Back when our firstborn was an infant, I remember wondering if I would ever have a moment to myself again. From the no-schedule newborn haze to another year of colic, my husband and I found ourselves lucky to steal even twenty minutes for ourselves – most of which were spent in front of the television, where we’d fall asleep on the couch.
Yet, as with all things parenting, one day, the haze began to clear. My firstborn began sleeping. A 7 p.m. bedtime allowed us to reclaim our evenings. Once again, we were rewarded with a couple of hours each night to clean up from the day before and watch a show together.
This evening alone time quickly became vital to our happiness. It allowed us to discuss important matters we couldn’t discuss in front of the kids. And to decompress after the stresses of work and raising small children.
And while over the years, this time ebbed and flowed through newborn phases and illnesses and late summer nights, I always took comfort in knowing it would return. Those precious hours when the house would quiet and my shoulders finally relaxed. Because while I loved spending time with my children, I found those early years exhausting. By the end of each day, I needed a break.
As the years passed, the exhaustion didn’t leave; it just changed. These days, it’s less physical and more mental. Older kids no longer need me to carry them around the house, but their needs are just as great. The mental load of balancing extracurricular schedules, homework time, and deeper conversations is a new skill I’ve had to master.
During this shift in parenting roles, something else has changed: our schedule has begun to shift later into the evening.
I still remember the first time I noticed it happening. We’d gone on a family vacation and realized for the first time we were able to book dinner reservations after 5 p.m. Instead of eating with the toddler crowd, we were out with normal adults, eating dinner at 7 p.m. and getting ice cream at 9 p.m. For the first time, we realized it didn’t matter that we were all stuck sharing a single hotel room. By the end of the day, we were all ready for bed.
And I remember thinking how great this was, this new phase where the kids could do everything with us together, where hanging out as a family felt less like work and more like fun. I reveled in the change as we began taking the kids out to more weekend dinners. We started weekend movie nights where we’d all stay up late and then go to bed together after too much ice cream and popcorn.
Yet I didn’t realize then that these changes, while exciting on the weekends, would ultimately result in a much more significant shift in our day-to-day life. They were the beginning of an unstoppable march towards later bedtimes.
These days, evenings are spent not with baths and stories but with friendship questions, homework problems, study sessions, and so many carpools. Most nights, we do not gather around the dinner table until after 8 p.m. That means the homework books aren’t put away until after 9 p.m. Any time for cleaning, television, and adult conversation has become condensed into one hour, from 10 to 11 p.m.
For the past year, we fought to protect this hour, forcing ourselves to shorten bedtime routines and stay up later than we always wanted to still have some time to decompress. And yet, like with the newborn days, most evenings were spent with one of us passed out on the couch. And so we started looking at other ways to carve out alone time. We thought of mornings. But mornings already begin around 6 a.m., and neither of us is a morning person. We thought of a walk after dinner. But this time is too chaotic during the week, with the kids needing too much help with homework and prep for the next day.
So we continued to fight for our evening hour, even as bedtimes continued to creep even later, even as our 10 o’clock hour blurred into 11-12. When I began seeing midnight regularly, I knew something had to change. Midnight is for college students or the occasional night out. It is not an ideal bedtime for a tired mother of three.
Over the past few months, I’ve accepted my children’s later schedules and stopped fighting for that hour of alone time.
I’ve given up on weekday television and stopped staying up hours later than I should. These days, I make sure I’m in bed by 11 p.m., regardless of whether the dishes are all done and the house is straightened.
Instead, I’ve accepted that we are again in a new stage of childhood. Nights run later, and our kids’ needs have changed. And while this phase won’t be forever, it is the phase of right now.
Since I have accepted this, I have found we are all much happier. My husband and I now work to preserve the weekend evenings, making the kids go to bed a little earlier so we can catch up on some TV. We’ve also started going out on date nights more often, and the weekly catch-ups have allowed us to have some much-needed adult conversation that is missing from the regular week. We’ve also learned to squeeze in conversations during weekend afternoons, letting the kids play outside while we break from our chores and watch them on the front porch.
As for the weekday nights? Yes, they are still hectic. But without the pressure of fighting so hard for bedtime, I find myself more relaxed. I’ve even embraced my youngest’s later bedtime, using the time when I once readied her for bed to watch television with all three kids now. Together, we snuggle and laugh, all of us relaxing together as we discuss shows that I’ve discovered are much more enjoyable than the cartoons of early childhood.
And now, when the television dims, bedtime is no longer a sprint but the natural ending of all our days. Any time left over is a bonus, spent cleaning or reading or, occasionally, with the television. But it is no longer a necessary, expected component of our day.
While this change has been an adjustment, it has been a happy one. My kids are getting older. They are so much fun to talk to and cheer on at gymnastics meets, baseball games, and piano lessons.
