The Going to Sleep Game

I had an idea for a "Going to Sleep" game. Having tried it, I realize that there are some problems with it. It might be too open ended. When you're telling a cooperative story it's not so easy to just assert that "oh, we're in the bedroom now!" Suddenly an octopus from earlier attacks.

Or if you have a child that REALLY likes to talk, it can go on for a very long time. But it still might be worth putting out there.

It’s based partly on the ideas for bedtime rituals from Authentic Happiness, partly on the time Sarah was over and got a very restless Andrew to happily doze off, and partly on a pseudo-story I used to tell my brother that he inexplicably enjoyed. Probably also all the guided relaxation tracks I’ve been listening too are coming in to it.

The setup is something like this: we sit on the chair curled up together (contact is an important part of the soothing-ness, also the sing-song voice, dim light and other bed-time cues always help), and we begin:

We’re standing in a loooong hallway, the hallway of memories for today. It’s full of doors---small doors, tall doors, fancy doors, plain doors. You’re dressed up in your cosy pyjamas, and you’ve had your snack and brushed your teeth and gone to the bathroom and you’re ready for bed.

But first, we’re going to take a walk together down the memory hallway. I’m going to walk with you to different doors and tell you what door we’re at, and then you can tell me what’s behind it. Ready? Hold my hand. We’re walking down the hallway.

Here’s the first door. Mmm, this door smells good, and it’s solid wood like the kitchen table. It’s the doorway of good food. Behind it is the favourite food you had today. Let’s open it---what do we see?

With luck, sleepy boy will have enjoyed some food today, and will tell me all about it. And I’ll ask for details to help the memory.

Mmmm, pickles are tasty. Green and tangy and crunchy and good. That’s a good thing that happened today.

Maybe he won’t have had anything at all he liked (or be too grumpy to think of it), so we need a fall-back plan

Nothing tasty behind this door today? That’s okay! Off in the distance I see strawberries and cake and alligator juice from farther away days. Let’s go see what’s behind the next door for today.

And then other doors depending on the happenstance of the day. Time with friends, fun activities, good accomplishments, funny stories---whatever kinds of things they particularly like or enjoyed today. Possibly emphasizing the gentle enjoyments rather than hyper-excitements. Seligman says that with his younger kids he had to avoid the “looking forward to” part of the gratitude exercise because they got too excited to sleep. So it might have to be tuned to age and particulars.

Seligman’s version doesn’t have the hallway story or the prompts, but like I said, my brother used to really like the hallway story (especially when he got to make choices about which door to open, or elaborate on what was behind them) so I think it couldn’t hurt. And prompts can be used as necessary: “Which door are we at now? It’s a happy memory, but I can’t tell what kind.”

And maybe, when you start to tell that the boy is getting sleepy, you could introduce the door of happy dreams, which is cloudy and warm, glows lightly and sings softly and opens gently, and ask (or suggest) what good dreams he has to look forward to.