Three Questions That Keep Me From Losing It at Bedtime

Hi, friends. I'm writing this late at night, and I'm pretty wiped. My youngest flat-out refused to go to bed and put on a full theatrical production about it. Right now I still lie down next to him until he falls asleep. I never did that with my three older kids, who all fell asleep on their own just fine.

So staying with him at bedtime is new territory for me, and I'll be honest: for a lot of reasons, I'm not a fan. I'd like to change it soon, but I have no real idea how we're going to pull that off.

Anyway, tonight everything seemed to go wrong, and he just would not fall asleep. I was beat from the day, the other kids still wanted a piece of me, and all I wanted was for him to go to sleep, fast. When I realized it wasn't happening, stress started creeping in. I kept bouncing between “Shhhh, it's time to sleep” and “Okay, that's it, enough already.” My voice got louder. I got more and more impatient.

I'm tired, but he's not

When I felt myself about to blow, I got up and went into the bathroom. I screamed into a towel, once, loudly, and then took three deep breaths. I went to the kitchen and drank a glass of water. (All of this was accompanied by wild wailing from my youngest, of course, who thought it was an outrage that I'd just left the room.)

My nervous system slowly settled down, my breathing got deeper, and then I asked myself the questions I often ask in stressful moments:

1. Will this still feel awful in three hours? Answer: Probably not, but it could.
2. Will this still feel awful in three days? Answer: No.
3. Will this still feel awful in three weeks, or even three months? Answer: No.

My rule of thumb: if I can answer at least two of these questions with NO, then the situation isn't life-threatening or bad enough that I need to keep spiraling over it. With that mantra in my head, I managed to lie back down next to my little guy and tell him, calmly but firmly, that it was time to sleep. The situation calmed down, he calmed down, and I kept calming down too, lying there in the dark listening to him breathe.

We're all only human, and every one of us hits the end of our patience sometimes. But here's what I notice again and again: freaking out, nagging, and snapping never really get me anywhere. I physically have to get out of the situation to calm down. And then those three questions help me.

How about you? How do you handle moments like this, and how do you calm your nervous system? I'd love to hear from you.