Of all my parenting moments I have recently experienced one of my biggest achievements.

My 5 year old has a bedtime. A real proper official bedtime. It took four and a bit years for me to work out how it all worked, there were no tears and no tantrums and he has taken to it like a duck to water. His bedtime is 7.30pm every night, just like a normal kid! It's amazing!

I started off a few months ago when I had had enough of this feral kid still awake at 9 o'clock every night. He didn't ever go to sleep in his bed he just fell asleep on the couch and then was transferred to bed. We had wanted him to have a bedtime for ages, well, mostly me, Steve didn't seem to care, but I didn't quite know how to go about it. I would never leave my kids to cry themselves to sleep, not ever. I know my beautiful boys will probably cry themselves to sleep at some point, some girl will have broken their heart or they will have faced some disappointment in life, plenty of time for that later.

So, first of all I picked a number, might as well start at 8.30pm for "bedtime", so I told him all about bedtime and he seemed to think it was a good idea so the first night I went in with him and read him about ten stories, then turned out the light and rubbed his back till he fell asleep, it took a couple of hours. What a marathon. But I was determined so the next night I did the same thing. This went on for about a week, then one night he asked to go to bed at 8 o'clock, so off we went at 8 o'clock. Then I decided to see what would happen if I brought it back to 7.30pm, and it went well. He is getting up a lot earlier in the morning, which is good because he used to sleep in so late! I cut the stories back to three and I don't budge on that and now he doesn't ask for more, he knows it's three stories. Pyjamas, brush teeth, wee, hot water bottle filled, three stories. Then I turn out the light and rub his back for five minutes, I tell him when there is a minute left, then I get up and say goodnight, he says goodnight and I walk out.

He is going to bed easily and happily, he is getting up at the same time as Callum in the morning and he is bright and bubbly and happy.

So far I love having a 5 year old. And I love having a kid with a bedtime. I really really really love it. I can't believe I pulled this off, a few months ago it seemed like a miracle that other people did but not us!

For my next trick I would like to get Callum to sleep through the night. I think that really is in 'miracle' territory though...