This Too Shall Pass
Parenting and kids’ bedtime
My wife and I are smitten with our little girls. They are five and three years old. Our five-year-old is funny, intelligent, observant, and kind. Our three-year-old is hilarious, smart, kind, and one-of-a-kind. She is also incredibly difficult to put to bed.
I know many of you who are parents will read this and say, “Welcome to the club.” And, really, I love that. That brings me great comfort, knowing we’re not alone in the seemingly endless fight of bedtime.
Piper, our youngest, has always been relatively difficult to put to bed. However, for the past, I don’t know, few weeks, she has been increasingly difficult to get to sleep. We have a (mostly) consistent bedtime, and they go to bed at a good hour. We try not to watch TV before bed or give them with any sugar—or anything we know will have a bad effect on bedtime. So, I feel like we do all the practical things right. But Piper has other plans.
Recently it has taken an hour or even more for Piper to finally decide to fall asleep, or at the very least stay in her bed. And it’s not that she just keeps getting up, but that she throws temper tantrums as well. We tried given her kid’s melatonin, which works great; however, we believe it’s giving her very vivid dreams. She would wake up in the middle of the night terrified and then it’s subsequently awful trying to get her back to bed, because now we’re doing it half-asleep.
So we stopped melatonin. But then we went back to spending at least an hour on getting her to bed. Just to be transparent: it’s frustrating, mentally exhausting, and cuts into our time together. And yet, even though all those things are true, I can’t help but feel that’s not the right way to think about this.
This too shall pass.
Right now, it’s such a pain to get Piper to bed. If we allow things to get to us, Piper gets mad and stubborn, we get frustrated with her, and get mad at each other. It’s a horrible combination. But there will come a day when bedtime is a breeze; there will come a time when we don’t even have to put out effort during bedtime. There will come a moment, albeit far too quickly, that she won’t live in the same house as us. She, along with her sister, will be on their own in the real world—there won’t be any need to wrestle her into bedtime. In fact, at that point, I’m sure I will wish I could do that one last time.
This too shall pass. Yes, too quickly. Though I take strength in God who will preserve our hearts in this season of life, I know it will end. When it does, I’ll be grateful. But I also know that life is fleeting and days are fast. So I need to cherish even the difficult moments. I need to relish in the times that test my patience and sanity. I need to embrace the instances that reveal my true character. Who are you at 2 a.m., half asleep, trying to convince your three-year-old to go back to sleep?
God covers me in those moments. He covers my wife. He covers us both with the blood of Jesus. In moments of anger, in nights of sleepless frustration, I know God is using these times for our good and His glory. Of course, it doesn’t feel like it. Sometimes it feels like we’re on our own. But I know my feelings are wrong and that’s a lie from the pit of Hell.
God cares how we handle things with Piper and bedtime. Yes, it’s good to take practical measures. It’s smart to discipline when lines are crossed. It’s wise to figure out what is making her not go to sleep. But in the end, we can’t lose sight of the fact that God uses these situations to sanctify us. On too many occasions it has only revealed our glaring sinfulness, our obvious impatience, our apparent weakness. These moments won’t get any easier, but if we rely on the Lord and remember He uses all things for our good—even kids’ bedtimes—then we can persevere through these moments with grace, with patience, with calmness.