The Night Pass: An Experiment in Bedtime Boundaries

(Fatherhood Fridays #17)

At about 3 years old, my son made a nightly visit downstairs to ask for water. We told him he didn’t need to ask us for water; he could get a drink from the bathroom and get back in bed by himself. I thought it would be that easy. As I look back, I can imagine the sounds of laughter from more experienced parents.

Why can’t they just walk to the bathroom?

Thus began the nightly water relay.

We heard from downstairs as he ran to the bathroom and filled his cup with water. Then he dumped most of it down the drain and sprinted back to bed.

He repeated this circuit every few minutes as if he were training for a race. Run to the bathroom. Fill the cup. Dump the extra. Sprint back to bed.

After the fourth round that first night, I went upstairs to let him know that he’d had enough, and it was time to sleep.

Before bed the next night, I told him that he was free to get a drink, but he only needed one. I didn’t make it a rule. Maybe I should have. Because every night turned into the relay race, which he used to keep himself up for at least half an hour after bed.

I tried making it a rule after the gentle suggestions didn’t work. But it wasn’t happening. I called him out, but didn’t push hard on enforcement at the time because I knew it wasn’t exactly willful disobedience.

Childhood development is a shapeshifter. Just when you think you have pegged something down, your kids hit a new stage, and all your well-laid routines and plans stop working.

I’m no expert, but I recognized this was one of those shifting periods between him being a toddler and being a kid. He was genuinely thirsty, but he didn’t have the self-control yet to only go once and then just sit until he fell asleep. He was confusing boredom with thirst because that was his only option for activity.

Dads have some core goals and non-negotiable rules, yes. But if we’re too rigid on the strategy to achieve those goals, we’re likely to build up a charge of frustration in the family. To keep myself from being too rigid when my method isn’t working, I’ve started to consider each strategy as a temporary experiment. That way, it’s easier to notice when a strategy stops working and I can move to a new experiment.

Here, the new experiment was something we called a Night Pass. Like a hall pass, but for nighttime.

Each of the kids got one. We put their name on it and let them decorate it themselves. Although my son, who was in his dinosaur phase, asked if I’d draw a dinosaur one for him.

The strategy was simple: If they wanted something after bed—a drink of water, a hug, an extra song or short story, they needed to tell us something, anything—they used the Night Pass. Once they had used their pass, they had to remain in bed. Sickness was the exception. If they were caught out of bed after using their pass, they lost it for the next night. This was a slight stretch for the 3-year-old, but a little repetition and he embraced the routine.

For us, at least, this solved the issue and created more peace at bedtime.

Eventually, the kids started using their passes only to get something of high value, like an extra story. That turned it into a joy for a while. But that also became a clue that the experiment was losing its effectiveness. We retired the Night Passes when it turned into a race to use them right after tucking in. The solution became the enabler for staying up, like the water relay had been.

But by that time, the kids had the self-control to get one drink and then stay in bed. We had entered a new phase, looking for new experiments to train these kids in the core values we want to pass on.

Did you have to get creative and experiment with strategies for your kids? Did you try to do things differently when the issue was more about their stage of maturity rather than willful disobedience?

Share your stories in the comments. I’m sure other dads who read this are looking for good ideas, too.

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Updates:

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If you were thinking about backing, we have some fun bonus rewards planned for those stretch goals. Every backer helps get this book out to more families who want clean and virtuous books for their young readers.

Thanks for the support so far. We want to finish this campaign strong.

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In addition to Imago Dad, Brandon Wilborn writes speculative fiction with spiritual themes. Find his previously released books at BrandonWilborn.com