Twins bedtime – unexpected popularity

Hi. For a few days ago a friend suggested a bedtime routine for me, and I thought I should try it out. I’ve been having a hard time getting my twins to bed recently because of the heat and long, sunny days, and I thought I’d try something new. But I was pretty certain it wouldn’t work, so i filmed it.

Normally, I would put them to bed, sing a few songs while tickeling their backs and close the door behind me. That worked out great, and they usually felt asleep within 30 minutes. But that changed.

I posted the video on my facebook wall, and it went viral in a really short time. That was not my purpose, but I thought it was quite funny actually, and people kept sharing it. Suddenly it had over 100 000 views, and it kept spreading.

Comments appeared frequently, and I tried to keep up. And the comments became mean, hurtful and disrespectful, and this is why I’m writing this post. When you call me a bad mom, tell me I never should have kids and encourage me to hit my kids, I can’t just sit back and say nothing. I won’t.

 

I live in Norway, and if we hit our kids we lose them. Thank god for that! I live in a peaceful country with low crime, and I love it here. Many of the people commenting on my youtube video said that they are spanking/hitting their children. They also said that they were spanked in their childhood, and that it didn’t affect them. Well, is that really true? It make them hurt their own children, because they grew up that way themselves. It’s wrong. But go ahead, treat your children however you want, that’s not my concern.

What I want to achieve, is to tell you that I’m not a bad mom. I’d do anything for my children, I really would. I will tell you about my bedtime routine, since so many people are commenting negative stuff about it;

After they have taken a fairly long shower and brushed their teeth, I put them in their beds. They have always shared a room, the only exception was in the video – because I tried a new method, and it didn’t work out. And yes, they do have blinds in their windows, even though it doesn’t look like it in the youtube video. When the door is open, the wind blow the blinds away from the window, and let the sun into the room. When the door is closed, it’s fairly dark in there.

After we have spoken a few minutes about how their day was, I tickle their backs and sing for them. I’ve tried to read books for them, but they aren’t interested in listening to me reading, so I sing instead. I keep tickeling and singing until they are asleep, sometimes it’s 5 minutes and other times it’s an hour.

Leon normally wakes up after an hour or two, and I end up carrying him into my bed, to prevent him from waking up Nathaniel. I tickle and sing for a few minutes again, and Leon is once again asleep. Normally an hour later, Nathaniel wakes up and walks straight into my room. I tuck him in, and leave the room. I really don’t mind them sleeping in my bed, I think it’s comforting and really nice. I only wish they didn’t use 90% of the super king size bed, forcing me to sleep in the footend. But, I’m used to it by now.

When the weather gets normal and the sun sets earlier, I’ll go back to our normal routine wich I mentioned earlier in this post. But for now, this works for us. If you want to judge, be my guest. Now I’ve at least told my story.