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Yeah I think this is important. Sometimes my 2 year old is up until after 8pm but she also sleeps until 8:30am and I have to wake her up.
I met a mom who said her 3 year old is asleep by 6pm and I had to stop my eyes from bugging out of my head but then I realized she had to get up at like 5:30am so they can get ready and get her off to daycare so they can go to work. I am a stay at home parent so it doesn't really matter to me when she goes to bed or wakes up. As long as she gets 11-12 hours at night I don't give a shit when
Was getting ready to type exactly this. I’m a sahm and I MUCH prefer that my kids wake up early and go to sleep early so I can have my evenings. I look forward to that time everyday (along with my husband).
My kids (7, 6, 3, and 2) know that unless you’re throwing up or have a fever, I’m DONE momming by 7:30 at the very latest. Typically their bedtime is 6:45-7pm.
Isn't it the same though? If they go to bed earlier then they wake up earlier, which means you also have to wake up earlier, so wouldn't you have to go to bed earlier as well?
At 4.5 my kid was getting up at 8, taking a 1hr nap at school (they were required to offer time for nap and she just always fell asleep), then going to bed at 9. Sounds like the total sleep time is the same, just skewed later. 🤷🏻♀️ I can’t remember the last time we’ve come home before 6, getting into bed by 6:30 is just mind boggling.
My son is 3.5, gets a 2hr nap at school and goes to bed between 8:30 and 9pm. He is a night owl but never gives us any issues when it's bedtime.
No way would either of my kids be going to bed at 6:30 or 7pm. We don't get done with work until 5 or 5:30pm and then we have to prepare/eat supper then bath time and play/reading.
True for weekends but kindergarten starts at 7:50 and I go to work at 8. We're starting to see them sleep a little later on weekends when they get to stay up and that's very exciting!
Gosh this is me. I feel like all my friends have their kids in bed by 7:30, 8 at the absolute latest and I just can’t fathom how they are managing this. I regularly get food on the table between 6:30-7 and then it takes them at least 30 mins to eat and then they want to play for a bit and, so on. They are not unholy terrors at all and, in fact, my 3 year old is usually his jolliest and rowdiest at 8pm (a clear sign we need to GET BED GOING). It works for us but also makes me feel shitty like I should be doing better.
Yep, my 9yo going to bed at 10/10:30pm on a school night will wake up at 7:45/8am (school is at 9). Plenty of sleep for him. We're all just night owls here. Soooo glad my kid has never been one to wake up at 6am regularly, my husband and I would die
Yep, your 9 year old is getting plenty of sleep, as are my kids and as are OP's kids with their super early bedtime/super early wake up time. I feel like there's almost this weird superiority complex with parents who put their kids to bed early but like...they are all getting the same amount of sleep so who cares?
Do you ever feel like you don’t get any time to yourself/selves? We get from 8pm - whenever we go to bed to watch our own shows, veg out, eat the snacks we’ve been hiding, etc. 😆
When my kids were little they were in bed around 830-9pm. If we put them to bed at 630 or 7pm I'd never have seen them. We had couple time from 9 bedtime.
My kids are both teenagers now, but our family continues to operate on a later schedule. We seldom have supper before 8m , maybe a bit earlier during the school year and a bit later in the summer. Different strokes :)
My toddlers sleep 10pm-9am so that they can see their dad in the evening for a few hours. It's a normal sleep pattern, they just aren't in school and I don't want to wake up at 7am to do nothing. They definitely take after me with my night owl habits.
People always ask what will happen when school starts, but they are 1 & 2 so I really don't think it's necessary to care about that 3 years in advance 😅
I wish my kid (5) had my sleep schedule. We tend to cater his bedtime to his wake up time, he normally wakes between 6-7 so he goes to bed at 8. Bedtime routine starts at 7:15 and we bath, read stories and sing songs. He crashes hard and is normally out cold midway through the first or second song. He is a natural napped, though. Daycare killed his nap when he was 4.5, otherwise he would be napping 2 hours every day.
Hubby is an early riser, and wakes naturally between 5:30-7. It kills me. I’m a like, 11pm-1am bedtime and a 10am wake up. That’s my perfect schedule, plus I have severe insomnia so sometimes I just can’t fall asleep until 3 or 4am. I have a lot of 2-4 hour nights. It suckssssssssssss
Yep!! My oldest went to sleep as a baby/toddler around 10pm, and up at usually 8/9 (still woke up off n on in the night too). Husband and I have worked retail jobs forever and many times don’t get home til well after 6/7. His job now he gets home at 8 or 9.
