A friend’s “perfect routine” has me wondering if some families are just built differently

[GlowWithBalance]

A friend of mine was telling me recently about how smoothly evenings go in her house. Her kids apparently finish dinner without fuss, go upstairs when told, get ready for bed, read quietly, then fall asleep without any drama. She talks about it like it is the most normal thing in the world.
I was happy for her, of course, but it left me thinking about how different families can be. In our house the evenings sometimes feel like a small storm. Someone cannot find their pyjamas, someone needs a drink, someone remembers urgent homework just as I am turning off the lights. By the time they are finally asleep I feel like I have run a full race.
It is funny how you can be doing your best and still feel like you are missing a secret manual that other parents somehow have. Talking to her made me realise that many of us only see the calm version of other families, not the chaos behind the scenes.

I mean, you also seem to have one four year old? That might be one reason why OP's house doesn't feel like yours - and it seems quite early on in the whole parenting journey for you to be so smugly certain you've nailed the bedtime thing!

Well we’ve definitely nailed it, that’s for sure. I have friends with 3 and 4 children who have calm evenings and other friends with one child where the evenings are a shambles. I think more often than not people get out of life what they want from it. If you want calm, you create calm.

Well, more children than you can manage is a choice too. I'm not saying that to bash anyone's choices, but I think it's rather obvious that managing more kids will take more effort than fewer kids?

However, the OP seemed to be comparing herself to other families with multiple kids.

And tbh, as I've said a few times, I have a much better way of nudging my son through his routine than my husband does, which allows for spontaneity because he knows that he generally feels safe with Mummy. That he doesn't get hungry, thirsty or stressed because his things are in the wrong place, because I keep things in order so they're there. He couldn't articulate it, but I think it's generally true.

it's difficult to know how many kids you can manage before they're here tho. was I meant to know what managing 3 was like when I only had 1?

If I'd had three all like my last one - bedtime would have been so easy even when they were all vey young and was by myself.

Older two were very different personalities and look like they may have also had ADHD affecting sleep.

My older two are girl and boy and everyone put their different personalities down to them being a girl or a boy - then DD2 came along and everyone stopped talking so much rubbish as she was not like DD1 at all.

We both work full time and our kids are not routine kids so it’s chaos. Dh gets in and gets dinner going asap, has to ask 10 times for ds10 to set the table, I get in and hopefully eat with them, I’m still eating as they finish, dh will be helping the 3yo with fruit then bath and the older two will disappear, need tracking down and repeated asking to shower, then they will need to be told to get out, then the oldest will take 15 minutes of finding distractions to get back to his bedroom and get pjs on then I remind them both 20 times to clear their dirty clothes and take their towels back to their bathroom, then a miserable stint of making them check they have the right uniform out, sports gear or library books or swimming then put them to bed. The 3yo takes 20 minutes of lying with her, so if one of us has exercise or meetings or kids sport, which happens about 3-4 weeknights a week the older ones just read, they would never volunteer to get to bed. So it’s 9:30 and if you’re lucky everyone’s in bed and now you get to clean up dinner and make lunches for the next day. My kids will never ever ever ever ever be like the ops kids.

Look at your hands and count them - you don't get more when more kids show up, or more hours in the day.

It's why I'm so wary of having second, twins run in the family, and I know I don't want the level of busy that comes with three.

so should I have sold him on Etsy?

"cheap baby, unexpected twins after singleton, you can pick which one you take!"

I'm not saying that, obviously.

But your premise was "was I meant to know what managing 3 was like when I only had 1".

Well - threads like this exist! And having one child, I can see that I have a lot less time, and that another child would require more time and more tasks?

It's like literally anything else in the whole world - more people, more complications. You only have to be a member of a group chat vs arranging a coffee between two people to know that.

