Studio Notes from my Children About the Bedtime Routine
We know you can make this something we're all excited about!
Hello, Bess!
First of all: Congratulations on doing such comprehensive work on Bedtime Routine. Brava. You clearly put so much heart and soul into it and it definitely does not go unnoticed. Most of all, it was all so unmistakably you. We’re still laughing at the “tummy flubbers” scene – always hilarious and more so when you do it. There’s a reason they call you “Mom.”
Let’s dive in, shall we?
A couple things to consider after going over it on our end re: The Bath: We aren’t quite sold on the “Tear Free” shampoo. In theory we get how this could be super innovative and exciting, in practice we actually found it to not necessarily deliver on the overall premise. It just felt like too much of a lift for us to not actually cry, so we’d suggest nixing it altogether. Could you see the bath happening with just water? And if so, (ack sorry to pitch!) we’d love to drink it. Just an idea. See what you can come up with!
Also one strong point of consensus on our end is about the line “Ok, that’s the end of the bath!”
We lost the plot a little bit there. It seems like one minute everyone is splashing and playing and the three duckies are swimming, and the next minute it’s…towels? We’re not buying it. The drain part in particular seemed jarring – a few of us found it pretty viscerally upsetting. We’re a united front on that being pushed much, much later in the routine. Maybe an hour, two hours tops.
That brings us to pajamas. We know you have your heart set on everyone wearing a complete set of clean pajamas every night, but – food for thought – what if occasionally we tried it in the WALL-E costume from Halloween? Could be a great change of pace visually and in terms of overall energy. Feeling like pajamas are a little “been there done that” at this point, and while we’re spit-balling about alternatives, we wonder if you’d even let us consider just no clothing at all. Kind of funny, right? We know you’re worried about everyone getting cold, etc. but it’s honestly a low tier concern on our end. Think about it!
And forgive us if you saw this one coming, but we strongly feel it is time to reconsider the number of books read just before lights out. I know we agreed on “three” as sort of an arbitrary magic number, but I worry we’ve gotten too attached to that idea and should think bigger here. To be blunt, three books is feeling insufficient. I know that number is set for you, but I wonder if we could re-open the contract and let the lawyers do their thing there to support the new creative direction? If you’d be amenable to reconsidering, we were thinking ten books is a good place to start. And this goes without saying, but Goodnight Moon is not a book.
As for lights out, sorry if this is a pain on your end, but we think the general tone of the bedtime scene is elevated by having the Hatch Light on blue, the sound machine on loud, and two nightlights in the outlet by the door turned up to the highest setting each.
Thank you for hearing us out and looking forward to seeing the new Bedtime Routine once you’ve had a chance to let all of this percolate!
As always, we’re here any time if you have questions. We know it’s a bit more than you might have expected, but we have so much faith in you to make Bedtime even more incredible than it already is in this incarnation and really make everyone excited to put their names on it. We are so excited about the direction is going and have full faith you can make it live up to the initial pitch we were all so excited about.
With profound gratitude as always,
Goof and Goose
It’s as if you watched our routine last night and wrote this exact set of notes from my kiddos. Hatch light on blue ….also a popular source of feedback over here.
Thanks for making my life seem funny especially on the days when nothing seems funny.
I've been a long time out of the bedtime routine - the baby is now 22 and has his own apartment and against the grain of your kids, wears PJ bottoms most days, but there is much food for thought in any case.
Had to look up Hatch light. I guess I'll be meeting this in my future role as a grandma - assuming the kids will do their part. Good to know 'blue' is the choice of the customer. And 'Goodnight Moon' is not a book. My kids were big fans of 'Hooway for Wodney Wat' - so much so the 26-year old quoted a line just last week. Will review my retained kid lit collection in light of your informative piece.
Cheers, as always.