My Solution To A Grizzly Toddler That Needed Sleep

When my two boys were young, in their toddler stage, they were routine boys. They loved having a strict routine, it was like their security blanket.

If we ever broke that routine, it would play havoc on their mood, their security of knowing what come next and on their general overall coping mechanism.

I guess this is a con of having a strict routine they followed, however the pros far outweighed the cons, I found.

One of the pros was that each night, after dinner, we would watch TV. It would be their favourite shows and once their shows finished, they knew what come next.

At 7:30pm each night, one of the boys favourite characters would arrive on the screen, to wish all good little boys and girls goodnight. Each channel had their own version.

One channel cast Fat Cat as the goodnight bear, another shows Humphrey B Bear, but my boys all time favourite was Yamba — not exactly sure what type of animal Yamba was, possibly an ant would be my closest guess — maybe that’s why he was my boys favourite.

So the routine would be, that we’d watch TV until Yamba appeared to say goodnight. Then without any arguments or tantrums, my boys would follow their bedtime routine and finish the day happily climbing into bed.

It made my life so much easier as I couldn’t imagine fighting your child on a nightly basis at bedtime.

However, all parents will know, there is a period of time in their little lives, whereby they begin to cut out their afternoon naps. Usually before you feel they are ready to do so and the end result is a grizzly toddler, desperately needing sleep, but there is still a couple of hours left until Yamba joins us to say goodnight.

Well I found a great solutions that worked every time for me.

Now I’m talking old school here, back in the days when we all had a video player / recorder in the house, but these days you could do the same on a DVD, portable hard drive or even a USB stick. Oh, I’m sure there are many other technical advances that would make this trick even easier than way back when.

What was the trick, you ask?

I recorded Yamba saying his goodnight to all the good little boys and girls on a video tap cassette. On the days where I had a grizzly child or two, I would silently insert the video cassette, press play and go about my day.

Suddenly Yamba would show up on TV, at say 6pm instead of 7:30pm, but I’d hear my boys calling out to me and happily informing me it was their bedtime.

They’d go about their bedtime routines, climb into bed and practically be asleep before their little heads hit the pillow and my night — well it was peaceful bliss instead of trying to placate a grizzly child until 7:30pm.

Who wouldn’t love that, especially as it benefits the children and the parents, without the frustration and anguish suffered by both, when a child is overtired.

I never have enjoyed arguing with my boys and this made life easier for us all.

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Originally posted on Medium