Please, Please Go to Sleep

New lessons from 100 years of bedtime battles

Juliana Sohn

New lessons from 100 years of bedtime battles

Here's what a child's bedtime looks like to couples expecting their first baby: the nursery is softly lit, the child is sweetly sleepy, the last page of Goodnight Moon has been read. After that comes the final tuck-in, the gentle kiss and, finally, the quiet tiptoe out of the room.

So how often does this happen after the kids arrive? The answer--rounding to the closest zero--is, well, zero. Or at least that's the way it seems. Wartime over bedtime is as fixed a part of childhood as teething and potty training, except that it goes on much, much longer and is...

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