Author’s practical guidance
Sleeping fine in one house and not the other
Source named in the book: research on young children and contact with both parents (Kelly & Lamb)
This is the finding parents most want to treat as evidence, and it is the weakest evidence there is.
Say this now
“Bedtime is different at each house. Both are fine.”
Removes the sense that one of them is wrong.
“Same story, same song, wherever you are.”
Names the one thing that is genuinely the same.
Do this
- Write down your routine in order and send it once, without comment.
- Agree three fixed points: rough time, order of steps, who leaves last.
- Send the same book back and forth for a month.
- Compare after four weeks, not after one bad Sunday.
- Ask the child nothing about the other bedtime.
Avoid this
- "He never sleeps at your house." A sentence that ends the only conversation that would help.
- "Was bedtime horrible again?" asked of the child, who will now report accordingly.
- Changing your own bedtime to compensate. Now there are two unstable routines.
If it repeats
If sleep is poor in both houses rather than one, this is not a two-homes problem and the arrangement is not the cause. Treat it as sleep, and the last block of this book covers when it is worth raising with your pediatrician.
Why the book suggests this
This is the finding parents most want to treat as evidence, and it is the weakest evidence there is. Research on young children in two households points at the differences between the two bedtimes rather than at the two houses: what time it starts, what order it goes in, who leaves the room and when.
Almost all of that is fixable and none of it is about who the better parent is. It is also the one area where two adults who disagree about most things can usually agree about something, because the outcome is measurable and both of them want it.
Related prepared situations
What happened next?
From this collection
Same Words: Two Homes
45 prepared situations in this family area.