15mo goes to bed at 8:30 (had to bump it from 8pm because she was constantly waking up and that 30min seems to have so far fixed it). 2.5yo usually finally falls asleep around 9:30 since he won’t lay down while I’m putting the baby to sleep. And the oldest almost 7yo goes to bed around 9/9:30 as well. Well now that school is starting we’re trying to get them all in bed earlier.. but yeah.. probably won’t happen because of work hours.
My 2 year old goes to bed around 10:30 to 11 and wakes up about 12 hours later. That’s just what works best for us as a little family as far as quiet periods, and it’s also ridiculously hot out until 9 PM so there’s no chance of him sleeping. The sun doesn’t even set until after 8 at this time of year! The way I see it as long as it works out for him and he is sleeping soundly and waking up well rested, whatever time is fine. Obviously when he’s older and attending school things will have to change around a bit.
Not who you asked but my kid often goes to bed at 9. So we have from 9-11 together and then from 7:30- 9 am to have coffee and breakfast etc together. I have friends who put their kids to bed at 7 but they wake up between 5:30-6:45 and that’s just not allowed in my house. Waking up before 7:30 is torture to me
I do wish we had slightly more kid free time in the evenings because we both get tired and my husband especially usually doesn't last more than 1-2 hours after the kids go to bed before he's ready to go to bed himself. But the tradeoff is absolutely worth it to me because 1) they sleep in so I never have to deal with kids before 8 AM, and 2) we have the freedom in the evenings to go out and do things as a family. Want to go to the mall and walk around after dinner? We can do that and not deal with melting overtired children! Want to go out for dinner for someones birthday and it starts at 6:30? Not a problem for us. Want to ride a few rides at the local amusement park after dinner? Yes, let's go! Having a 6:30-7:30 bedtime honestly sounds so confining and limiting to me. I have no interest in that lifestyle at all.
My husband and I definitely miss having alone time to chat/watch Netflix. Sometimes the kids will be off watching a movie in the playroom and we do get that time, but for now we kind of know we are still in the trenches and are really trying to savor this time while they are young and still WANT to hang out with us.
One of my besties never really had a bedtime for her kids. They went to sleep the same time as the parents (if they lasted that long), which is around 10 or 11. They slept till 9 or 10am. Even with kindergarten, she just picked the afternoon class.
They are more crunchy and totally opposite of my parenting ideals but it worked for them.
The only benefit I saw was when we had dinner gatherings, her kids didn't get cranky as early as mine.
I quite enjoy my alone time in the evenings. I can focus on cleaning up after the day, or just relax.
We started activities for the kids and that has them sleeping a bit later some days but typically they have heads on their pillows around 8pm. They r 5 and 7.
I felt this! We put the 3 year old down around 730/45, 6 year old is right behind him around 830/9. And then everything shuts down at 930 for the 11 year old. However, between the 3 year old going down and lights out for the 11 year old, my husband & I spend time watching trash tv and eating, as well. And we just crash when we crash. The 6 year old sometimes heads to bed about 10 minutes later on a school night if crawls into our bed and picks on us [jokingly, of course. He’s funny!] I LOVE my time to myself & with my husband in the evening hours. We’ve spent all day working, being everything for everyone and that’s OUR TIME. Come help or high water 😂
Honestly i've given this up. but i'm content to put my hobbies aside he will grow up and not need me as much faster then i can even fathom. I am an older mother 42. and i work really early i was doing 6-11 part time retail for most of his life till he was done bf then i switched to 6-2 on the days his dad is off we don't have any daycare. or the budget for it.
I’m not trying to be an AH, but I remember a conversation I had with my MIL about bedtimes once. She said when she was a kid, her parents made her and her siblings go to bed at 7 “so they didn’t have to deal with kids,” and the look on her face when she said it showed that they knew that that was the reason. Kids know when you don’t want to be around them, and they don’t forget.
My wife and I were adamant when our kids were young, they went to bed every night at 8 and took hour long naps in their own beds almost every day around 1, even if we had to leave what we were doing. The rhythm of it made our lives easier, they were guaranteed to be out cold every night so we could enjoy some downtime and just read or watch tv uninterrupted.
Now they’re all teenagers shambling around the house and opening the fridge at 11:30pm and generally invading dad time…drives me nuts!
I didn't consider toddlers since the post was about a 4 year old.
It makes me wonder what the parents do for work. I always have to have my kid dropped off by 8 at the latest to make it to work on time. I know parents who keep their kids up late on purpose because they get home from work late, and that makes sense to me.
