been saying she's scared wanting a bright nightlight on. But then she'll smirk or start chatting as soon as I come in. It's hard to tell what's genuine fear and what's just another stall. And I feel like I'm constantly guessing wrong. Well, that's not up to us to try to have to guess and guess right. Even if she's afraid and that's genuine. Oh, this is scary for you. We're going to turn on the light. Yeah, sometimes it feels scary. You are safe and it's going to be all right. We're not discounting her feelings. We're allowing her to have them. and we're doing our best to help by the nightlight, if you want to do the nightlight.

17:36But that's it. It's not our problem to fix. And when we've already experienced this pattern of behavior, then we can be pretty sure that this is another vulnerability that our child has found in us. And she needs us to find a way to let go of that too. That's the challenge here. This mom says, I know I need to hold firm after bedtime and stop responding to every demand. Yes, that's exactly it. But then she says, I've tried everything, giving her a bedtime coupon for one extra thing, calmly holding boundaries, but she always finds a way around it. So yes, stop responding to every demand, but don't switch into, but now I'm going to try to find a work around.

18:20I'm going to do a coupon so that I can kind of negotiate this instead of holding a boundary. So many of us have this fantasy as parents, right? That we can find a workaround. So we don't have to be the bad guy. We don't have to do the boundary thing and say, no, we'll find a way that works for her. We're so well-intentioned, but that just makes her feel less comfortable in the situation and less able to let go because she senses that we're not comfortable. And that's always going to be setting the tone for our child. If we can't let go of them making all these demands at bedtime, they can't let go of us and therefore fall asleep.

19:01We have so much power in this area. And this isn't bad guy power. It's so loving. We're willing to do something that's not easy for us because we want to keep loving being with our child and we want them to feel that from us. So it's kind of this heroic, brave sacrifice in a way of, you know, I've got to do something hard for me because I love you so much. And that's really kind of what parenting is in a nutshell, right? Putting our child before us, but in a way that's actually better for us because now we're stepping into this role of being the parent where our child has a comfortable amount of power.

19:49Child power, not adult power. So yes, this parent says, she always finds a way around it. She'll say she has to pee, that she's scared or that she hurt herself, things I can't ignore. And I'm saying, put those in the routine too. Cover all of that ahead of time and let her know that, no, you're not ignoring it, but you're not gonna be helping her with those things at that certain point. that you decide when you're done. She knows exactly which needs I'll respond to, and I end up stuck in the loop again. Right. Her job, in a way, is to keep seeing if she can stick you in the loop, not out of ill will, but out of a child that really, really needs a parent with stronger boundaries right now.

20:30So it's our job to get unstuck out of the loop. And that means letting go of her being mad at us, her being upset, her being afraid, maybe her feeling hurt and that we're not going to come in and fix it for her, her having to pee maybe, and we're not there to take her to the bathroom. She says, by the time her daughter finally sleeps, I'm so wound up, I can't fall asleep. Yeah, because we've been working so hard to try to make this work for her. And the only way it's going to work for her is if we're not trying to make it work for her. And it's like, the more we're trying to make it work for her, the less chance it's going to work.

21:11So yeah, it's just not this direct process that we think it is. It's taking back leadership and feeling good about our leadership, even when it makes her seem to feel disappointed or sad or scared. It's like somehow these children that are so much smaller than us and so much less mature, they could back us into a corner where somehow we're on the defensive. And that's not comfortable for them. It's definitely not comfortable for us. And it's going to make us feel like this parent feels, I feel like I'm drowning in frustration. Yeah, because instinctively, this parent knows that this isn't a sustainable dynamic to have with a child.

21:56And this parent, again, deserves to enjoy motherhood, not every second of it, but mostly enjoy motherhood and not to be so frustrated to be able to feel good about herself, about what she's doing. Her child can't give that to us. We have to do it. That's the bummer in all this. And this parent says, I feel like I'm watching her childhood slip away while I'm too exhausted to appreciate it. Well, childhood does slip away. I mean, I got to say, time slips away. It gets faster and faster and faster. and there will be lots of times to enjoy all the way through and into our child's adulthood. But the thing is, is that we can grow so much through experiences like these.

22:39So it's not just for us to enjoy our child. It's for us to feel, yeah, I'm not going to let myself get pushed around by anyone, especially not someone I love and adore. I deserve this. I so much appreciate this parent reaching out to me and I hope that she gets back to me and tells me how it's going and even if she's still struggling I want to hear about that and maybe I could do a follow-up even or even have her on if she wants to talk about it with me on the podcast because this is a very common dynamic that we can fall into so many parents will relate to this, I think. And I hope this advice helps a little bit.

23:22And there's a lot more about boundaries, of course, in my No Bad Kids Master Course. So many parents have written to me and told me that this really made all the difference for them. This helped them turn a big corner and really understand and be able to practice setting boundaries as a respectful leader, being able to understand their kids' behavior, and helping them to process their emotions. It's a challenging job, but it's really not that complicated. The hardest part is feeling that confidence in ourselves and the courage to give ourselves the care that we need through boundaries. We can do this.