Secret Mum Club with Sophiena - BONUS: Bedtime

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

This week's bonus was suggested by Jade who is having trouble getting her little one to bed, and as always, Emma and Sophiena are on hand to give their sage advice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

hello this is the secret mum club i'm safina and i'm emma and welcome back to our weekly bonus episode we've got so much to say that one episode a week just wasn't enough in each bonus we're going to take a different topic and just share our thoughts on it that's right and it can be on anything from halloween events to tea parties from school lunches to midnight snacks shall we get into it let's let's do it emma what is our topic of today the topic this week is bedtime this one was suggested by jade she says hi ladies any tips on keeping your children in bed at night my eight-year-old son can never seem to stay in his room at bedtime.

He finds any excuse under the sun to get up. Tummy ache, sore finger, graze on his knee, you name it, he said it. We've tried every trick in the book, but me and my partner are now dreading bedtime. Oh, man. Bedtime is such a hard one. It's a contentious issue, isn't it? It is a really contentious issue and with a seven-year-old who goes to bed like an absolute textbook dream does he to a five-year-old

who just doesn't she she would sleep in sleepings for the week with dotty she just doesn't sleep she just doesn't need sleep she just doesn't want to ever go to sleep it's so hard to get to sleep we do tickies we do story time we do nights off we do blackout blinds we do the lights on in case she's scared of the dark we do tv we do tablet time we've tried everything in the book and i can't even say to you that every single night is the same it's all different because it's all different and i try to repeat if i had a good night last night, I think, do that again. Do that exactly the same again as I did the night before. Yeah.

But that's a load of shit. It doesn't work. That doesn't work. Mondays are great because Dotsie swims. She's tired. So on a Monday, she's absolutely cream crackered.

But with regards to maybe Colby, Colby just really loves his independent time. Is this just him being a little bit older do you think but her little boy's seven he's eight yes so i'm trying to yeah i'm trying to just see as to what but colby just loves his own time yeah he does have a tv in his room and he has his specific programs that he likes to watch like he goes upstairs and they go into their bedrooms exactly the same time yeah colby you literally he goes into his bedroom at 6 30 and you don't see him until

6 30 the next day and he does his regimental system and he's got all his alarms on his little yoto player and he does turns his yoto player on and he's got all his little set timers so once his little moon comes on he knows he's got to turn his telly to his program that he can watch and then once his alarm goes off and does he actually do that and turns his telly off do you check on him or do you just leave him to it no we go up and check on him and make sure that he's got his duvet over him and he's warm and stuff yeah um but i don't know whether that would maybe help is to have a little so we like a little gadget yeah to to take to do the countdown yeah so they've got something to look forward to so make sure you set like fun things if he likes to play his playstation maybe he can play that from 6 30 to 7 yeah um and then maybe if he

has a certain film that he likes to watch or something he likes to watch on the telly colby's his youtube hold my hands up he loves watching youtube do you monitor what he watches or yeah yeah yeah he's only in he he's very but colby's very i always think he's very good for what he does because he'll just turn it off if he knows he's not allowed to watch it, he'll turn it off. Dot's in the other hand. I delete it off her telly. That girl's a loose cannon.

I can't control anything that she does. She has the timer. The Yoto player's not even charged. It's out the window. He probably puts his own player on charge. So I don't know whether maybe having things that he really enjoys and having like a clock to count down.

Like ours is the little, you know, we got them yotei players yeah and you can have a story time on them or it does like a clock an alarm it goes from sunshine to night time so we've said it so it specifically does a countdown for him yeah and try and include as much fun things as possible i wonder if people would be too worried about their children getting like riled up before bed if they're allowed to watch YouTube videos or whatever. They might not be watching stuff that's going to settle them. That's what I mean.

So you'd have to pick the things that would. So if they liked watching Toy Story or Dottie really loves watching like the, because we got rid of YouTube and her, off her telly. She likes watching David Attenborough's something that's called Our Planet. Yeah. She loves watching them. And yeah, they work 90% of of the time but it's just finding something that they really love yeah that they can watch i think routine is important as well um like i know you were saying yours is different every night and this might change it might be

harder to implement as they get older but we've always done this exact same routine with joseph every night i think maybe it is easier with a baby so i might be naive here talking about an eight-year-old but he always has a bath every night so that's like the start of like this is winding down towards night time now then he lays on the bed and has a milk bottle obviously eight-year-olds probably not still having a milk bottle and then we just lay him down i say like do you want to go in your sleeping bag now he says yeah and then we've made his cot a really nice space for him to be so he has his dummies he has his feely his little teddy and he loves going in there we don't actually do when he was newborn we started

off with like the night lights and the white noise and stuff and i was like i actually don't think it's helpful so we don't have any night lights or any white noise machines or anything like that he literally just goes into a dark room and he goes to sleep and it's amazing sometimes you also have to do like you have to feed off of the child like colby loves routine whereas dots doesn't know and you really have to work around like the only way that i'm guaranteed that dotty will have a good night's sleep or she'll go to sleep is if someone lays next to her really and sometimes it's impossible sometimes i need to be upstairs and i can't be in two places at once and sometimes Colby's homework's more important so I have to do that um so if she could

have someone just lay next to her the whole time she would yeah and I think it's just finding what works best for you have you maybe tried laying with him yeah maybe he's a little bit scared or a little bit frightened normally I think they're getting up because they want to spend more time with you they want to see you so sometimes they're so tired that they just nod off like some nights colby wants someone to lie with him if he's had a bit of a stressful day or sometimes i find if he's had a bad dream and he wakes up in the morning he's like had a horrible dream that night trying to go to bed is a little bit more difficult so we tend to just lie or you know give yourself some time to use your time to chill out you know put something on that you can both maybe watch and enjoy a film and just have 30 minutes and then the