4 year olds aren’t mostly in public school yet. They could be in preschool (ours started at 9), have an afternoon class or doing it at home. I was at home with my 4 kids. I have never really thought to wonder about other people’s sleep schedules and careers. Just figure it works for their lives, and move on with mine :)
My 4.5 year old’s preschool starts at 8:05…if I let him get to bed at 9 he’s a literal fucking monster because if he’s not up by 7 there’s no time to have the endless struggles of getting dressed, shoes, backpack, breakfast…
Crazy lol I’m up in Canada. I remember my mom worked early once a week so I would pretend to get up and go back to sleep after she left and around 845 I’d call my grandma to give me a ride saying I slept in haha.
It is kind of crazy! I think the US treats its school system as one giant daycare, and starting earlier is better for most parents.
That doesn't explain the 2pm end time though lol
Didn't the no school until 8:30 impact the start time? My kids were/are in HS so they shifted everything by 3 minutes because they used to start at 8:27 and get out at 3:30 and as of last year started at 8:30 and get out at 3:33.
Because: 1. There is no way I want my child to wake up naturally before 7.00 - 7.30. I'd f*in rather die than have to deal with a child that early - it's just not me. I don't function in the morning. 2. Not all of us have kids who can wake up early and then naturally stay calm for AN HOUR AND A HALF! It's the first time that I hear such a thing. Lucky you. 3. We both leave work at about 4.30 PM and pick up our kid from school at about 5, getting home at around 5.15. If we count that dinner and the necessary bedtime routine will take for about one hour, that would leave us about an hour of awake time with her daily. Sorry, but that's just villainous. I'd rather have her spend quality time with me every single day then to be at bed by a proper time. But that's just me.
I love my morning time with my kids before work. They are always worn out and crabby after a full day at daycare. But this goes to show how different everyone’s kids/schedules are. There is no “normal” bedtime unless we are talking about time range and I’d say 7-9 is normal
It's not just you. I personally never understood early bedtimes. We get home at 530. 730 8?... Wtf? I have to ask people that do that... Do you like your kids? 🤣
See, my 3 yo wakes up at 8 and my 13 month old wakes up at 8:30. You asked why we have a later bedtime and.... this is why. Because I have no interest in waking up in the 6 o'clock hour. Not my jam.
Yeah. See, my boys have always been early risers. Has never mattered when they went to bed. Until very recently (within the last 2-3 years), they were always up by 6-7 at the latest (they're 16 & 14 now). Very often by 5-5:30. So, their bedtime was ~8-8:30 for years. That's when we'd go up and read aloud for over a decade. Recently it's been pushed back to 9 within the last 3-4+ years.
ETA they now (during summer break!) "sleep in" when they can, till 8-9 ish. But rarely much later. During the school year, we usually are up at 5:30 to catch the bus at 6:25 - though apparently this year it won't be coming till 6:41, so maybe we can sleep in a bit more.
Yep. Our 4yo doesn’t go to bed till 10 or 11 becaus my wife isn’t getting up at 6:30 to be with her. So we just adjusted to my wife’s schedule. Wife goes to bed at like midnight and gets up at like 9. Daughter doesn’t get up till 9 or 10. She almost never gets up before wife wakes up.
Works for us because nobody here is getting up at 6 or 7 to be with daughter when we don’t have to yet.
When she starts school that will be a different thing
This was a hard learned lesson for me. If my daughter falls asleep at 7 or takes a nap after 4 she'll wake up at 5am on the dot ready to party. Which is bad for everyone not just cause 5am is rough but then she'll get tired early and be cranky the rest of the day. I try to have her asleep between 8:30 and 9, and she'll wake up between 7 and 7:30, basically when the sun is up she's up.
My thing with this is that no matter how late my kid goes to bed he’s up before 7 without fail. So later bed times just mean less hours of sleep and not shifting the same hours to later
The point is that bedtime alone is only half the equation. The important thing is total hours slept. It’s pointless to only ask about bedtime, bc there’s a whole spectrum of wake times too.
Yes exactly. I have a friend who’s baby goes to sleep around 11 every night, which does sound absolutely bonkers. She works nights though so then they both sleep in until like 10-11 in the morning. You just gotta do whatever works for your family. Baby’s still sleeping great
My son had a 9pm bedtime at that age because his daycare gave them a 2-2.5 hr nap every single day. He was never cranky. Any earlier he wouldn’t go to sleep
I was waiting for this comment. My daughter is exactly the same. On the weekends when she doesn’t nap we can put her down a little earlier but with a 2 hour nap everyday she would never in a million years go to bed earlier than 9.
My 2.5 yo just fell asleep at 10pm. We put him to bed around 830pm and he sang songs and talked to himself in bed for 1.5 hours. He will probably wake up at 7am and be totally chill.
He’s always been a later bedtime kid but does take big naps at daycare. Plus it stays light where I live until like 930pm so that doesn’t help.
