Exhausted mom tells kids, 'Whoever's asleep first gets a dollar' — she wasn't prepared for her 4-yr-old's response

A tired parent might be ready to pull out all the stops to get their kid to go to sleep. A mom did just that when she offered her three girls money. The woman told them she would give a dollar to the kid who went to sleep first. It might not have worked the way she wanted it to, but her 4-year-old's creative response left her floored. The mom, Nicole Bell, who goes by @thataverageparent on TikTok, shared her daughter's hilarious response with the platform.

"Whoever's asleep first gets a dollar in the morning," the mom told her children before leaving their room. When she came back, her 4-year-old was still awake and had an adorable excuse for why she hadn't fallen asleep yet. "I can't sleep because the ninjas got my sleeping power. So can you just give me a dollar in the morning?" the girl told her mom. Bell explained to Newsweek, "Her favorite show currently is PJ Masks, which has a villain called the Night Ninja and his sidekicks are Ninjalinos, which is where her comeback originated from." She added, "I honestly wasn't expecting the 4-year-old to fall asleep, but I hoped she would."

Bell has three little girls aged 7,4 and 2, as well as a 13-year-old dog. Her 4-year-old's trouble while sleeping is not a new thing for the mom, "The oldest is a decent sleeper, the youngest actually has been our best sleeper. The 4-year-old takes a solid hour and a half to fall asleep, then wakes up at 3 am to crawl into our bed." Her two older daughters share a room and had refused to sleep that night. "At this point, my husband had gone out for a run after putting the 2-year-old to bed and I just wanted to get to bed myself, so I was pulling out all the tricks." Otherwise, the mom promised that she doesn't "bribe" her children, according to the video's caption, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

She went to take a bath after offering her kids a dollar and then came back to check on them. "The 7-year-old was fast asleep, as I expected, but the 4-year-old- not so much." Bell revealed, "Really, the goal was to give the oldest motivation to stop talking, because once she actually tries to fall asleep, she is out fast and then I would only have one awake kid left." She wanted people to see it as just a mom trying to "make it" to the end of the day and shared a heartwarming message for fellow parents. "I hope parents know that whatever they are doing to get by, however many real or metaphorical dollars they need to bribe kids with, they are doing a great job!"

People shared their thoughts on the moment in the comments section of the video. @hokkyokukitsune19 wrote, "Fair. I hate when the ninjas steal my sleeping power, too. They’re the worst." @atlastgecko commented, "My mom used to do falling asleep competitions. Whoever fell asleep first would get a slurpee the next day and then she would tell us she didn't know who did. So me and my brother both got one. I started playing on my DS under the covers when I discovered this consistent pattern." @leatheradish remarked, "My grandma would do this to me and my cousin. Especially because we were sleeping in her room when we spent the night."

You can follow Nicole Bell (@thataverageparent) on TikTok for more family-related content.