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life

Bedtime Dynamics

As Savannah and Alyssa share a room we have a near nightly ritual where one gets mad at the other for some infraction of the Sisters Code of Conduct™ (at least on the nights where they don’t both test how many excuses they can find to leave their bedroom after bedtime). The result sometimes is that they will keep Mariah awake in the next room.

On many Saturdays we allow the girls to choose alternate sleeping arrangements for the night. Last night they chose to sleep on the couches in the family room. Mariah saw what was happening and decided that she wanted to be part of the sleepover. I thought it was worth the experiment so we let her sleep down there as well. I fully expected that we would be going down before 10:00 pm to move her back up to her room.

We didn’t hear a sound from any of them. At one point we went down to peek in and see if they had fallen asleep. What we discovered was that they were all playing very quietly and very nicely with each other. The older girls were sharing toys with Mariah and being nice to each other.

Now Laura and I are wondering how we can promote that kind of peaceful coexistence every night between the kids.

By David

David is the father of 8 children. When he's not busy with that full time occupation he works as a technology professional. He enjoys discussing big issues with informed people, cooking, gardening, vexillology (flag design), and tinkering.