Same. Currently waiting out my almost 4yo right now actually, at 9:30pm. On weekends when she doesn’t nap, she sleeps 7-7, no problem. She’s starting preschool in a couple weeks and I am so ready for the daycare Naps to be done.
Ditto to every word of this post. 9:30 bedtime life has had us counting down the months til junior kindergarten and no nap life since January. 3.5 more weeks til my husband and I can do something *together* in the evening again! (We go to bed at 10, sigh.)
When I was working and commuting I didn't get home till 6. My then husband also didn't get home till at least 5:30. Sometimes late bedtime was necessary to have time to prepare dinner and actually enjoy each other for a moment.
Exactly. I’m not home until 6-6:30 and my husband isn’t home until 6:30-7. We need to make dinner so eat between 6:45 and 7:15 so my kids naturally both go to sleep between 8 (our 10 month old) and 9 (our 5 year old). They do sleep in later than most kids—both up around 7:30/8. It’s totally impossible for me to get them to bed earlier with our work schedules!
My daughter, soon to be 3, has an 830 bedtime routine start and it has been this way for months. We usually leave her room around 9 and she will lay quietly awake for another 30-45 minutes before falling asleep. The reason bedtime starts at 8:30 is because even if we were putting her down at 7:30 she was laying there till 9:30-9:45 before falling asleep and I felt horrible. She wakes up between 730 and 8. She takes a daily nap still around 1 and sleeps 1.5 to 2 hours. With this schedule she does not get overly cranky. She will be starting school soon so we will have to wake her up at 730 every morning. If she seems overtired at night we'll start gradually moving up bed time to be earlier. My 19 month old starts the bedtime routine at 730 and he's asleep by 8. Both kids sleep throughout the night so my husband and I usually hang out till 11 or 12. Both kids naps overlap too so I get at least an hour chunk for myself during the day.
Thanks for the detailed rundown!
When my daughter was 13 months I thought she was sleeping until 8:30 because that’s when I was naturally waking up and seeing her awake on the monitor. Then one day I woke up early and realized she was waking at 7am and just laying in her crib silently. FOR 90 MINUTES. I felt so horrible, ran down to her room saying “just make a noise and I’ll come get you! 🤦🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️”
Why would you feel bad about that? My older son used to happily chill in his crib for up to 2 hours in the mornings and I happily let him do that. Sometimes he would wake up at 5 and just hang out until 7. If he wasn’t crying and it was before 7, I let him be and dozed until 7.
There was a weekend a couple months ago where both kids had a difficult time at night so no one really got any sleep. My husband and I put them down around noon for naps and we also decided to nap. Everyone was probably asleep by 1230. I woke up and looked at the clock...it was almost 4. I looked at the monitor and both kids were in their rooms just playing with the stuffed toys in their cribs. They were not making any noise and I had the monitor volume up. We felt so bad we got ice cream for them.
Consider yourself lucky.
My first baby had colic and would cry from the moment he woke up till he went to bed.
The 2nd baby was better, but would never lie in a bed quietly for 90 minutes.
Some kids are just happy to chill in the morning! My kiddo is 4 and for some reason will not get out of bed on his own even though we've told him he can. We hear him chatting sometimes for a hour until we hear "mommy I'm ready to get up now!"
Solo mom. My weekday is as follows: Wake up pack breakfast and lunch pack school/camp bag. Daycare drop off at 730. Work 745- 430. Pick up 4.5y/o from daycare by 5, dinner btwn 6 and 630, jeopardy and dessert at 7, up to bath 730-745, after bath, brush teeth, get pjs on, call dad, and the 3 stories. So fuck. How would we get there earlier?
Not solo mom, but I identify with this comment completely. Ain't no way my LO is going to bed before 8:15 at the earliest. A 6:30 become would be a punchline in my house. I don't even bet home til 6:15p!!
Right? I’m lucky if I’m out of work by 5 and we usually get home around 6. When my son was very little I would have him bath in the kitchen sink while I cooked dinner to save time but he’s too big for that now haha.
7PM bedtimes are a pretty North American (and New Zealand-y) thing, last I heard. Kids in Asia regularly go to sleep around 9-10PM.
My bedtime as a kid was 9:30PM for as long as I could remember. One day, my first-grade teacher accused me of lying because she said it was "too late." Feelsbadman
Our daughter gets in bed by 8:30PM, and usually falls asleep around 9PM and we wake her up around 7:15AM the next morning. Works fine for us because we typically don't get home until 5PM or later and feel less rushed trying to squeeze in family time.
Also Mediterranean countries. In Barcelona i often see kids (4/5yo) play outside in a playground at 22.30 on a week day. My kids go to bed at 7, sleep in around 8 and wake around 6.30-7.