Mine are grown and at uni now but our evenings were always calm. Friends thought we were too regimented but my kids thrived on routine thankfully. Fed, washed and in bed by 6.30pm with half hour of bedtime stories before both lights out at 7. Ironically, the friends that made fun of as for being too regimented ended up being the ones complaining that their kids weren’t going down till after 9pm and how chaotic their evenings were etc and how they never had any adult down time in the evenings 🤷🏻‍♀️

We had a strict bedtime routine from day one. Up for bath, story, feed if that young still, in bed lights out bye! After about three months old it was settled and I very rarely had any fussing. Jammies were in their room. A bit older same routine just a bit later. Homework was done as soon as they got home, then they had chill time while I made dinner, then up for bath, reading and bed lights out. My son used to ask weird and wonderful questions to prolong it a bit ‘ mum, what would we be like if we didn’t have skeletons’? But he soon settled to sleep. There was no chaos.
@GiantTeddyIsTiredi recognise your point but I found the majority of parents that had battles at bedtime did not establish a routine from very young - and I mean newborn. My kids were born during Gina Ford heyday and surprise surprise all my friends who read it had calmer evenings… there will always be exceptions but when asked those parents who still had kids up bothering them at 11pm were usually the same parents who let their kids dictate bedtime when babies.

People who say it’s easy, have it easy. They are naturally organised people who have spawned easy to organise/ teachable, compliant kids. Neurotypicals, basically. I have one of each, a more neurotypical child. And a neurodiverse child. It just doesn’t compare. No amount or ‘organisation’ or planing or family-wide accommodations will ever make my neurodiverse child or our family life easy. I’ve been on every parenting course going, it not me. It’s them. Parenting them is hard. And that’s fine. The world needs more diversity, even if it is more difficult on a mirco family level, in the short term. Those difficult kids are the movers and shakers of tomorrow.

We get up at 6 am and you can bet everyone is eager to go to bed at 10 pm. They trot off to bed no questions asked.
Two kids, very compliant generally, not particularly routine focused, but dinner is always around 7-8 and homework is always done before. Their internet vanishes at 9 pm.

My experience is that all children are different. My eldest is ND and is a nightmare at bedtime. Always has been. He likes routines but with bedtime, he just really struggles to settle down. He'll have a burst of energy despite having gone for a walk, been out playing with friends etc. This gets the others worked up and makes bedtime chaotic. The others would quite happily get changed, brush teeth and go to bed with a book. I have friends who are like your friend with great easy bedtimes and some who have more chaotic bedtimes. Some of it is down to routines and organisation but some of it is just down to the child no matter how hard you try. Sometimes my kids will come back downstairs for various reasons. Don't be too hard on yourself, we are all doing our best. All kids are different. And we all have different challenges

Surely if the kids were going to bed at 9 there's still another 3 hours of the evening

After 9 most nights! And if one of the parents needs to get up at 5.30am to go to work, it doesn’t leave much of an evening if they plan to get more than a few hours’ sleep? Each to their own but mine were in bed for 7 for most of their primary school years, they loved their sleep, still do…

See mine were pretty nocturnal but the then didn't get up at the crack of dawn either. Usually about 9-7. I wouldn't have hD time to have dinner etc if they were in bed by 7

This really resonates with me. I think my eldest has ADHD, or at least strong traits of it. My other children will calm down and get into bed, especially the middle child. But my eldest suddenly has a burst of energy at bedtime. He's like a pent up ball of pure energy pin balling round the house. Swinging off things, laughing, making the others laugh, playing. Going from room to room singing. The trouble is it distracts the others. Its not like we don't exhaust him, he does loads of activities and sport. He tries to settle and then he's up again. I actually read somewhere that ADHD children need that burst of energy in the evening and actually calming routines often don't work and can backfire.

He's very well behaved at school and he's a lovely lovely kid, he isn't a 'rule breaker' as such but sometimes I just have to go to another room in the evening to get some peace. I can't have a go at him every night. I don't think people understand who have easy calm compliant kids.

Growing up not a single child in my family went to bed on time or easily - were we all neurodiverse?
I don't think so.
None of us had a routine, we were usually watching TV until late and also snacked shortly before bedtime.
It was 100% chaos - all the time.

Kids are on smartphones all the time now which is even worse than TV and is why so many people now have ADHD.

We're being bombarded with information all day long with no break and it's worse for children. Their brains are being trained to need constant instant gratification and excitement so it takes longer for their brains to settle down after that. Most children need one hour of calming down time before bedtime to be ready to go to sleep - no eating, no screen-time of any kind.
Books are like sleeping tablets for children.

They work for me too, so long as it is a book I find boring.
I've never gotten beyond the first few pages of Lord of the Rings...