When people mention that bedtime in their house is 7:30 p.m., I’m always curious to know how they manage it. No matter how early I try to get Stephen to sleep even if he’s missed his afternoon nap, he’ll toss and turn, nurse left and right, top to bottom, but never fall asleep before 9:30 p.m.

I don’t remember having a set bedtime when I was a kid. Maybe around 9 or so, my mom would say it was time for my sister and I to go to bed. But we didn’t actually have to be in bed with the lights out. More often than not, my sister and I would chat/argue, read, then write in our diaries for a while. When we finally felt sleepy, we’d fight some more over who was going to turn off the light and end up falling asleep deadlocked with it blazing all night.

Bedtime really had no meaning when I was living in Taiwan a few years ago. For some reason, I was exhausted all that year. I was napping in the lab after lunch as per Taiwanese custom and still fell asleep on the sofa every night. I had a relatively easy life back then and got regular exercise from having to walk everywhere. But I could have slept all the time. Every weekend, Marv and I in our usual couch potato fashion would spend almost the entire day on the couch where I would alternately read and sleep the day away.

Sleep is more slippery and hard to control nowadays. Some days, I sleep like the dead. Other days, I don’t feel rested afterwards. And the worst days are those when I’m unable to sleep even at 2 or 3 in the morning.

What is the secret to bedtime? I’d really like to know.