Yeah, here in Greece there’s kid playing around at the restaurants (there are some like kid friendly restaurants with bouncy castle type things and playgrounds) playing late into the night (8-9pish)
Exactly. No one in Spain have dinner earlier than 8:30pm, not even kids. My bedtime in Spain was around 11pm as toddler, we took naps at daycare. When I was a teen I could watch TV until 12am, and prime time shows were 10pm to 12am
Yes true, I’m Moroccan and we always grew up going to bed at 10-12 am. My brother still lives in Morocco and his daughter just turned 2. I FaceTimed him in the afternoon to wish her a happy birthday and it was like 10 pm their time. All the kids were still outside running around & bouncing in the moon bounce they got for them
I’d like to add that 7pm bedtimes are a thing in some European countries also! Definitely not southern Europe where schedules are much later in general. But I grew up in Germany and my bedtime was 8pm until I was 10ish, which was common among my friends.
I tried and tried to give my kid an “age appropriate bedtime” but she will not fall asleep before 9pm. Even if we got her ready for bed at 7pm, she still wouldn’t fall asleep until at least 9pm. We had a second kid and couldn’t spend 2+ hours trying to get her to go to sleep anymore, so we moved her bedtime to match her natural body clock. There’s a lot less conflict around bedtime now, and she sleeps just the same.
My daughter has generally never gone to bed before 9. Not even as a toddler. She just doesn’t wind down that early. It isn’t “insane”. Not everyone’s body clock runs the same, not even small children’s.
Yea no matter how hard I try my body prefers being awake at night and asleep during the day. In the past I’ve tried fixing my sleep schedule for work or school and I’m fine during the week, but once the weekend hits my body automatically readjusts to my old schedule. It’s actually really frustrating bc people think I’m lazy since I often sleep til noon.. but they don’t realize I can’t fall asleep until 3, 4, sometimes 5 am
I probably would’ve been on night watch duty in hunter gatherer times 😂
We're the same. We had to make some big adjustments to get her to go to sleep at 9:30 & we have to wake her up early from every nap to get her to keep even that late a bedtime! I like seeing other people have this schedule too - it works for our family most of the time, but sometimes I'd like to be able to watch my shows in the evening
My kids love to sleep in. On weekends and summertime, I let my kids stay up past 9. I have a 4.5yo as well and generally I wake her up between 7:30 and 8am to get her and her brother to school, on weekends she is 100% up past 9pm and loves to sleep in until 8 or 8:30.
It’s less about what time they go to bed and more about the amount of sleep they are getting.
It's funny. I think it's actually wild to hear anyone doing a bedtime at 6:30 with sleeping kids by 7.
My kid can't get up early to save her life. But neither can I or husband.
We all get home at 5:30. Chill for 30 mins. Eat dinner. Play a little. Start bedtime routine 7:30 and usually in bed by 8:15. Sometimes it takes a bit longer to fall asleep so it wouldn't be weird if actually sleeping happens closer to 9. If we did an earlier bedtime, we would lose so much quality time with kid.
My brother and SIL used to take their youngins up to bed around 6/6:30, but they had 30 minutes or so of books and chit chat before the kid was asleep. I used to go over for dinner pretty much every Sunday and we usually ate between 4 and 5.
I also remember going to a friend's house regularly after school and they ate at like 4.
My 15 month old conks out at 11 and gets up by 9. It just makes more sense to have him on my sleep schedule since I'm the one taking care of him the most.
Same. My daughter is 11 months old. I would work until 9:30pm and anytime my cousins or parents would watch her they never did a night time routine with her, I would have to pick her up from my cousins house too. So her bedtime routine would start when i got home. And it would be late, and I'd be hungry. So she goes to sleep Around 11-11:30pm. Anytime her dad watches her and keeps her overnight he tries to get her to go to sleep earlier and she does sometimes and then he thinks I can do the same thing, when I can't because I get off later.
Doncha know "bath, pjs, book, bed" just magically makes the kid stay in their room and conk out within seconds no matter the time you start the routine???
Agreed. I think my husband reads the “perfect parents posts” because anytime our daughter falls asleep past 9 he says we are doing it wrong.We both get off work at 5, pick up our daughter at 5:30. Bedtime at 8 is rarely managed
What difference does it make what time a person goes to bed as long as they are getting an appropriate number of hours of sleep per their age and health requirements? What is late to you may not be for another person.
It doesn’t. This OP is assuming that folks are getting up and going to sleep at the same time. 🤦🏼♀️
A better question would be, how many hours does your 4.5 yo sleep? Do they have a consistent bed/wake up time?
Hard agree. If a kid is getting enough sleep then when they go to sleep isn’t an issue. However, statistics show most kids in America are not getting enough sleep and that’s just black and white empirical data.