next night you can have another 30 minutes yeah just use it as time to to wind down and i know it's i know you want to spend time with your partner it's really it's so hard when bedtime takes up you end up becoming resentful because it takes up when joseph wasn't so good at going to bed oh my god you spend so much of your time it would take up your whole evening and then you'd be like i've got no evening to myself me and stefan haven't even spoken to each other and now i've got to go to bed like and you end up becoming resentful of that but maybe it might take a bit of investing a little bit of time but people always laugh at me and this is probably something i don't think i've really ever talked about or shared is people always laugh as to why i'm in bed by 7 30 i always wonder like i think god your kids must be good at going to bed because you managed to get into bed really

early yourself because it's it's that whole thing of and plus i live in a bungalow which i guess no one really understands that you why sit in my bedroom when my bedroom why sit in my lounge when my lounge is here when my bedroom is right here and rather than sitting on a sofa i can sit in a comfy bed but we also do it because it's telling the children that it's bedtime and you always say like you've kids have had a bath you've had a bath they know you get they know we're getting ready to bed for them as well plus it's always the time that me and chris have only ever devoted to each other yeah not obviously you know rudies but do you know what i mean like just chilling it's just chilling it's just chilling time and it's the time that me and

chris have we've done dinner so we've done our routine we kept the children in a routine they're in bed so when they go to the front room or come or colby comes down says all the lights are off yeah because it's bedtime yeah dotty goes to the front room the lights are off it's dark and she comes to our bedroom what are you guys doing we're in bed they they seem really good at not coming into your room though does that happen very often no not really they're not really dotty more so colby never ever comes and does she sleep in your bed ever still um she'll come in like some nights on the odd occasion like she came over one night this weekend but she hasn't been in our bed for a good couple of weeks because i think she must be getting tired out now especially with the new school routine since being in school now she has a busy day so she's nice and tired going to bed yeah and hopefully

that's the same with your son yeah now he's back at school i mean definitely with a toddler i try and tire him out as much as possible during the day because i think if he's knackered but if you're eating dinner together and you're you're all ready why not just treat yourself to a nice bath so he can see that you're having your evening bath and treat yourself if you're you're all ready, why not just treat yourself to a nice bath so he can see that you're having your evening bath and treat yourself if you're worried about partner, time with your partner, even if you're only in bed until he nods off. Like if he goes to sleep, if he sees you in your bed

and he knows you're upstairs and everything's off downstairs, maybe you could creep downstairs once he's nodded off, yeah. Or put a nice film on in the bedroom for you and your partner to watch to show him that you're going to bed too so he might feel less scared it might feel more comforting for him that's a good idea because i used to wake up loads i was a terrible sleeper when i was about this age age actually like seven eight nine and it was because i had fomo i knew my parents were downstairs doing something that i wanted to do watching telly so i used to creep downstairs and

try and do that with them yeah if they were upstairs as well i'd be like well everyone's going to bed now. So yeah, that might help. Yeah, that might help. And then you can just always go back down. Sneak down. Yeah, sneak down. But honestly, hats off to you because bedtime is a hard one.

It's hard. Do you know what I can't imagine is when Joseph isn't penned in by a cot. When we transition to a bed and he's able to get out of bed himself at night. I don't know. I think I'm going to keep him in prison for as long as possible. You could then go to, which we did because we're in a bungalow. We went to a baby gate. Yeah, I'm not worried about him falling downstairs.

I just don't want him to get out of. No, that's what I mean. Oh, on the bedroom. On the baby. We baby gated them on the bedroom floor, on the bedroom. Because even when I had Colby and Dott dotty because i was so worried about her him her and her i used to put a baby gate on his pen into the room so he couldn't go into her room and stuff like that it must be hard obviously when they can get up of their own free will and just come in

because how how do you stop that you know that could happen hundreds of times nine times out of ten though they wake up and just play with their own stuff or they find a bottle of soda cream and they just cover themselves in soda cream and you wake up in the morning with their own stuff or they find a bottle of Sudocream and they just cover themselves in Sudocream. And you wake up in the morning like, is Santa been? What's happened in here? What has happened in here? Oh, it is hard though.

It is really hard. But I hope. And I imagine it only gets harder as they get older. Yeah, yeah. I feel like Dottie, it's harder her getting older. But with Colby, he's a bit of a dream, to be honest. He's a bit of a dreamboat. He makes everything really really super easy he's the most chilled little dude in the world whereas dots are different aren't they and dots on the other she is she is needy she's hard she's hard work but i hope that

helps and i hope you find a good routine or something that works for you but there's some tips yeah that might make it a little bit easier but do keep us posted we love to know the outcomes and if if you have a good night and if you try and other listeners as well let us know let us know if you've got any tips tips for keeping your children yes yeah i agree i think that's a um that's a good one i'd like to hear them as well for the future yeah get them in so thanks for that one jade if you have any top tips for keeping your little ones in bed, like we just said, then please do let us know. Yeah, you can email us.

It's hello at secretmumpod.com or we're secretmumpod on TikTok and Instagram. Tune in on Monday for our brand new main episode. And don't forget our bonus episodes are out every Friday morning to keep you entertained through the weekend. So we'll see you next time on the secret mum club