Top 5 Tricks Kids Play Before Bed: What to Watch For, How to Win

I love my children dearly. They are excellent kids by today’s standards. They are five and eight years old and have never thrown tantrums in public, play well with others, don’t bully and are generally helpful and respectful to all adults they come across. But they hate to go to bed.

They’ve never really liked going to bed. I don’t really know too many kids that enjoy the bedtime experience. These are the top 5 I’ve heard in my house and my relative’s homes. I can’t guarantee that every solution I found works with your kids, but they work with mine.

1. “I’m still hungry.” I love this one. The kids wouldn’t particularly finish their dinner and needed nothing else to eat for the next two hours. However, when it was bedtime, Darfur has nothing on their stomachs. You can see them slowly come down the stairs and hallway (as if they were sneaking); hands on stomach, eyes squinted in order to achieve the look of starvation. “I’m so hungry, daddy.” Awww. Don’t you just want to feed the lil’ guy an extra hamburger?

What’s amazing is how two crackers can solve that pain of starvation. Yes, two crackers and a small cup of water. There, that did it. After a few nights of this, we made it particularly clear that no playing and no dessert were going to happen if all the dinner wasn’t eaten. “No one gets dessert without a clean plate. And dessert is the last thing you eat tonight or you don’t get any tomorrow.” Dessert was usually a mint or small scoop of light ice cream.

This staved off the “hunger” pains throughout the night because what child doesn’t want dessert TWO nights in a row? Another end to the trick was that extra serving of side the kids didn’t like. More peas? “No, I’m full.” “Good. That means you shouldn’t be hungry anymore tonight since you had no room for peas.” Logic is a wonderful tool.

2. “There’s a monster in my closet!” Really? All the way in the closet? THAT closet? The same one you were playing hide-and-seek in yesterday? Monsters don’t live in my kids’ closets. They used to, until their giant stuffed gorilla/dog/teddy bear sat in the closet, facing the kids’ beds. He was a watchful, protective animal and wouldn’t dare let a monster get into a closet! And no bad monsters live in there since Monsters, Inc. came out.

3. “It’s too hot! It’s too cold!” 90% of the time the temperature isn’t an issue that is real. If you have central air, just turn on the fan option. It at least “sounds” like you did something about the temperature. Make sure there is a blanket nearby for the “cold”, and tell them to just wear underwear and a t-shirt if it’s hot.

4.”But daddy, I didn’t get to (insert random event here)” What was your child doing for two hours before it was bedtime? Probably playing, or watching TV, or just plain having fun. In fact, I bet he or she chose what method of “fun” your child was having. My kids are big into healing some traumatic paper cut right at bedtime.

I used to give in, remembering the times I got hurt playing outside. But then I thought: why wasn’t that bruise thumping during SpongeBob SquarePants? And how come that finger wasn’t sore on the monkey bars for thirty minutes straight? I’ve been able to squash most of it with this simple statement: “you’re going to bed in two hours. If you need anything, now is the time to do it.”

5. “We forgot to brush our teeth/take a bath/performed general hygeine.” This one, parents, is on you. I could never fault a child for not taking a bath or brushing their teeth before bedtime. And what a perfect opportunity to stall! You have to be proactive and participate. The more routine there is for getting them ready for bed, the better off things will be for you. You won’t have that stinky kid with bad breath at school.

Handling these situations with little tweaks and logic will help your child develop into more responsible children. They will get used to routine and making choices. Did they really want to read a story? Then they will ask earlier next time. Are they truly, truly hungry at bedtime?

I’ve never met a normal child who died in their sleep from not eating enough of ONE dinner, but I’ve seen many wolf down a stack of pancakes the next morning. When your kids learn the outcomes of choices, they’ll drift into making better ones. Besides, it makes them think they are in control, just like when they tried all those bedtime tricks.