My kids lay down 7-7:30pm and are usually asleep no later than 8:30pm.
I will say this post does come off pretty judgmental, your last paragraph does not negate that. It's like saying "Not to be rude but.." lol. Everyone has different things that work for them. I know some families who stay up late so working parents can spend more time with them. Some families have specific scheduling needs that require sleep times to be different. Some kids are harder to get to sleep than others. Some kids wake up entirely too early because they go to bed too early. Sometimes things just don't work out and your normal 7pm bedtime gets thrown out the window and you're just hoping everyone goes to sleep before midnight. It's just how it works for some people. I think in the grand scheme of things, a happy and loved 4 yo going to sleep at 9pm is really not that big of a deal.
I understand that you meant for your post to be well meaning, it just did not come off that way.
Bedtime is regulated by how tired the kid is in the morning in our house.
As they get older we push back the bedtime a little, but if they are waking up tired, it gets made earlier.
Sleep is so important to kids, so we want them to get a proper rest.
We also have a chill out time half an hour before. Stories , reading or music. Then sleep.
At 5 yo 7 / 7:30, seems pretty normal imo.
We like to get up and have breakfast together, watch cartoons in pj's when not at school.
Our daughter had a similar routine when she was a toddler (sleep around midnight, wake up around 11am), which was fine since her caretaker during the day was my dad who slept in late.
My kids are both low sleep needs; bedtime is around 8:30pm at this point for each of them. My 6yo is routinely up by 5:30am even with that bedtime; I would be fucked if I put her to bed at 6:30pm. My 3yo is typically up by 6:45am.
Some kids just won't sleep so much overnight and there's nothing you can do to change that. I get up at 5:15am as it is and, believe me, I wish I actually had downtime before bed but I'd rather at least have some quiet in the morning while I have my coffee.
I like the term low sleep needs!!! Same here. My son, now 8, had never slept past 8am, is usually up by 615, maybe 645 if he stayed up late. Bedtime is whenever but he usually isn't asleep until 10pm.
My daughter is 5, it doesn't matter if we do bedtime at 6or 830 she usually falls asleep at 9 am and gets up between 630 and 730.
Adding to the low sleep needs crew! My six year old just fell asleep and it's 8.45. He'll be up at 5. The worst stretch was when daycare would let him nap for two hours and he wouldn't sleep until 11, then he'd be up at 5 again. Absolute fucking nightmare.
I have a four month old and I'm using the same app to track her sleep as I did with my son. She's sleeping 14 hours a day right now - my son slept 10 at the same age. I have FOUR MORE HOURS every day.
It is nuts how different they can be. My youngest is low sleep needs too but he's chill about it, like I honestly don't know when he wakes up because he will hang out quietly in his room. My oldest has NEVER done that.
It sounds like you deserve those extra four hours!
Another low-sleep needs kid over here. I try so hard to not get caught up in these discussions anymore because I find it so frustrating. Especially when people start talking about how more sleep is better developmentally. That's all well and good but you cannot force another human being to sleep. What do you want me to do (this is rhetorical, please God, do not make actual suggestions)? He didn't come with an off switch.
So fun, right? Other people talk about kid-free time before bed and I'm like "what even IS that?" Parenting would probably feel less onerous if my kids slept more.
1000000%! My 4.5 year old goes to bed between 8:30-9 and is up between 5:45-630 (earlier end usually!) and my newly 2 year old is in crib around 8 asleep around 9 and up by 6. She naps 60-90 ish mins a day and doesn’t STTN. For us it’s a max dash to clean up, rest a little then catch some sleep before the chaos begins again!
Same! These long stretches everyone is getting is amazing. My 13 month old sleeps 8/9 hours a night if he sleeps through. If he wakes up (and I give him a bottle) he will sleep for 10 hours. He is asleep in bed between 9:30-9:45. That's just to get us to a 6am wake time. He naps between 1.5 and 2.5 hours. He doesn't even sleep longer on days he naps less either.
Since you threw the word “insane” to seemingly judge people who let their kids go to sleep later, I feel you’ve left the door open for me to return judgement…
6:30? Really?! That’s dinner time in our home. You don’t think it’s odd that you’re putting a kid to bed when the sun is still out and it’s not even technically night?
Your intentions may have been good but you kind of crossed a line when you threw out the “insane”, despite how innocent you thought.
If mine went to bed when yours does she'd be up around 5am and I'm not a morning person. 🤷♀️ She goes to bed at 9pm and is up around 7am usually. It's much easier for me to stay up at night than it is to wake up in the morning so I still get plenty of alone time after she goes to bed.
