Bedtime Excuses
 

I started this in my journal. But someone prodded me to make it a thread. I wanted to write down all of the excuses my children come up with to delay bedtime or to come out of their room after they are supposedly already in bed. It would be fun and interesting to read what other parents hear every night and how they deal with it.

Last night, my daughter (age 9 1/2) came out of her within 10 minutes to tell me her legs were sticking together. I am pretty sure it was her weird way of telling me she was too warm. I told her I'd turn on the air conditioner. Within minutes she was sleeping.

Today's excuse: She came out holding herself just under her underam and said her tummy hurt. I told her last time I checked, her tummy was down farther and in the front. I told her to change her shirt, maybe the shirt was irritating it. Let's see if she stays in her room now.

Anyone else want to share? I am sure we could all use a good chuckle and perhaps learn from each other.

I don't have any kids, and I don't remember what I used to use for excuses, but I wanted to be able to follow this thread easier. =)

*pats Mini-Widow on the head and tells her to get back into her bedroom.

My daughter's excuses always had to do with 'bad dreams', even if it was two minutes after going to her room.
My solution was to take a teddy bear she'd had since her first Christmas and tell her it was the 'bad dream bear'. I told her that anything that was bothering her, she could tell the bear and the bear would absorb all those bad things. It worked.:thumbsup:

Cylons under the bed is my all time favorite. I really have to be careful letting my daughter watch TV with me. This happened every night for a week, despite my sincere explaination as to the fictional nature of Cylons. Finally, I went to a toy stoe, bought a stuffed lion, and named him Apollo. Apollo now sits under the bed to protect my baby. She's slept every night since.

My son does something similar, but it's with monsters. I finally took a bear that my dad gave to him, told him this was "Pop's special bear", and said the bear would help keep him safe at night, because me searching for the monsters didn't seem to help.

I don't have kids, but I once dated a guy who did. Twin boys, they cracked me up. One of them got in the habit of trying to rid his room of monsters after he went to bed. He'd come out of his room because the only way to get rid of the monsters was to flush them down the toilet. And after he'd flushed the monster, he'd go right to sleep. :)

Edit: Sorry, I thought this was a thread about wives.

Heh, stuffed animals... gotta love em! I don't have kids, but used to work at a Girl Scout camp, and the girls would always get a little spooked about sleeping in a tent- so I'd tell them all about how their stuffed animals were brave and they should just hold their animals tight and they'd be brave too!

No kids of my own, but I remember my "best" attempt not to go to bed when told. I slipped behind the couch early with full view of the TV. Mom and Dad sent us all off to bed and I guess assumed that I had already done so. I'm quite tickled with my deception until I get sleepy (probably ten minutes past my bedtime). I'm stuck behind the couch and just want to go to bed. :D

I will probably jinx myself here. But ever since I posted this thread, I have had little to no problems at bedtime. She is still awake though, anything could happen tonight.

I have loved reading all of your stories. I wish I had known about the stuffed animal thing when she was smaller. I think she might be too old to all of a sudden believe me when I tell her a stuffed animal will help her. But I will keep it in mind for my son (who came out of his room as I was typing this, told you I was probably jinxing myself)

SW, my baby sister suffered from nightmares and would crawl into bed with me wimpering in fear. I was just a kid myself, but this worked for me.

We had recently seen Cinderella (first time showing in the theatre) so there were very good moments that we liked. I told my baby sis to just think about the three little faerie seamstresses and to pick the one she wanted to be. "Dream about singing to Cinderella and making that beautiful dress..."

It worked and to this day she uses that sort of dream control. As silly as it sounds, I do the same when I am overly stressed.

Edit: Obviously, my example needs a 50 year update to be relevant. :p

Wasn't that Sleeping Beauty, with the three fairies? I thought Cinderella had the one fairy godmother using her magic wand.... =)

My ex-wife bouht the infant a dream catcher - and she wanted one here too. I don't want MORE clutter messing up her already small bedroom, so I tld her that Unicorns are widely known to chase away bad dreams. Seeing as she has a few toy ones she was happy.

The other day (about a year after this happened) she was telling me that she's made my ex-wife buy a unicorn to have at her house. We got to talking about how the unicorns did it, and she explained that the two baby unicorns (4" toys) spear the dreams, the medium unicorn (a 8" toy) puts the bad dreams into envelopes, and the large unicorn (a 12" toy) posts it to the bad person who was SUPPOSED to have the bad dream.

She made up all of this herself, s far as I can work out. :thumbsup:

There was the fairy godmother, and the little seamstresses looked like mice. The little song they sang would make for a nasty earworm today. :D

http://z.about.com/d/classicfilm/1/0/V/6/micecin.jpg

I babysat a kid who wouldn't sleep because she was afraid of a giant rat she'd heard about in a story. I told her to imagine the rat getting caught in a giant rat trap...she smiled, went right to bed. Kids certainly force you to expand your creativity!