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The first few months of a baby’s life are basic training for parents.  It prepares them for the upcoming stages:  (1) getting the child to go to bed, (2) getting the child to stay in bed, and (3) aren’t you ever going to get out of bed?  These stages can cover a span of 18 to 25 years or until he finally moves out of the house, whichever comes later.  I have one friend who is still suffering sleep deprivation almost thirty years after giving birth to her youngest child.   Her son now has gone full circle and is back at stage one. 

Medical researchers spend large amounts of grant money studying sleep deprivation.  Their study subjects include swing shift workers and others with odd work schedules such as medical researchers.   They even pay college students to participate in experiments, although the only incentive most college students need to stay up all night is a keg party. 

Grant money would be better spent studying important things like why a child who rode the Millennium Force at Cedar Point eight times in a row can’t get to Grandma’s house without throwing up in the back seat of the car.  You can learn everything you need to know about sleep deprivation by spending a week observing the parents of an infant.  Better yet they could pay the college students to spend the week with the baby and let the bleary-eyed parents get some sleep. 

Parents of infants deal with twice-a-night feedings, dragging themselves out of bed at hours they have not seen since they were dating.  While they’re up they get a snack for themselves, accounting for an postpartum weight gain by both mother and father which, no doubt, is being studied by medical researchers somewhere.  Then they change the baby’s diaper and it’s time to get the young one back to sleep. 

That’s the point at which the system breaks down.  

One exhausted mommy reported that her three-month old slept seven hours straight – from 4 a.m. to 11 a.m.  No matter how she changed naptimes or bedtime, the baby would wake up around midnight and refuse to go back to sleep until four in the morning.  So mommy stayed up and watched TV until baby was ready to go back to sleep.  The child’s first word was “Shamwow.” 

A well-known trick to get a fussy baby to sleep is to put her in the car seat and take her for a short drive.  One daddy used this system so often that he claimed that he earned his daughter’s college money by delivering pizzas while baby snoozed in the back seat. 

At the toddler stage, the program changes.  The child learns to say “No”, and continues to do so for the next 16-20 years.  This also is the age at which their bedroom is invaded by monsters who take up residence under the bed.  I used to grab the nearest aerosol can and spray under my daughter’s bed, guaranteeing that “Monster-be-gone” would keep away all things scary.  To this day she thinks that any house that smells of Lysol Country Fresh is due for an exorcism. 

When the child moves from the crib to the toddler bed he discovers that he can escape.  He wanders off in search of adventure with no particular destination in mind but often ends up in his parents’ bedroom where he wants to stay.  One friend of mine put a sleeping bag beside the bed for the child to sleep in so he could feel close to mom but not crowd the bed.  The first time the family went on a camping trip and her son saw the sleeping bags being put in the car he thought they had become homeless.

Another friend tried the reward system when her daughter reached elementary school.  If her daughter went to bed without a fuss for two weeks, she would get a small toy.  Her teenage brother lobbied to get the same deal, except he wanted a Toyota.

Which brings us to the teen years and the third stage of bedtime warfare.  

Teens go through many changes, most of them embraced with the singular goal of annoying their parents as much as possible.   Recent studies conducted by those same tireless medical researchers reveal that teens are physically programmed to stay up later and sleep later.  Teens and their parents fully endorse these findings.

Teens can find a multitude of excuses to delay bedtime. One obvious problem is that they need a GPS device to find their bed in the mess they call their room.  Another is the failure of parents to be specific.  When I told mine that bedtime was ten o’clock I neglected to make it clear that I meant our time zone.

One advantage that parents of toddlers have is that they are able to pick up their children and physically deposit them in their beds.  When the child reaches six feet in height and is the freshman quarterback for the Central High School Thundering Idiots this is no longer an option.  This is when the threat-and-reward system comes into play.  For every ten minutes past bedtime they stay up, they lose an hour of some privilege such as TV time, computer time, video game time.  The ultimate threat, of course, is the confiscation of their cell phone which teens think are a right conferred on them by Congress in 1884.  Conversely, if they hit the sack every night on time for a month, they get a reward, such as being allowed to continue living at home.  The Toyota would be excessive.   

The problem of getting the teen to go to bed pales in comparison to getting the teen out of bed. At first parents try to keep the house quiet, figuring the child needs sleep.  Then they realize they can rev up the weed whacker outside the bedroom window and it will have no effect.  Alarm clocks, clock radios, the UCLA Bruins Marching Band and incoming missiles have failed to wake the sleeping teen.  Washington Irving must have had a teenager in the house when he got the idea for Rip Van Winkle.  When they finally do arise they get on the phone and compare notes with their friends on who slept later.  If this spirit of competition could be transferred to schoolwork they would all score 2300+ on their SATs. 

Weekends and holidays are the worst.  Many teens consider noon to be the break of day on weekends.  The flowers on the Rose Bowl floats have wilted before most teens rise on New Year’s Day.   The advantage to reaching this stage is that the parents finally can sleep as late as they wish on weekends without fear of being disturbed. 

However there are times when you really need the teen to haul herself out of the sack, such as a member of family is being inaugurated as governor or you’re moving to Krygyzstan.  Setting aside summer camp tactics, like a cold water surprise, parents must be devious and ruthless.  One sure way to get your teenage son out of bed is to stand outside the bedroom door and scream, in an incredulous voice, “Pregnant?!”  A clever father rigged his daughter’s TV to turn on at 9:30 a.m., turned up the volume, and disabled the channel changer so it would receive only C-SPAN 2. 

Having a teenager who drives, of course, immediately returns the parent to the ranks of the stage 1 sleep deprived.   Any attempt by mom and dad to get to sleep is thwarted by listening for the sound of the car pulling into the driveway, accompanied by the crushing of garbage cans and the abrupt relocation of the mailbox.   But at least he’s home and you know where he’ll be for the next twelve hours.  In bed.