Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Children need sleep, people!

I am a sleep freak when it comes to my kids.  Everyone who knows me knows this.  I protect my kids' betimes like they're national secrets or something.  I will not mess with bedtime.  Exceptions do happen occasionally, you know, like for birthdays or Christmas.  But not for the mall.

Recently I enjoyed some shopping with a friend.  When I say I enjoyed shopping with a friend, you should know that it means my kids weren't with me.  Children belong on necessary errands, not "I really need a cute top for going out" shopping.  It's torture for all involved.  But even when you plan ahead and make arrangements to shop without the munchkins, someone else inevitably has their munchkins along.  This is part of living in a society, I realize, but it doesn't mean that I enjoy it.

So friend and I are shopping the sale racks and picking out items to try on, accompanied in the same aisle by two moms with their kids.  One of the kids simply never stopped crying.  I contend that any other child's voice is less grating and stressful than your own, but that was not the case here.  Constant crying calls for some kind of intervention on the part of the parent, I think.  Eye contact with the child, perhaps some physical comforting, or even a sippy cup, perhaps?  But nope - this mom was utterly unaffected by her child's dismay.  Or mine, for that matter.  Well, that isn't entirely true.  She did look away from her conversation with her friend to yell at the child with a loving and helpful "SHHH!" accompanied by a crusty glare or my personal favorite, "Shut up!"

The friend with whom I was shopping knows what I will inevitably say before I say it, but once the noisemaker family were out of earshot I said it anyway.  "It's almost 8:30.  Those kids should be in bed!"  To be clear, this rule applies to young children, not middle-school students.  Why I think it's appropriate to impose my early bedtime philosophy on others is as follows: I have rarely seen a happy tired child.  Every book I've read & my pediatrician tell me they need 12 hours of sleep.  Now maybe this lady is one of the lucky ones with a 10pm-10am schedule, but I think it's unlikely.  Not many people can pull that off and fill the requirements of their life.  Some kids don't sleep for 12 hours.  I get this.  But they'll sleep at least 8, probably 10, so they could at least be home getting prepped for bed during this scenario.

So I am a sleep freak, I judge other people (duh!), and if you want to keep your kid up til midnight, could you please do it out of earshot of me?  Super!

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