Tales from a Babysitter: A Bedtime Story

During most babysitting jobs, the hardest part is bedtime. For some reason, that word is a nightmare waiting to happen. After finishing a movie or putting away dress up clothes, I tend to say the same phrase, “OK, time to get ready for bed!”

With the usual responses of groaning or complaining, it can be hard to change their determined minds into heading upstairs. Sometimes they try to trick me by saying that their parents said they could stay up or they go on a guilt trip by telling me that I’m mean. Either way, bedtime is bedtime.

Easing your way into bedtime can be difficult especially when they don’t think of you as a huge authority figure. Once while playing farm with toy animals, the animals were “getting tired” and needed to go to sleep. Then I suggested to the six-year old girl I was playing with that she should go to bed too. And off she went.

But I haven’t pulled off many bedtime experiences like that one very often. At times, I’ve had kids lock themselves in bathrooms, hide in closets, cry uncontrollably while refusing to let me put their pajama shirt over their head. It can be quite chaotic after I mention that it’s bedtime.

Ava, a two-year old girl, usually does not like it when it is bedtime. But the last time I babysat her and her siblings, we held a “pajama party” in which you had to wear pajamas. It was the easiest time I have had while putting kids to bed. Although I was tricking her into going to bed, it worked like a charm. Besides, kids have tried to trick me, now we’re even.

Getting kids into bed can be frustrating and irritating, but if you can find something that works for you and the kid, then you’re pretty much set for the night. If not, it can be hard to alter their mindsets into going to bed. So find their groove and dig into it.

Tags: duluth east, greyhound blogs