From 'sleep fairies' to sweets to cold-hard cash, some parents will do Whatever It Takes for a hassle-free bedtime.
By Jordana Horn
Tucking children in for bed is often imagined as a glorious period of togetherness, snuggling and reading in a warmly lit bedroom. But in reality, a recent British study says, more than a third of parents find getting their kids in bed to be even more difficult than their workday commutes.
The British company Munch Bunch recently released a study of 3,000 British parents, showing that more than one in five mums and dads resort to bribing their kids to go to bed. Some parents admitted to over an hour of pre-bedtime haggling and negotiation with their child prior to lights out.
According to the survey, one out of six parents lure their children to bed with promises of later weekend bedtimes. Twenty-eight percent of parents acquiesce to a little TV-watching before lights out, and a fairly desperate 6 percent bribe their children with candy to make them go to bed (because sugar right before bed always works!).
The bedtime bribe phenomenon isn’t just found on the other side of the pond. A brief glance over the minefields of mommy message boards show that most of us, at one point or another, are plagued with the same dilemma. Of course, many parents take items away to get their kids to go to bed, confiscating everything from iPods to video game controllers. But parents also admitted to bribing their children to stay in bed with glasses of Tang (does that even still exist?), small toys, stuffed animals, sticker charts (“each time they go to bed reasonably well – for us, that means only getting out of bed 4 or 5 times – they get a sticker.”)…you name it.
One mom even confessed to giving her child 25 cents from the “bedtime fairy” every night that she stayed in bed till wake-up time – calling the annual $120 cost “worth it.”
Are you willing to pay a “bedtime tax”? Or do you feel that there’s a bright-line rule: never negotiate with either toddlers or terrorists? How do you all sleep at night?
Jordana Horn is a TODAY Moms contributor, lawyer, journalist, writer, mother and expectant mother. Sometimes, she even sleeps.