There's a real-life incident I remember from when I was seven years old. One summer evening, I was ill, so I went to bed at 5pm. When I woke, I saw it was seven o' clock, and I thought I had slept right through to the following morning, and started having breakfast. It was quite some time before realisation dawned: it was still the same evening, and I had to go to bed again!
I remember seeing a play of "Stig of the Dump" in which Barney is told by his grandfather in no uncertain terms that he must go to bed on Midsummer Night, even though it is still light outside. There's also a rhyme on being late for bed:
Go to bed early, wake up with joy.
Go to bed late, cross girl or boy.
Go to bed early, ready for play.
Go to bed late, moping all day.
Go to bed early, no pains or ills.
Go to bed late, doctors and pills.
Go to bed early, grow very tall.
Go to bed late, stay very small.
There are certain fantasies I have to go with an early bedtime, while I'm 5-7 years old, enforced by a strict babysitter:
- Made to wear pyjamas and childish slippers long before bedtime.
- Made to drink milk, from a sippy cup.
- Blindfolded for fifteen minutes or more, to rest my eyes from screens, and to help me wind down. My babysitter might read me a story during this time.
- My babysitter not hesitating to punish me if I am uncooperative, disobedient, or if I play for time and make myself late for bed. Because she has changed into slippers or flip flops as soon as she arrives, I know that discipline is close at hand, and that a soundly smacked bottom awaits me if she sits down, takes off a slipper, and beckons me. She plays tennis and has a strong arm, and it is certain that I will cry when her nasty slipper comes crashing down on my bare bottom.
- Being locked in my bedroom by my caregiver, to prevent night-time wanderings. I'm too little to know that this so that my babysitter can have fun with her boyfriend, without me walking in on them.