Bedtimes...?

[ryedalema]

I'm sure this has been covered somewhere, but couldn't find it at a quick search..

What time do you send your little ones upstairs to the land of Nod? I've heard so many variations I don't know whether we're being over ambitious or not:

- our 18 month old goes to bed at 6.30pm (then gets up at 6am -ish)

- our 4 year old goes to bed at 7pm (and isn't allowed to get up before the clock at 6.30am).

What do you do?

I always remember watching Angels and then being sent straight to bed after that - gosh, I think that was at about 7.30 or something....

(wistful sigh....).

[Pickle]

7pm in our household, for both the 4.5 and 3 year old... that's been their bedtime since pretty much day 1 and I figure I'll get at least a couple more years of that time as once they start school full time they'll be knackered. Both wake somewhere between 6:30 and 7am, but don't get up until 7am.

I grew up in a household where we were all in bed early - by 8pm right through primary school, and 9pm in high school.

My neighbours operate to very different hours, their 4 year old is often heard charging up and down the hallways at 11pm or even later with her brothers who are around 8 and 10 years. I wonder how kids who are up that late can function at school?!

[ryedalema]

Mmmm - I know..

I've got a neighbour whose 3 year old goes to bed at 9pm! And a friend whose baby goes to bed at 10pm! I know it's incredibly subjective, but hope we are doing ok by the girls (and for us) with those bedtimes.

Am dead jealous of the 7am rising - even the combo of the green light clock (our equivalent of the rabbit clock) and black out blind and blackout curtains and double sided sticky tape sticking the blinds to the windows - aren't getting us that far!!

[Fuschia]

Between 7 and 8 for all of them in the week, later for the 8 yo at weekends

[The Nappy Lady]

Same as F - usually 7.30, but can be 8pm for both (almost 3 & just 7). Older girl gets to stay up longer at weekends sometimes.

[ryedalema]

Ahhh - how much later at weekends? Am feeling like a big meanie now (wah..ha..ha...hahhhh) :))

[Fuschia]

We always start sorting the twins by 7 unless they have had a long nap, when it might be 730

It can take up to an hour to get them ready, into bed and asleep

They can't really manage anything later than that

Baby can't stay awake past 7!

There have been no

Naps today and baby only had a short lunchtime nap so we atelier waiting now till we can do bedtime

We did it at 6pm yesterday too

Big one stays up till 930 sometimes at weekends

If he isn't being irritating and whining

He deserves a bit of time after the toddlers have been banished, I think

[The Nappy Lady]

Only an hour or so unless extra special party etc - she's made it til midnight a couple of times but only when we've enforced a lunch time nap.

It's not regular for us to let her stay up late though, usually were desperate for them to be in bed by 7.30/8!!

Xx

[Fuschia]

Nl: having gone from being an only child to hSving a house full of babies and toddlers I think he deserves to have some time with us

[Ruth_Baldock]

7pm, without question. On holiday, mr b struggled to get him to go to sleep before 10pm but he still woke up dead early, which meant for a few days after they got back, we got a couple of 15hr nights from him. Utter. Bliss.

[Gussy]

I do 6.30pm for 15 month old and 7pm for 2.8 year old. Both of them were going to bed at 6pm up until the age of 1. They just couldn't stay up and/or got harder to settle the later it got. I think the earlier the bed the better they sleep at night - in my experience.

[Saila]

Our little one is like a robot - if you put him to bed 15 mins early, then he'll just wake up exactly 15 mins earlier the next day!

Equally, if he over sleeps at lunchtime by 15mins or whatever, we get whacked by that amount the next morning.

So he sleeps 1hr and 15mins at lunchtime and goes to bed at 745pm every night. (we could cut his LT nap back but this way i get to have some QT with him after i get back from work in the evenings (545pm)

He wakes at 7am unless we screw up his routine the day before as above.

[pebbles]

2 yr old at 6.30 and 4 yr old at 7pm. I like having that little bit of extra time with eldest to read and chat about his day.

[Moos]

Baby at 7, 4 yo at 7.30. Either can slide by up to half an hour, but it's rare for it to go that far beyond official bedtime.

[Kalamiphile]

Such an interesting thread. Mine were in bed at 7pm in primary, then 8 and at 13 years of age, 9pm and allowed to read for 1/2 hour! As I come through Peckham at night I have wondered about all the children, quite small some of them, that are up and in the nail bars/hair dressers at 10.30 at night. There was an interesting programme on beeb 1 last week showing how some children allowed to stay up late friday and saturday can hardly function on monday morning. The tag line of the programme was ' 3 weeks teaching time lost to low level disruption in class'. This was in primary school, cannot imagine what it is like at secondary level.

