Is it correct to say "get to sleep" in this situation?

Question

Now it is 10 pm and you put your daughter on the bed and tuck her in and you want her to fall asleep quickly.

Now your daughter sit up and talk and play with toys on the bed.

I see this in Oxford dictionary

[intransitive] get to do something to reach the point at which you feel, know, are, etc. something

After a time you get to realize that these things don't matter.

You'll like her once you get to know her.

Can I say to my daughter "quickly get to sleep" or "quickly fall asleep" or "go to sleep" in this situation?

I don 't think "go to bed" is suitable because she is already in bed.

Answer 1

You are right that if she’s already in bed, then Go to bed would not be appropriate. And Get to sleep, with or without quickly, would be somewhat odd since falling asleep is at least partially beyond one’s intentional control. The idiomatic way to express your meaning would be to say to her, “Go to sleep.”

To my ear, the difference between get and go is this: One gets to sleep exactly at the moment at which one passes out of wakefulness and into sleep. That’s why instructing someone to get to sleep can sound a bit strange—something like, “Are you ready? Here we go… three, two, one, be asleep!” By contrast, one’s going to sleep is not instantaneous, but a process, a phase of gradual transition, sometimes lengthy and sometimes brief. So the instruction to go to sleep amounts to telling someone to engage in that process, to undertake the gradual transition. And that instruction seems more reasonable (because under the other person’s control).

I’d add, perhaps confusing matters, that Get to bed is entirely idiomatic, though not applicable in your scenario. Being on or in bed is a state that can be reached essentially in an instant, and entirely at will.