We sure do like routine and structure in this house. We live and die by our shared calendar. Reed and I have a Discord with 26 channels in it. We’re constantly setting and using checklists and reminder functions. We clean before the housekeepers come every other week. It’s kind of A Lot, and while we don’t expect other people to be this die-hard, we did introduce a child into this environment, with all its pluses and minuses. I feel like the living room will never truly be fully tidy for at least the next 14 years. And a child is far more chaotic than fits into the structures we had in place.

When I was pregnant with Locke, we talked about what we would optimize for, to help prepare us for less failure during the first 18 months of sleep deprivation. We decided to optimize for Locke’s sleep above all else. We read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child as recommended by a sweetie of mine who has twin boys and had to survive that. We decided to live by the book religiously. Locke had a rigid sleep schedule that came at great cost to literally the rest of our lives. We had plans within plans if a nap time wasn’t going to be easy, or if one didn’t go according to plan. Locke now has a deeply positive relationship with sleep, including things like Halloween night when we had decided to let him stay up past bedtime declaring 10 minutes past lights out that he was ready for bed and didn’t want any more partying or candy.

We also got a Mella light clock for his room starting while he was still in the crib. He learned that the light turned yellow 30 minutes before we came in, and green when we came in. We had alarms set to be sure our entering coincided within a couple minutes of the light turning green to have a strong association. That then turned into 30 minutes of quiet playtime in his room, and it being ok to leave his room when the light turned green.

But then we had a child who enjoyed quiet playtime so much that he’d just stay in his room indefinitely, and we’d be late to preschool. So we added in an additional system, a clock with just a minute hand, yellow and green along the outside to match the color change clock, and a red line at the 10 minutes of green mark.

So the deal is, that if he gets himself dressed and out of his tidied room before the minute hand hits the red line, we will read a bit (currently the complete Calvin and Hobbes) or watch a LEGO video with him. And so our child, who also puts away his own laundry and often helps fold it, will get himself ready, play quietly for awhile, put his things away, and then come downstairs in a 10 minute window in the morning. He seems to enjoy having so much autonomy, and we enjoy having things run so smoothly. And we all enjoy getting a bit of unrushed, planned together time in the mornings.