[Pickle]

Yes, as we got older we were allowed to read in bed too, and I plan to do the same with my kids once they're old enough to read by themselves.

[BeccaL]

Daughter (6) loves being allowed to read to herself and turn her own light off - massive feeling of independence. We've probably been doing that for about a year or so. Found that initially she often turned it off just after we'd left the room, so more about being able to decide for herself than actually wanting to stay up more!

Very rarely have to go and check that she has turned it off when she is meant to (8pm at the latest on a school night, earlier if she's obviously tired)- generally she's very good about it.

However, the point of this was that she's in bed for 7.30 most nights, maybe a teeny bit later at weekends or in holidays, but she needs quite a lot of sleep.

Agree with Kalamiphile - when I see kids her age up and about at 8.30 or later I always wonder how they manage - she's in pieces if up later than 8.30 for more than 1 night at a time...

[ClareC]

7pm for my two, 18 mths and 11 weeks.

If I'm doing bedtime alone the baby goes down a bit earlier.

Am thinking of changing bedtime to 630 after reading this thread ;-)

[redjam]

Gosh, I now feel like a very permissive parent in that my (just) four-year-old goes to bed at 7.30 and my six-year-old goes at 8pm, often slipping up to fifteen minutes if my day's going to hell in a handbasket (which it often is). I thought I was quite strict! But then we're all relatively late risers, so I'd rather have an extra fifteen minute lie-in in the morning any day of the week...

[reren]

I'm intrigued by the 6:30 bedtime for babies - i struggle to keep mine awake until 7- but always try to wait as i assumed if he went down at 6:30 he'd wake again in the evening. But he's started waking and crying hard before finally resettling throughout the evening (usually at least once every evening this week) - maybe i should just let him go down at 6:30 as he is desperate to do?

Only thing is that i'm back to work soon - if he's asleep at 6:30 i'll never see him (well unless he keeps waking in the evening i guess? At the moment i'm seeing rather a lot of him in the evening!)

[Fuschia]

My bBy cN go down at 530 or 6 and still settle for the night... If his nap hS been truncated

[Knomester]

Baby Knomester is 10 and 1/2 months now and goes to bed around 7pm. We're not to 10-15 minutes either way really but I'm wondering, after reading this thread, whether if we were a little stricter his morning wake up times might be more predictable... It all depends on what time he sits down for tea because if we're a touch late with tea it has a knock on effect on bath and feed time. He always has a lovely play after tea and before his bath which I hate cutting short!

When he was younger I struggled to keep him awake until 7pm so he would often fall asleep feeding any time from 6.30pm.

What I've noticed over the past month is how much less sleep he suddenly needs - I used to have to wake him after 12 hours sleep at night but now he rarely manages 12 hours and he has also dropped his, previously 45 min, morning nap altogether.

[Fuschia]

Mine wakes up at 7am on the dot, which is official getting up time in our house, ( though the twins are invariably up and down before that)

Tegardless of his bedtime

Having a third map at 4.30-5 does push his bedtime back

[cuppa tea]

redjam Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Gosh, I now feel like a very permissive parent in

> that my (just) four-year-old goes to bed at 7.30

> and my six-year-old goes at 8pm, often slipping up

> to fifteen minutes if my day's going to hell in a

> handbasket (which it often is). I thought I was

> quite strict! But then we're all relatively late

> risers, so I'd rather have an extra fifteen minute

> lie-in in the morning any day of the week...

Don't worry, my 4 year old's been going to bed at around 9.30, last night 10!!!! Not quite sure how this has happened, but in some ways it works quite well - no battles at bedtime, which were taking up to 2 hours out of an evening at night with us going up and down the stairs and him bouncing around on his bed. Very stressful. He's up at 8.30 though, so there is a benefit. Needless to say I am not that strict!

Will have to sort it out before school in September though.....gulp!

[snowboarder]

I have a ridiculous bedtime where I have to get the 2 yr old in bed first before embarking on baby (5m) feed and snuggle session - so baby not asleep until 8ish, 2 yr old hopefully lights out by 7.15 but he bangs around for some time after that. I need to cut his lunchtime nap down...but don't have the energy. Today they both woke at 5. Why do I get the horrible non sleeping children?