what do the words "bed" and "time" mean to you?

As a family we have done all sorts. When they were teeny tiny, as in from about six months up to the age of two years old, bedtimes were pretty structured.

Od in particular seemed to have read the complete guide to being a baby before she was born, and pretty much did every thing as she was supposed to, when she was supposed to.

She was two and very earnest in her role as big sister when Eb came along and rocked our worlds.

I had plenty of early warnings.

At thirty six weeks I phoned the midwife convinced he was trying to be born via my belly button. He never sat still in there, and took to pounding what felt like my vital organs all day and night.

When he was born, he was this big screaming angry mess of a baby. He continued to be a big angry screaming mess for the first eighteen months of his life. I developed into a similar screaming mess as each month progressed.

I broke the washing machine because I found that the spin cycle stopped him crying.

It was that bad.

Just as he decided that being him was actually pretty great, and that WOW!!! These leg things can make me crawl really fast, which means I exhaust myself and sleep FOUR hours.....I fell pregnant with Mb.

Ha.

Eb was seven months old.

Nine months later, out popped Mb who was the teeniest of my brood and the cutest monkey looking baby ever. He even had a hairy back to compliment his ape like features.

He was worn every where, because as I'd discovered with screaming Eb, it is so much easier to just wear a screaming baby and do what you need to do, than to try and settle him into a cot or crib.

Mb didn't scream, but his newborness disrupted all of our routines, and so we went back to havoc and mayhem at bedtime for a while.

There is a big gap between Lb and the others, mainly because I had had a rush of baby producing. I was that crazy mother with three children under the age of four at one point.

Yikes.

I don't know how I did it, because I couldn't do it now.

Lb to be honest was a piece of cake. I went camping when I was eight months pregnant and took him with us again when he was five weeks old.

He has grown up a chilled out little chap. Happy to be in the flow.

When I had all these small people I never thought out home education. I didn't know it existed and I assumed that they would go through the system of nursery, primary and secondary school, and maybe university if they wanted.

Here I am, with all four at home with me as their companion on this roller coaster ride we call an education.

So much of what I thought I knew about child rearing has gone out of the window.

Which leads us to the title of this post.

Bedtime.

We don't do bedtime. Not in it's proper sense.

We do going to our bedrooms at around seven thirty, and the house goes into quiet mode but who actually goes to sleep when is left up to the individual.

Lb requires a story. No matter what. At the moment we are reading "Sam and the Firefly" which in all honestly is nearly driving me to drink. I enjoyed it the first 25, 40938 times I read it but now that firefly is really winding me up and I have to resist the urge not to mutter under my breath when he is doing one of his "bad tricks."

Mb normally listens in too, although he is rather sick of the same story, so has taken to reading himself one of the Tilly books. (I think I've mentioned my Polly Dunbar love before!)

These two will read, play, and talk until about eight and then their room goes silent. Occasionally I find them in the same bed. Once they had swapped pajamas, which was strange.

Od writes in her diary, letting me know each and every night that it contains secrets. She will be asleep by eight thirty, and she will also be the one to rise first. Normally she has fed herself and the horses and is reading a book or emailing a friend by the time the rest of us surface. She tried going to bed later (a privilege of being the eldest, I thought) but she simply couldn't hack it.

Eb selects a stack - and by stack I mean twenty at least - of books to read through. He is my night owl, and long after I have gone to my own room, his light will still be on. Sometimes he doesn't read, sometimes he creates lego masterpieces, maybe designs a new medal or some other task that he has taken a fancy to.

I will retire about eleven. At about one I will hear the pat-pat-pat of Lb's feet as he comes into my room, uses my loo and gets into the middle of my bed to place his knees into the base of my spine.

I worry that our night routines are dysfunctional, especially Eb as he can be awake until past midnight.

As a child, bedtimes were strict and non-negotiable. It was eight thirty until I turned thirteen, then it got extended by a whole hour. Weekends were different.

So what do you do? Are you disciplined with a bed time for each person? Go with the flow? Would you go to bed happy knowing at least one child is still awake and that child knows where you keep the matches?