Military Ball Babysitter: Bedtime and the Early Morning After

How do you do the military ball with small kids at home? Treat it as three jobs, not one evening. Book the sitter or the hourly care weeks out, because every other family in the unit wants the same Saturday night. Hand the sitter one written bedtime and walk through it before you start getting dressed. Then plan the morning after before you leave: the kids will be up at their usual time whatever time you got in, so decide now which adult takes that wake-up and which one sleeps.

Book the care before you buy the ticket

The ball is a fixed date on a Saturday the whole unit circled at once, which makes it the worst night of the year to look for a sitter on a Thursday. Line up care as soon as the date is announced, and line up a backup.

The options, roughly in the order families try them:

• A sitter your kids already know. An evening this long goes better with a familiar face than with a stranger who has never done your bedtime.
• The installation CDC. Army MWR’s child development center pages list hourly care “by reservation when space allows,” and note that “some CDCs open early or stay open late to support Military Balls, FRG events, training schedules, or emergency duties” (Fort Riley MWR, CDC care options). That is a “some”, not a promise. Call your own CDC and ask whether it is running late hours for your ball, and how early reservations open. If you’re new to the system, our guide to the military CDC waitlist covers how requests work.
• The free hourly-care search. Military OneSource says families now have “free access to a national database to search for hourly, flexible and on-demand child care” (Military OneSource, military child care programs). Useful when the people you know are all going to the same ball.
• Grandparents or a friend outside the unit. The obvious trade with another unit family rarely works for this one, because they have the same tickets.

Then decide where the kids sleep. Most families keep them at home with the sitter staying until you’re back, which keeps bedtime in the kids’ own beds. If CDC late hours end before the ball does, you will be lifting sleeping kids out of a center and into car seats at the end of the night, so count that into the plan. Settle on the phone how late the sitter can actually stay.

Write the bedtime down, then rehearse it once

You know your kids’ bedtime so well you have stopped noticing it has steps. The sitter doesn’t. Put it on one page: dinner time, bath or no bath, pajamas, the book, the song, the comfort object, lights-out time, and what to do if a child wakes. It is a one-night version of the caregiver guide in a family care plan, and if you already wrote that guide, print the bedtime page from it.

The page alone isn’t the whole handover. Betteroo’s guide to keeping bedtime the same no matter who runs it suggests writing the plan on one page, walking each caregiver through it once in person, and letting them run one practice nap or bedtime while you are nearby. For the ball, that means having the sitter over for a weeknight bedtime the week before. Fifteen minutes of practice beats a sticky note covered in arrows.

Three things go on the page in bold:

• Safe sleep for a baby under one: on the back, alone, on a firm flat surface, nothing else in the crib. The same Betteroo guide lists that as the non-negotiable for every caregiver.
• Feeding: if the baby usually feeds before bed or late in the evening, leave the bottle ready and the amount written down.
• Who to call: both your cell numbers, plus a neighbor who is home that night. Phones get left on a table during dinner, so tell the sitter to keep calling.

The handover: before the dress uniform, not during it

The worst time to brief a sitter is ten minutes before you leave, with one adult hunting for a missing shoe and the other one fighting a bow tie. Have the sitter arrive 45 minutes to an hour before you need to go. Walk through the page, show where the pajamas are, and start the evening routine together if the kids are young enough to need it.

Feed the kids before you change. Spaghetti and formal wear do not mix.

Say goodbye properly. A short, warm, same-every-time goodbye (“We’re going to a party, the sitter does bedtime, we’ll see you at breakfast”) is easier on most small kids than a long one, and much easier than finding you gone. Then actually leave. Coming back in because someone is crying at the window usually makes the second goodbye harder than the first.

Coming home after midnight

Plan the end of the night before the ball starts:

• The sitter’s ride home. Settle this before the toasts. If neither of you should be driving at the end of the evening, arrange a ride for the sitter instead of one of you doing it.
• Payment ready on the counter, so the handover at the door takes one minute and doesn’t happen in the kids’ hallway.
• A quiet way back in. Shoes off at the door and voices down until you’re past the bedrooms. A white-noise machine in the kids’ room, like the Yogasleep Dohm Classic, covers a key in the lock and a door closing, and it’s on for the sitter’s bedtime anyway.
• Ask the sitter one question: did anyone wake, and what worked? You need to know before the morning, not after.

Check on the kids from the doorway. A toddler who hears you will want to hear about the dancing.

The early morning after

This is the part nobody plans. The kids slept a normal night. You got in late and slept a few hours. They will be up at the usual time, and keeping that wake-up time is the right call: as our unit holiday party post explains, a sleep-in for the kids pushes the next bedtime later and stretches one late night into two.

So the adults take the hit, and you split it:

• Decide tonight, not at 0600, who takes the first shift. One adult gets up with the kids. The other sleeps until mid-morning, then swaps for an afternoon nap.
• Make the first shift easy. Leave a simple breakfast out before you go to bed, and plan a slow morning at home. It is not the day for a long drive or a family errand list.
• Watch your driving. Betteroo’s notes on getting through a morning on too little sleep cite the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society on adults needing 7 or more hours, and the advice to protect one longer block of sleep for each adult. If you’re foggy, the adult who slept drives.
• Expect a clingy morning. A child who went to bed with the sitter often wants extra time with you the next day. Give it to them on the couch.

If one of you has duty or an early start the day after, flip the plan: that adult takes the full night’s sleep, and the other one takes the morning.

A bedtime any sitter can run Betteroo builds a nap and bedtime plan for your child's age, so the sitter has a routine to follow and the ball doesn't cost you a week of sleep. Take the 3-minute sleep quiz →

FAQ: the military ball, the sitter and bedtime

How far ahead should I book a sitter for the military ball?

As soon as the date is announced. Every family in the unit needs care on the same night. If you want CDC hourly care, Army MWR says it is offered by reservation when space allows, so ask your CDC when reservations open and whether it stays late for the ball.

Should the sitter stay the night?

Usually there’s no need, as long as the sitter can stay until you’re home and has a safe ride back. An overnight stay makes sense if the ball is far away or you’re staying in a hotel. In that case, write the morning routine down too.

Can kids go to a military ball?

Many balls are adults-only formal evenings, but it varies, so check the invitation or ask the organizer. If your unit is holding a family event instead, our unit holiday party post covers keeping kids’ bedtime on track.