For the fourth year, I am participating in the SOLSC and guiding students from my classroom and my school on the same writing journey. Here is the link to our school blog and the 15-20 students who are participating in the Classroom Challenge.
Hotel Fort
My daughter travels very well and until this trip has gone to sleep well, even when we are in the same hotel room. We get a double-queen bed room with my wife and I in one bed and my 6yo in the other. We turn out all the lights but one so we can read, and Clara has usually gone to sleep close to her normal bedtime.
Not this trip.
The first night, we all were exhausted so we went to bed about the same time and after some tossing and turning, we were all 'out' quickly. The second night, Clara would not go to sleep until we turned out all the lights and even then it was hard. It was after 10:30 before she was asleep. Last night, I tried another tactic.
Since the light has been part of the problem, at least according to her complaints, I built a fort over her on the bed. The cozy seaside inn (It's actually called The Seaside Inn) we are staying in has tall headboards with posts on the beds. I tied an extra blanket around the posts and used extra pillows to prop up the blanket further down on the bed.
It seemed an instant success! Clara quickly settled down, snuggled with her stuffys and cooing about how wonderful the fort was. I was ready to award myself the "Dad of the Day" award and had a Facebook post prepped in my mind with the hashtag #dadftw (For The Win) at the end of it.
Over an hour later, Clara was making small rooms for her animals in the fort and was excited by the prospect of giving mom a thumbs-up from the fort when she returned from an evening out with some family. In the end, she got to give the thumbs-up to her mom, was awake until almost 10:00 and slept well through the night, once she was asleep.
So, while I didn't really win the battle of bedtimes with my brilliant idea, she is still excited by the fort and is lobbying to just leave it up for tonight. At least I'm a cool dad for her, even if she won't go to sleep at her bedtime, on this trip.
Bedtime is always hard on trips, and I have a hard time falling asleep with the lights on too.
ReplyDeleteCute story! Bedtimes are DEFINITELY hard to do when on trips. I think your idea was great, and definitely worth a try. :-) ~JudyK
ReplyDeleteThat is the exact same thing my dad did for my brother! But he didn't fall asleep because he was planing how to make it more sturdy, and have hooks for his coats.
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