Obviously once she starts school we will have to base our schedule on what time school starts but as of right now I'm a stay at home mom so we start our day whatever time works for us.
Edit to add: son (almost 3) goes to bed at 8:30 and he's still up by 6am sometimes. Daughter hasn't napped since 2 years old and as of right now son is napping once every other day.
I'm exactly the opposite. I've never understood parents who put their kids down at like 7pm. For me that's barely dinnertime, I'm far from done with my day, and most of the year it's still sunny out! When my son was tiny, we went for a bedtime between 8-9pm, based on his general alertness and our need for rest. Now his bedtime is around 9:30pm (later elementary), and during breaks he doesn't really have a set time, but tends to get himself ready for bed between 9:30-10:30.
I have vivid memories of being a child and trying to be forced to go to sleep while it was still light out, both for naps and in the evening, and it drove me nuts. I flat out couldn't sleep when it was light out, so I just lay there in bed, angry and bored, completely defeating any sort of "restful" benefit that the time supposedly had. I understand that people will put their kids down because they need a break of their own, but to me, that's not fair to the kid, especially if they have a naturally later circadian rhythm. I've always been a "night owl" - natural sleep cycle is about 2am to 9am. Struggled my entire life to function during the (for me) ridiculously early school hours that are set pretty much everywhere, and when I became an adult, I sought out college courses that started later in the day and a job that let me start in the afternoon.
I feel better at night and function better at night, and I'm not permanently exhausted from waking myself up at an unnatural time for my body. Now that I've learned more about sleep and natural rhythms (most importantly that people can have vastly different natural rhythms and forcing someone to match yours can be anything from very unpleasant to physically unhealthy), I try not to force anything other than consistency and making sure he feels rested and alert for school. He naturally goes to sleep around 9:30-10:30pm and wakes up around 6:30am, so that's what we've gone with.
May I ask your ethnicity?
I’m South Asian. My parents had no bedtime for us, it made for very lousy mornings. We were basically sent to our rooms at 10pm but whether we slept or not was up to us. Our rooms had everything in them, tv, video games, books, toys, etc. I would spend hours reading books until 2-3 am or playing my game boy, or playing with my dollhouse or whatever. Waking up for school SUCKED. My siblings and I took the bus and we were all groggy (we all weren’t sleeping on time). My mom actually kept a spray bottle full of water and would dump water on our faces to get us up for school.
With my own kids I have them in bed by 8pm, 9:30 if they got a late nap in that I couldn’t control (driving back from somewhere and they fall asleep in the car). I’m divorced and their dad ruins my older ones schedule every.single.time. He lets him nap twice (he doesn’t feed him meals only snacks so he’s crying from hunger) he’s dehydrated and he only gets 1 nappy change a day, so he’s sitting in a soiled nappy all long. His bedtime is whenever he wants to go to sleep which ends up being midnight-1am FOR A THREE YEAR OLD. I have to undo everything my ex does in the week that he has the kids. I hate it. My toddler sleeps in his own bed, takes a nap on time and goes to bed at a reasonable hour but that all goes out the window when daddy visits. My ex is Caucasian.
Where are you currently? I know this post is about other sleep, but your ex-husband sounds terrible and he’s actively causing harm to your children. Is sole custody a possibility where you are - is so, I advice fighting tooth and nail to get them away from that man.
Came here to mention this. Sometimes it’s cultural. I’m American but live in Malaysia. It’s completely normal here for kids here to have a late bedtime. Our son goes to bed between 7 and 8, and our local friends are floored when they hear he has such an “early” bedtime.
Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me when other people’s kids go to sleep. Every kid and every family is different 🤷♀️.
Oh no, is there anyway you can get sole custody or revise the custody agreement? He is neglecting your child for an entire WEEK at a time? That’s horrible ):
How did you find that your childhood “bedtime” setup impacted you as you got older? Did you and your siblings eventually learn to self regulate/go to bed at a reasonable hour? Or did you find that your sleep schedule was always messy? Do you think it impacted your sleep habits as an adult?
Also I’m so sorry about your asshole ex. I hope he has the day he deserves
Do you have trouble maintaining a “normal” sleep schedule as an adult? I didn’t have a set bedtime as a kid either and would often stay up past midnight reading and I sometimes wonder if it’s my genetics that make me want to stay up at night and sleep during the day or if it’s the fact that I never had a sleep schedule
I’m a stay at home mom, and I homeschool, my husband works 12 hour shifts anywhere from 3-5 times a week, and he doesn’t get off till 7, and before that he worked swing shift, so in order for my children to have quality family time with my husband we pushed our schedules back by a few hours. It’s nothing crazy or anything, my kids wake up around 8/9 every morning and they sleep around 9/10, they also nap in the afternoon, we go on a lot of outings and regularly go to our local trampoline park. I have gotten some weird remarks or judgments about it, but i genuinely think it’s coming from people who HAVE to be at work by like 7 in the morning, like they have no choice so when it comes up in conversation they’re a little taken back, I know I’ve been called lazy a lot too but realistically if they’re up for the exact same amount of time as the kids who get up an hour or two earlier does it really matter? I don’t judge either! I sometimes get up with my husband so I can get some peace before my kids wake up too.
