My kid’s skin has calmed down for about 3 weeks now, sleeping through most nights. Which is good, except I noticed my own bedtime drifted the wrong way the whole time I was up anyway.
For a while the nights looked like this: kid down around 8:30, me on the couch “for a minute” with the controller, and somehow it’s 1am with a deadline at 9. I wasn’t tired from being woken up anymore, I was tired from staying up on purpose.
A few things that actually helped:
– Moved the console into the living room so picking it up means getting out of bed first
– Set an alarm for 11, not a vague “wrap up soon” — when it goes off I save and stop, even mid-match
– Charger across the room instead of next to the bed, so there’s no easy scrolling after
None of it worked the first few nights. I ignored the 11 alarm twice that week and kept going anyway. What actually changed things was just not negotiating with myself anymore — alarm goes off, I get up, done.
About 10 days in now. Still not asleep by midnight most nights, but at least not starting at 1am, and that’s the part that actually matters for the next morning’s work.