Author’s practical guidance
The bedtime that keeps sliding later
Source named in the book: bedtime regularity research (Mindell)
Nobody decides to move bedtime.
Say this now
“Bedtime is at seven now. It's on the clock, not up to me.”
Puts the rule outside the two of you. There is no one left to negotiate with.
“We're going to bed a bit earlier all week. Same time tomorrow.”
Says it is a plan, not a punishment for how tonight went.
Do this
- Pick the time you actually want and write it where the adults can see it.
- Move it back ten minutes every few nights, not all at once.
- Move the whole evening with it — dinner and bath shift too, or the routine gets compressed.
- Hold the wake-up time steady, since the morning anchors the night.
- Keep weekends within half an hour of weekdays so Monday is not a fresh start.
Avoid this
- "We'll get back on track next week." — next week starts from wherever this week finished.
- Making up for a late night with a late morning — that moves the whole day, and the evening moves with it.
- Fixing an hour of drift in one night — they lie awake, it goes badly and the plan is dropped.
If it repeats
If it drifts again within a month, the problem is usually the adults' evening rather than the child's. Work out which fixed thing in your own night is pushing it, and set the bedtime to what an ordinary Tuesday allows.
Why the book suggests this
Nobody decides to move bedtime. It moves on its own — a long weekend, a late dinner, a good mood you did not want to interrupt — and twenty minutes at a time it ends up an hour later than the one you believe you have.
In Mindell's work regularity carries more weight than any single element of the evening. A bedtime that lands within the same short window each night beats a better routine at a time that moves, because the body times itself against the last few days.
From this collection
Same Words: Every Night
45 prepared situations in this family area.