Notes from Interview w/ Bruce Hannington 9/9

As a continuation of our research, we interviewed Bruce Hannington (father of three) about his family’s bedtime routine, and the challenges he’s faced. Bruce has two daughters (8 and 6) and a son (4), and is in charge of baths and bedtime for his children. Each of his kids sleep in their own rooms, in a queen sized bed, and the parents try to have their kids in bed by 8:00pm each night. The bedtime routine starts with baths at around 7:00.

Key takeaways from Bruce’s description of his bedtime process, and the challenges he faces, are outlined below.

• Many of the challenges at bedtime are the result of lack of agreement/coordination between parents.
• Bath time is a significant part of the orchestration of bedtime. Recently, older daughters have begun to take showers, and do it on their own, so he is now really only responsible for bathing the youngest son.
• Time is a big challenge — there is a cascading problem when bathtime starts late, it ends late, and then getting kids into bed later cuts into alone time for the parents and/or delays parents’ sleep.
• Evening activities (sports, etc.) have started to cut into this routine, often pushing it back and making bedtime later.
• The ultimate goal as kids get older is to get them to do more and him to do less — he is always looking for those thresholds of independence, where children can begin taking responsibility for more of their own routine. This was particularly interesting as his oldest daughter has recently begun reading more, and has even been reading a story to her younger siblings, taking the burden off the parents as well as giving her more independence.
• The family has a routine called “lay with,” where the parents come in and lay with each child individually for a few minutes before bedtime.
• Each child sleeps alone, in a queen sized bed. The parents made a decision to move them directly from a crib to a big bed so that there was room for the “lay with” routine, as well as so they didn’t have to keep buying beds as the kids grew.
• His kids sleep with stuffed animals, some are favored over others. His son sleeps with blankies (he has a few favorites) and he also carries the blankies around with him outside of the house.
• The kids sleep with nightlights and the doors to their rooms are left open
• The transition to bedtime usually involves the starting of bath time. Kids are usually playing in the playroom, sometimes technology is involved, and father has to get them upstairs and into the bath. They take baths every night and wash hair every second night.
• It can be a challenge to get kids from playing to bathtime, even though once inside the bath they seem to enjoy it. Additionally, parents feel bad interrupting anything positive. For example, if the kids have been fighting all day, and are finally playing nicely, they feel bad interrupting that healthy, positive play to get kids to bed. HMW make the moment of entering the bedroom more enjoyable?
• There was a time when kids would watch a show after bathtime, but have tried to limit that to special occasions because there was an expectation from kids that they would always watch a movie. If it didn’t happen, kids would have a fit.
• If kids have had a nap during the day, it messes up the bedtime routine because kids can’t fall asleep.
• The changing seasons affect bedtime routine. When it’s light out for longer, it’s harder to convince kids to go to sleep
• There is not always communication between parents about promises/routines — for example, mother may promise a movie while father doesn’t know; when father is traveling, mother is in charge of all bedtime activities, and father doesn’t really know how she manages the routine when she does it.
• Bruce referenced a few significant transitions in bedtime routine as his children have grown: 1) from crib to bed, 2) fully dependent to increasing independence (showering, put themselves to bed, etc.)

Overall, the interview reiterated for me the fact that a child (or children’s) bedtime routine significantly affects both their parent’s evening as well as their parent’s sleep. If a bedtime routine is successful, and children sleep well through the night, their parent’s are able to have much healthier sleep themselves and wake up rested and refreshed.

As a next step, Bruce suggested we reach out to Dylan, Mark Baskinger, Cameron, Joe Lyons, Wayne, Meghan, Deepa, Dimeji, and Michael Mages to conduct further interviews.