A new turn of events

For the past four days R has decided to put herself to bed. I'm a little shocked at this given how difficult bedtimes have been for the past almost six years.

For the first 3 years, getting her to sleep mostly involved a combination of holding her while singing and bouncing up and down for 2 or 3 hours. L and I would usually alternate days for bedtime responsibility, though in the early years, it was more a case of 2 hours of bedtime for L followed by 2 hours for me, repeat until the girl was asleep. Plus naps.

After my slipped disk L was too painful to hold for long, so bedtime became more reading plus songs. We started with exactly 3 books, then songs (usually the same 3 songs) until sleep hit after a couple of hours. After she was 4, she demanded 4 books, then songs. This started to be a challenge because this is when my eyesight started going. But she started to consistently fall asleep during certain songs, so at least the process was starting to get shorter.

Sometime around when she turned five she started to fall asleep while I read to her. Around this time I got my first pair of glasses. Which meant reading was easy again. So I would read as many books as it took for her to doze off. Usually in only an hour or two at most.

Last year we came to an agreement that she would put herself to sleep once a week, in exchange for being able to go to bed in my bed once a week. It's been hit and miss, to be honest, but she succeeded more times than not.

Recently we came to an agreement that she'd put herself to bed twice a week. The agreement involved bribery. Every night she successfully put herself to bed she'd get either a toy out of toy jail, or get a new Star Wars toy. She apparently likes this. So for the past 4 days she's been enjoying getting a toy back every day. And while I'm not keen on the idea of her having too many toys, after nearly 6 years of hours of bedtime routine, this is worth every penny.

As things stand now, one of us reads to her while she gets ready for bed. Then, we leave her to put herself to bed. She usually plays for a little bit, then reads to herself. Her reading skills have increased dramatically since the start of the year. It's fairly likely that this is the driver behind the new behaviour. That and her rediscovery of her bedtime playlist. She usually asks for the music during bedtime. Tonight she asked the music be turned off so she could sing to herself instead. I think it's working.

I suspect, like with most skills, this will work for a while, stop for a bit, and come back and forth until settling down again. I'm fine with that. I'm personally revelling in the spare extra hours of time. I've made a path in the office so I can finally reach the filing cabinet! I did my taxes and paid bills! I've built two new platforms for her spaceport. Productivity!