Whether it is desirable to have your kid fall asleep in the car goes through cycles as they age. It’s lovely to have your infant fall asleep in the snap-out car carriers. Just move inside and the nap continues undisturbed. By the time they are toddlers and you are trying to keep a schedule, the car nap only messes things up. Eventually though, getting them to fall asleep in the car is a free lunch: sleep they wouldn’t otherwise get, a moment of peace you wouldn’t otherwise get. Best of all at the end of a long day if you can carry them into bed you skip out on the usual nighttime madness.
Our kids are all at that age and so its a regular family joke in the car ride home that the first to fall asleep gets a prize. It sometimes even works. But I learned something on our vacation last month we went on a couple of longer then usual car trips. Someone will fall asleep first, and once that happens the contest is over. The other two have no incentives. Also, in the first-to-fall game, each child has an incentive to keep the others awake. Not good for the parents. (And this second problem persists even if you try to remedy the first by adding runner-up prizes.)
So the new game in town is last-to-sleep gets a prize. You would think that this keeps them up too long but it actually has some nice properties. Optimal play in this game has each child pretending to sleep, thereby tricking the others into thinking they can fall asleep and be the last. So there’s lots of quiet even before they fall asleep. And there’s no better way to get a tired kid to fall asleep than to have him sit still, as if sleeping, in a quiet car.
12 comments
Comments feed for this article
September 7, 2010 at 6:48 am
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE – SLEEP NOW IN THE FIRE LIVE, 6/6/10 | BEST WHITE NOISE MACHINE
[…] Incentivizing Sleep « Cheap Talk […]
September 7, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Daniel Reeves
Doesn’t that depend on *you* being able to tell the difference between fake and real sleeping? How do you do that?
September 7, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Kevin Burke
Brilliant
September 7, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Kat
Daniel: the true last to sleep may know he was last to sleep and protest if another is given the prize. The others may not be able to tell, having already been asleep! I suspect this still works if ties are awarded liberally.
September 7, 2010 at 2:37 pm
John B. Chilton
It’s not original to be, but here’s a solution that worked for us like a charm. It’s for the child who keeps getting out of bed to ask for a glass of water or because they heard a noise – whatever. We hung 3 rubberbands on her doorknob and told her that once she’d used up all three she couldn’t get up again that night. Problem solved. She never used one.
September 7, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Bookmarks for September 7th from 18:41 to 19:15 | links.kburke.org
[…] How do you get your kids to fall asleep in the car? « Cheap Talk – Our kids are all at that age and so its a regular family joke in the car ride home that the first to fall asleep gets a prize. It sometimes even works. But someone will fall asleep first, and once that happens the contest is over. The other two have no incentives. Also, in the first-to-fall game, each child has an incentive to keep the others awake. Not good for the parents. (And this second problem persists even if you add runner-up prizes.)<br /> <br /> So the new game in town is last-to-sleep gets a prize. You would think that this keeps them up too long but it actually has some nice properties. Optimal play in this game has each child pretending to sleep, thereby tricking the others into thinking they can fall asleep and be the last. So there’s lots of quiet even before they fall asleep. And there’s no better way to get a tired kid to fall asleep than to have him sit still, as if sleeping, in a quiet car. […]
September 7, 2010 at 7:35 pm
links for 2010-09-07 – Kevin Burke
[…] How do you get your kids to fall asleep in the car? « Cheap Talk Our kids are all at that age and so its a regular family joke in the car ride home that the first to fall asleep gets a prize. It sometimes even works. But someone will fall asleep first, and once that happens the contest is over. The other two have no incentives. Also, in the first-to-fall game, each child has an incentive to keep the others awake. Not good for the parents. (And this second problem persists even if you add runner-up prizes.) […]
September 7, 2010 at 8:47 pm
links for 2010-09-07 | links.kburke.org
[…] How do you get your kids to fall asleep in the car? « Cheap Talk Our kids are all at that age and so its a regular family joke in the car ride home that the first to fall asleep gets a prize. It sometimes even works. But someone will fall asleep first, and once that happens the contest is over. The other two have no incentives. Also, in the first-to-fall game, each child has an incentive to keep the others awake. Not good for the parents. (And this second problem persists even if you add runner-up prizes.) […]
September 9, 2010 at 9:32 am
Juegos de ensueño « Variacioncompensada's Blog
[…] 9, 2010 Cheap Talk describe distintos mecanismos para que los niños se queden dormidos en el auto de manera que molesten menos. Una posibilidad es premiar al primero que se queda dormido. Pero esto […]
October 4, 2010 at 10:13 am
» Sleeping Games in the Car » Cornell Info 2040 - Networks
[…] Source: https://cheeptalk.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/incentivizing-sleep/ […]
October 26, 2010 at 12:05 am
Janelle
I remember reading this post randomly somewhere on one of my random jaunts into cyber-land. I came across it again today after being directed here by my undergraduate game theory professor. What a small world it can be!
November 27, 2010 at 2:14 pm
how to get to sleep
Still happens to me 😛