To get a kid ready for bedtime, you do 4 Bs: bath, brush (teeth), book, bed.
In your 20s going to bed was easy. You watched the news, brushed your teeth, and plopped into bed.
Now it seems like you spend half the evening getting ready for bed. You can’t just brush your teeth and pop off to bed. You have a whole checklist: Instead of the 4 Bs, it’s the 5 Ps: pet, pee, polish (teeth), pills, and paraphernalia. And all of these are multi-task steps.
from https://seniorsathome.jfcs.org/aging-dental-health/
If you don’t have a pet, you can skip this paragraph, but our nightly routine starts with taking care of the cat. We have to administer an inhaler for his asthma and sometimes we have to give him eyedrops for his allergies. After the trauma, we give him treats. And he’s a spoiled kitty because then he wants us to entertain him – either by opening one of our sliding glass doors so he can sit on the tiny Lanai, or by opening the dresser drawers so he can inspect them and possibly fling t-shirts out to make a cozy bed, which he lays in for only a few minutes.
After taking care of the pet, I start my own routine. Peeing is the easy part (I hope).
Next comes polishing. I can no longer take a simple swipe with a toothbrush. Tooth cleaning has become a multi-step process: two minutes with the water pick, a minute flossing, then two minutes brushing. My electric toothbrush times me, beeping every thirty seconds: Upper front, lower front, upper back, lower back. Then a minute swishing of mouthwash. Then I insert my night guard.
The next stage is pills. I’m lucky. On most nights I only need one tiny pill. But if do I have to take a larger pill, a pain pill or a sleeping aid, I have to take it at least 30 minutes before the nightly routine. My tummy protests at anything larger than an ant.
Some people have a pill regimen, taking five or more monstrous meds. If you don’t swallow them right they ping-pong down your throat and you keep downing water to coax them to your stomach. (1) All the extra water might mean an extra mid-night pee.
All of a sudden I realize what I thought was a thirty-minute pre-bed routine is already 30 minutes and I haven’t even covered paraphernalia. This can be an extensive list including heated gel masks, CPAP machines, eye masks, ear plugs, knee pillows, and reading materials.
Many of us heat a gelled eye mask and wear it over our eyes for 15 minutes for eye problems such as MGD, styes, blepharitis, and dry eyes. (I had to look up MGD (dry eyes), and blepharitis: eye mites – ugh, gross.) (2)
Gelled eye mask - why is she smiling so much?
CPAP machines can be a project in and of themselves. You may have to sanitize the mask, prepare filtered water, and fill the humidifier tank. And heaven forbid the nose pillows have fallen off you have to search over, under, inside, and outside the bed to find those elusive buggers.
Gathering my other sleeping paraphernalia can take a minute or a lot of time, depending on where I left them in the morning. I usually keep earplugs, eye mask, iPad (for the eBook app), iPad holder, and a napkin in the nightstand drawer. “A napkin?” you ask. Yes. I lay the napkin over my arm to protect it if the cat decides to knead my arm and forgets to keep his claws sheathed (or I forgot to trim them). And you know the night I forget this precaution is the night kitty gets especially enthusiastic with his kneading (3).
At least this cat has his claws sheathed.
If I’ve used my iPad during the day, I might have to search the apartment to find it. I know sleep experts advise against using electronic devices before bed, but for me, reading an iPad is much easier than reading a book. I can turn pages with a swipe of my pinky and it usually stays in place in my iPad holder. Somehow books get flung around the bed when I toss and turn and end up looking like they got out in a windstorm. And I’d need a book light for the book.
What a book would look like after I took it to bed
Earplugs can be a challenge. I roll them between my thumb and index finger until they’re skinny, quickly pull my ear up and backward, and insert the squished earplug. Half the time the earplug expands before my ear is in position and I have to re-squish it. Sometimes when I try to insert it, it bends in half and I only get the tip in my ear and the rest is folded against the outside. Sometimes I get them in my ear and they don’t expand, so I try again. If that fails, I have to throw that earplug away and get a new fresh one. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. Even with earplugs, I can still hear the noisy maintenance crew carts roll by at 6:30 AM and many times they are shouting at each other because they can’t hear each other over the roar of their vehicles. I hope they wear earplugs. But the earplugs must work because they keep me from hearing the alarm clock.
To block out extra light I wear an eye mask. I put it on my head even though I read my eBook for a while. If I just lay it beside my book it can get misplaced when I toss and turn. Then I have to search the floor, the covers, or the gap between the headboard and the wall to find it.
I use a knee pillow for better back alignment. It also helps to keep my bony knees from clacking together. So after I’ve collected all my other paraphernalia and I'm in my preferred sleeping position, I grab the pillow and insert it between my knees. Then I remember the cat is still out on the lanai and get up to hustle him in, close the window, and pull the shades down.
I use a regular pillow. This looks more like a straight jacket for knees.
Once back in bed, in his own time, the cat curls beside me, kneading my arm, purring, and blocking my view of the book. I shift the book so I can see it. If I’m lucky, I’ll be asleep in less than 30 minutes.
Epilogue
I’m sure you non-cat lovers out there recognize I could get to bed 15-30 minutes earlier if I didn’t have a cat. But the extra nighttime steps are worth it when he curls in my lap and purrs or entertains me with his antics.
References
Joe Graedon, Her pills make her gag: How to Swallow Big Pills, thepeoplespharmacy.com, August 9, 2022
Lauren Fountain, Sleeping With a Pillow Between Your Knees, sleepfoundation.org, February 17, 2023
Jamie Milan, Why Do Cats Knead?, bechewy.com, May 6, 2023
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