After two and a half years of resisting the idea, I decided to try to set a family schedule. Today marks day 5 of this endeavor--the end of one full work week. There are many reasons why I have put this sort of thing off until now, some of them conscious and some of them less so.
For one, I've never been much of a routine and schedule person myself. Left to my own devices, I will pretty much wake and sleep at will and squeeze everything else in between rather haphazardly. So when I read or am told that good parents must establish routines and schedules, it goes against my natural grain. Plus both of those words conjure up unpleasant ideas when I think about being obligated to establish them. Routine makes me think of repetition and monotony at worst or commonality at best. Schedule makes me think of meetings and conferences where every minute of a day is assigned a particular function-- you talk, listen, eat and even go to the bathroom at the appointed time only. Such connotations, added to the off-putting know-it-all quality of many parenting 'authorities,' have generally made me balk at the idea of living my life that way and enforcing it in the family. It seems so unnatural.
Still, I established my first conscious routine a few months back. My mom made a helpful distinction for me last summer between a schedule as a fixed plan for certain hours and a routine as a consistent series of events. This distinction, bolstered by idea that children feel comforted by repetition (and ask for it in books, songs, etc.), seemed compelling enough to establish a bedtime routine for Lily. But that routine has, until now, remained unbound to a particular time, and, with Lily co-sleeping, has had a mixed success rate at leading to sleep.
But now that I am no longer working, I find myself in need of something more- not just a routine, but- sigh- a schedule too. Without realizing it, I think I got my schedule fix through work. There were always classes to take or teach on certain days at certain times, papers to write or grade by certain deadlines, and church every Sunday. But now, I have blank slate, and this past Monday, I woke up and realized that I was facing a ten hour day alone with Lily with absolutely no plans. That's a lot of time to sit around and think "what should I do?" or "how should I entertain my toddler?" It seemed like a recipe for inefficiency, frustration, and, dare I admit it, boredom for both of us. So enter the schedule.
It's a pretty simple schedule--just a daily wake-up time, nap time, and bath/bed time. Meals are simply relative to those. Then I set one house chore a day during the work week to try to stay on top of it. I have not yet set aside special hours for doing said house chore or for play time or study time or anything like that; I'm keeping it basic. And yet, I still felt at first like I was going over to the Dark Side, or at least selling out to parenting conventions. And Lily has not been an enthusiastic supporter. Wednesday night, it took her three full hours from the start of bath to sound asleep. As planned, we started the bedtime routine at 8 and finished it at 9, but she just stayed awake in bed refusing to sleep for two hours after that. Since we have opted to stay in the room with her until she sleeps for now, that left me a lot of time to think and pray. And as I was praying for Lily, I prayed that the schedule would work out for her benefit, and I found myself asking God for help setting a natural and comforting rhythm for her.
Rhythm is a word that I like. A lot. I have always loved music, and rhythm is an essential part of it. Arrhythmic songs are distasteful to me. Rhythm gives a song drive and flow- be it a symphony, a rock ballad, or a folky hymn. And as a musician, if you get a good rhythm going, you can improvise countless melodies over it. Rhythm is not synonymous with monotony; it is dynamic. It is a foundation for pleasure and creativity. It is also natural. Think about circadian rhythm--the biological tendencies that we and all of nature have because of the constant rising and setting of the sun.
It may seem that I am just mincing words here. Routine, schedule, rhythm...aren't they all functionally the same thing in the parenting context? Not entirely so. Schedule makes me recoil; rhythm makes me want to dance. And it is not simply a question of calling it what makes me feel good. Words, after all, are not static labels for fixed objects. Used well, words not only identify a concept or thing but also express the way we as speakers think or feel about that thing. So while a schedule, a routine, and a rhythm might all be used to designate the waking, nap, and bed times that I've set for Lily, they carry different ideas about intentions, control, and engagement. What I choose to call something, to name it, is part of how I conceptualize it, approach it, and ultimately realize it.
So I sort of misled you when I said that I had decided to set a family schedule. I did start out to set one rather reluctantly. But now I like to think of it more as a rhythm. And the morning after that three hour bedtime, I couldn't help but laugh to myself think of the early Gloria Estefan song "The Rhythm is Gonna Get You." Deep musings on word connotation aside, I really do hope that I can set a rhythm that Lily can live with and even dance to. And more pragmatically and immediately, I hope that this rhythm starts to keep those long nights at bay. As the song says: "At night, when you turn off all the lights, there's no place that you can hide. Oh no. The rhythm is gonna get you."
