I don’t want to jinx it or come across as bragging, but for two consecutive nights our fae daughter slept through to 5 a.m.! This may not seem like a full night’s sleep to those who have non-spicy children, but to us this is a miracle (and a lie-in).
It has been a gruelling few months of trial, error, and a sleep schedule that should probably be banned under the Geneva Convention, but we have hit upon something that sort of, mostly, works. It’s not straightforward or simple, and that is why it took us so long to get there.
To start with, we have had a strict bedtime routine nailed down since she was 18 months old. It starts the moment my husband finishes work at 6 p.m. No, it can’t be changed, and there is no room for flexibility. If we do change it, then either she doesn’t sleep or she will take hours to settle. So we don’t change it.
We have dinner at 6, and we have a “no tech at the table” rule. There is also no TV in the kitchen/diner. This is because getting Buzzy the Hummingbird to settle and eat instead of being away with the faeries is hard enough as it is without adding a screen for distraction. It also gives her an opportunity — sometimes the only opportunity in the day — to talk to her father and me about what she has been up to. While the answer we get is normally “nothing” or “I don’t remember,” I live in hope that creating a rigid, predictable space for conversation will eventually encourage her to use it. So far it hasn’t happened, but we’ve only been trying every day for 8 years.
After food, she toddles upstairs to brush her teeth (this is done with the help of a timer because otherwise 2 minutes would be completed in 2 seconds, her father, non-mint toothpaste, and a lot of walking about), and then has a bath or shower. Not only is this non-negotiable from a hygiene point of view, it signifies the end of the day. By the time she is in bed, we have had to braid hair, argue about what books to read, and sort out which soft toy needs to be in which area of the room.
That was before this recent bout of insomnia. Now we also have to make sure the room is no warmer than 17 degrees C, that the blackout blind and curtains are drawn, the humidifier is running and pumping out an obscene amount of lavender oil, the white noise machine is running wave sounds, and the white noise app on the iPad is playing binaural beats. We then squeeze her into a compression sleep bag (ours is from a company called Nesti), and she hops into bed like an oversized caterpillar and asks for her heated penguin and soft toy of the moment to be wedged into the bag with her. She will then burrow under a body pillow, a weighted blanket, and a normal duvet, shove on an eye mask, complain it’s too dark, and insist on a night light. No, we can’t miss a step. Yes, it would be simpler to not sleep in enough layers to survive an Arctic winter than have the AC running flat out (I would feel bad except it’s solar powered). No, we need the room in complete darkness or you can’t appreciate the majesty of the night light cycling through the rainbow. I assume the night light is for our benefit, as she insists on wearing a silk eye mask.
If you get this all correct, the moon is full and blue, and you have sacrificed a chicken to the correct goddess of slumber, she might make it through without insisting on telling you about aliens at 2 a.m.
If you get it wrong, you wasted a perfectly good chicken, a night’s sleep, and will get to hear all about the latest plans of the snake god Lulu to take over the magical kingdom.
Raising the Modern Fae 