No time for the bedtime story? How modern life is stealing our family moments

When bedtime stories fade into bedtime yawns

Once upon a time, the bedtime story was sacred in our house. Cyrus would pick his favourite, usually something involving an animal with questionable manners, and I’d do the voices. Badly. He’d giggle, interrupt, and demand to turn the pages himself. We’d sometimes get through three pages before he declared he was “too tired” and fell asleep mid-sentence. It wasn’t perfect, but it was ours.

Lately though, I’ve noticed those moments shrinking. By the time the dinner dishes are done, work emails cleared, school uniform found and my gym session complete, I’m running on fumes. There are nights I sit on the edge of Cyrus’s bed, book in hand, and feel my eyelids droop faster than his.

The bedtime story crisis: what the research shows

It turns out I’m not alone. A new national study by Park Christmas Savings has found that more than half of UK parents regularly skip bedtime stories or one-to-one chats with their children because they’re simply too tired or stressed. That statistic hit me right in the mum-guilt.

When asked what they’d do with an extra hour in the day, most parents didn’t dream of grand adventures. They just wanted to sleep. The rest said they’d use it to talk, properly talk to their kids.

Why five minutes still matter

Family psychologist Dr Pam Spurr explains why the little things matter so much:

“Bedtime stories and shared moments are powerful. They’re when children feel most connected, listened to and safe. When families lose that time to stress and exhaustion, it can chip away at both children’s emotional security and parents’ confidence. The good news is, even small changes, five minutes of real connection can make a difference.”

That line about “five minutes of real connection” stayed with me. Because that’s sometimes all I have. But when I stop scrolling, put the phone on silent, and just listen, I mean really listen, Cyrus always surprises me. He tells me what made him laugh that day, what he’s secretly worried about, or which footballer has suddenly become “overrated.”

Those five minutes matter more than any long bedtime story ever did.

The financial strain behind family time

Of course, the money side is impossible to ignore. More than half of parents told Park Christmas Savings they simply can’t afford basic leisure activities anymore, and 85% wish they had more time for family meals. When budgets tighten, time does too.

Holding it all together

That word – glue – made me smile. Because that’s exactly what it feels like some nights. The house is a mess, the to-do list is a scroll of doom, but when Cyrus snuggles up and says, “Just one page, Mum,” it holds the whole day together.

There’s no fairy-tale fix for the cost of living crisis, but there is something quietly radical about carving out five minutes of connection in the middle of it all. It’s not the story itself that matters, it’s the togetherness and the ordinary magic of being fully there, in that one moment, before the lights go out.

So yes, sometimes I still fall asleep mid-page. Sometimes he reads to me instead. And sometimes, when I’m tempted to skip the story entirely, I remind myself that it’s not really about the book at all. It’s about saying: I’m here, I see you, and this is our time.