Cause no one will question your ethics if you refer to yourself as a Dungeon Mom.

I snort experimentation to feel alive. It’s a certain type of orientation to life, completely at odds with all parenting advice about predictability and routine.

Enter DM parenting. Where you approach every parenting task as a Dungeons and Dragons session where you are shepherding a team of pure outliers on the enthusiasm-skill spectrum through the Sisyphisian ordeal of rolling their toothbrush up hi … no, wait, stop that!

Anyway.

You need them to fight the BBEG cause otherwise you are not having fun, but who says they wouldn’t rather murder hobo their way through the local dairy supply chain?As a DM, you have to juggle an objective, your own enjoyment, and the enjoyment of your players.

This is basically parenting.

Of course, as a DM, you generally play with people who have opted in while playing according to a rule set someone lovingly crafted for you.

Luckily kids love to play, and if you pick the right rule set, they will probably be game. Except no one wrote any rule sets on how to DM kids into their pyjamas.

Till now.

My kids are young - 3 and 5. These rules work far better for the older of the two. I assume they will keep working better till they become old enough to build their own rules, but here is where we got in the last 2 weeks or so:

Bedtime Rules

Peekaboo

You close your eyes and keep them closed while your kid still needs to get ready for bed. But of course, you try to check if everything is going ok by blindingly reaching out your hands. I’d recommend exaggerating your ineptitude at determining if the little one has actually put on their pajama. It can also be fun to let them advise you on how to navigate the environment. The perspective taking training on this one seems to lead to additional giggles.

Tickle Station

Every time your kid does a bedtime task, they can dock into the tickle station and get tickled by you! Personally I made a tickle station by just reaching out my arms and pretending I was a booth. Some warning here that some kids do not like to be tickled so explicitly check if they find this fun, and also, crucially, let them come to you to receive tickles. In our case, my kiddos love being tickled. It has gotten to the point that the tickle station has become a bit of an emotional regulation option with me and the kids now, cause it helps them out of a funk quite easily.

Walk a Mile…

… in momma’s (or papa’s) shoes. Just let them wear your shoes while going through the entire bedtime routine. This was kind of amusing to watch. Might be important to keep them away from stairwells and the like.

Duel Shots

Grab two clothes pins and an elastic band. Hook the elastic band around the (closed) front of the clothes pin and pull back. You can now shoot rubber bands without them snapping your fingers. For the rule set, you both get one clothes pin. For each step of the bed time routine you shoot your kid with the elastic band and they can shoot you back.

Obviously, this can hurt quite a bit, so as an opt out either of you can shout "mirror" and then the other person will have to shoot the mirror image of you instead.

You may now discover if your child has ever shot an elastic band before. Mine had not. The mechanics of aim and force were a complete mystery to her. If you find yourself in this situation then an updated rule set is that the shooter can keep going till they hit. The result in our household was a lot of delight and the absolute slowest bedtime routine yet.

Ghost

You wear a blanket over your head and try to catch the kid while they are putting on their pyjama. If they get too excited they may fail to put on their pyjama all together. If they get sad about being caught, you can try reversing roles if they agree to quickly finish putting on their pyjamas. If you flub your rolls and allow yourself to get caught on the last try, then you will get to surf the Peak/End rule all the way to lights out.

Flip Four

This is a locomotion rule that I think can work but it didn’t for us. You both move to the bathroom and back on all fours, and the person in the back can yell “FLIP”. You then both have to flip from belly to back or back to belly, then continue on all fours. Flips get spammed by the person in the back, and I’m curious how this works out with a kid who can keep the rules straight. In our household, kiddo called one flip, raced past me and then ignored all my flips!

Even Odds

This is more a story than a rule set:

My daughter got some coins (100 cent in 50, 20, 10, and 5 cent coins) from the tooth fairy and she has been treasuring them dearly.

Except she exclusively regards them as play objects cause she hasn’t bought anything yet!

Anyway, she wanted the rule set to include the coins. So I suggested I’d flip a coin and she picks heads or tail and then…. And then what?

Well, I figured I’d want her to have positive associations with bedtime so every time she guessed right, she would do another bed time step. Every time she guessed wrong she… [think think] Had to imitate an animal I pick!

Ok sure, but how does this work out in practice?

Well, fuck our lord and savior RNGesus.

Initially she got every coin right and we sped through the bed time routine. And then, as my availability and recency bias won’t stop screaming in my ear —— every coin flip became the opposite of what she called out and there was an endless train of animal imitations and she is still making her way to bed as a frog-bear-lion-worm as we speak…

The worm imitation was so cute though.

Anyway, post-mortem, don’t do continuous 50/50 chances of delay versus progress in a bedtime routine. If anyone had suggested I think this through for all of 3 seconds, I may possibly have noticed the error in my ways. That said, my daughter sure did love it! And she found picking heads or tails very exciting and dove down to hide her face in anticipation every time I flipped the coin.

10/10 very cute.

Bubble Dodge

Grab a bubble blower and blow bubbles at your kid for each step of the bedtime routine. If a bubble hits them then they have to freeze for 3 seconds. This was pretty easy but anything involving bubbles tends to be a win.

Masking Art

Grab some masking tape and for every step of the bedtime routine your kid gets one strip of masking tape for making shapes on a wall or mirror. This one got repeated as a sub rule set on three consequitive nights cause my daughter wanted to keep making more hearts on the mirror.

Spin the Lollipop

Grab a lollipop or other spinneable object and basically play a variant of spin the bottle. Whoever it lands on has to do one step in putting on their pyjama. Be warned: You may also end up wearing your pyjamas.

Trick Shot

Grab three balls (we had juggling balls, but anything you feel comfortable being thrown around the house will work). Now take turns proposing trick shots to each other. You get three tries for each bedtime step you do. This works especially well if you are also getting ready for bed at the same time. Also, I’d expect this to work for a really broad age range.

Bonus Rules

Dinner: Pea Shooter

Grab a tray and some straws. For each 5 peas your kid eats, you put down one pea on the tray. They get to blow the pea forward on the tray using the straw. Consider adding obstacles if this turns out to be too easy for them. Be warned: You might witness your kids consuming peas by the fistful!

Bath: Disco Freeze

This is a game for 2 kids. Pick a song, everyone dances (you outside the bath, them in the bath). When you pause the song, the first kid to freeze does another cleaning step and gets to pick the next song. When they tie, they both do a step and get to pick a song together. Refusal to do the cleaning step means you can't pick a song. Then the person to get the most solo freezes is done earlier. The person who gets the least freezes gets to pick every song after that assuming they still do their cleaning steps in each song.

I hope these games add some fun or inspiration to your day! Till next time <3