For one, I've never been much of a routine and schedule person myself. Left to my own devices, I will pretty much wake and sleep at will and squeeze everything else in between rather haphazardly. So when I read or am told that good parents must establish routines and schedules, it goes against my natural grain. Plus both of those words conjure up unpleasant ideas when I think about being obligated to establish them. Routine makes me think of repetition and monotony at worst or commonality at best. Schedule makes me think of meetings and conferences where every minute of a day is assigned a particular function-- you talk, listen, eat and even go to the bathroom at the appointed time only. Such connotations, added to the off-putting know-it-all quality of many parenting 'authorities,' have generally made me balk at the idea of living my life that way and enforcing it in the family. It seems so unnatural.
Still, I established my first conscious routine a few months back. My mom made a helpful distinction for me last summer between a schedule as a fixed plan for certain hours and a routine as a consistent series of events. This distinction, bolstered by idea that children feel comforted by repetition (and ask for it in books, songs, etc.), seemed compelling enough to establish a bedtime routine for Lily. But that routine has, until now, remained unbound to a particular time, and, with Lily co-sleeping, has had a mixed success rate at leading to sleep.
But now that I am no longer working, I find myself in need of something more- not just a routine, but- sigh- a schedule too. Without realizing it, I think I got my schedule fix through work. There were always classes to take or teach on certain days at certain times, papers to write or grade by certain deadlines, and church every Sunday. But now, I have blank slate, and this past Monday, I woke up and realized that I was facing a ten hour day alone with Lily with absolutely no plans. That's a lot of time to sit around and think "what should I do?" or "how should I entertain my toddler?" It seemed like a recipe for inefficiency, frustration, and, dare I admit it, boredom for both of us. So enter the schedule.
It's a pretty simple schedule--just a daily wake-up time, nap time, and bath/bed time. Meals are simply relative to those. Then I set one house chore a day during the work week to try to stay on top of it. I have not yet set aside special hours for doing said house chore or for play time or study time or anything like that; I'm keeping it basic. And yet, I still felt at first like I was going over to the Dark Side, or at least selling out to parenting conventions. And Lily has not been an enthusiastic supporter. Wednesday night, it took her three full hours from the start of bath to sound asleep. As planned, we started the bedtime routine at 8 and finished it at 9, but she just stayed awake in bed refusing to sleep for two hours after that. Since we have opted to stay in the room with her until she sleeps for now, that left me a lot of time to think and pray. And as I was praying for Lily, I prayed that the schedule would work out for her benefit, and I found myself asking God for help setting a natural and comforting rhythm for her.
Rhythm is a word that I like. A lot. I have always loved music, and rhythm is an essential part of it. Arrhythmic songs are distasteful to me. Rhythm gives a song drive and flow- be it a symphony, a rock ballad, or a folky hymn. And as a musician, if you get a good rhythm going, you can improvise countless melodies over it. Rhythm is not synonymous with monotony; it is dynamic. It is a foundation for pleasure and creativity. It is also natural. Think about circadian rhythm--the biological tendencies that we and all of nature have because of the constant rising and setting of the sun.
It may seem that I am just mincing words here. Routine, schedule, rhythm...aren't they all functionally the same thing in the parenting context? Not entirely so. Schedule makes me recoil; rhythm makes me want to dance. And it is not simply a question of calling it what makes me feel good. Words, after all, are not static labels for fixed objects. Used well, words not only identify a concept or thing but also express the way we as speakers think or feel about that thing. So while a schedule, a routine, and a rhythm might all be used to designate the waking, nap, and bed times that I've set for Lily, they carry different ideas about intentions, control, and engagement. What I choose to call something, to name it, is part of how I conceptualize it, approach it, and ultimately realize it.
So I sort of misled you when I said that I had decided to set a family schedule. I did start out to set one rather reluctantly. But now I like to think of it more as a rhythm. And the morning after that three hour bedtime, I couldn't help but laugh to myself think of the early Gloria Estefan song "The Rhythm is Gonna Get You." Deep musings on word connotation aside, I really do hope that I can set a rhythm that Lily can live with and even dance to. And more pragmatically and immediately, I hope that this rhythm starts to keep those long nights at bay. As the song says: "At night, when you turn off all the lights, there's no place that you can hide. Oh no. The rhythm is gonna get you."
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