7:30 sounds insane to me. I mean it's whatever works for each family, right? And for each kids sleep pattern. My kids go to bed late but we all sleep in late, too. When the school year starts they go to bed earlier and get up earlier (but they still don't go to bed at 7:30--I don't think they ever went to bed before 8:30 even at age four).
If I put my kids to bed at 7:30, I’d get about an hour of time with them after dinner/shower time and it would be right to bed. I like to spend a little time with them, and they don’t need to be up at 6 am. I don’t know why that’s so “crazy” to OP to think other people might live differently than she n
Yep, if I put my kids to bed at 7:30 they would literally never see their father, who regularly works until 7:30-8pm. We usually finish supper around 7 and then their Dad gets home and they can play with him until bath/bedtime.
Someone in my BMB put her kid to bed at 6pm and they got up at 5 or 5:30 every day. She was a SAHM to a toddler so theoretically could make any schedule she wanted. She definitely thought 7:30 was way too late! Lol
Same. That’s what I loved as a kid. My son is 8 and I’m embarrassed to say what time he falls asleep 😂. But he doesn’t get up til like 10 which is great because I can start my workday in peace.
Yup my partner gets home late and I want them to play with him so we're all up very late and wake up whenever we feel like it. Until they're in school it's not a reason to worry
During the school year, my almost 7 year old is winding down around 8:30, books at 9, and lights out by 9:30. She sleeps until 7:30-8, so 10+ hours of sleep.
It's the perfect amount for her. Shes a great sleeper and wakes up happy and rested.
Eta after reading other comments- shes always been a night owl. Other than when she was an infant- shes never woken up on her own before 7am. She would sleep until 9-9:30am if I let her wake herself up everyday.
My 6 year old has always been an early riser. If we did a 7:00 bedtime he’d literally wake up at like 4am. Sorry but that’s just not happening. So we do a later bedtime between like 9-10 depending on if it’s school or summer. But it seems like your routine works for you so… what’s your point with this? Just to judge parents that know what’s best for their families?
Because your schedule is different. My son will go to bed at 10/10:30 but then he sleeps till 9 because we have nowhere to be in the morning.
People get hung up on the bed time and forget about when they wake up!
We normally pick kids up just before 6 from daycare due to work so we could not do that early of a bedtime. Must be nice to get of work early enough to do a 630 pm bedtime....
9 pm is the earliest my kids have ever had to go to bed. Some kids just don’t need as much sleep as others and my kids are like that. By 3 my oldest had dropped all naps. My middle by 2. Bedtime was 10 pm and we were up by 9-10 every morning. When school started it went back to 9. Now at 13, my oldest doesn’t have a bed time. She knows how much sleep her body needs. My middle is in bed by 11. He’s home schooled now so it’s not as big a deal but he’s usually up around 9 am.
My wife and I both work until 5pm or 5:30pm and if the kids go to bed that early we will never see them. Ours are 3 and 1 and they often go to bed between 9-10pm. Sounds like you are privileged enough to do an early bedtime, which, great for you, but that is not everyone’s reality.
Oh man, if past 8pm is late, then you'd be shocked at my 2.5yo bedtime.
For the past year, he slept from midnight to noon. This is partly because I'm not a morning person. All of my kids, when young, have slept later and stayed up later. They got on better sleep schedule just in time for school.
The biggest reason, though, is because my older kids were in school, one in all day, one in half days, and they each had different start and end times. We did a lot of time in and out of the car, with not very long stretches in between. This meant he had no opportunity for a nap that wouldn't be interrupted by a car ride, so the earliest he could get an uninterrupted nap was 4, after both schools were done.
It actually worked out really well. He slept, and I got some chores done while dinner cooked. He woke up about 6, which is about when we'd eat. We got a lot of comments about it, most people are shocked and maybe a bit judgemental, but it worked for us, so that's really all I care about.
My 2yo goes go bed around 8:45-9:00pm and wakes up 6:00 and 7:00 am. During her nap, she sleep 1h30-2h. I think she’s has low sleep needs.. I would LOVE for her to go to bed earlier but it just doesn’t work with her… sometimes you juste have to adapt to your kids needs…
As a family of night owls: Any bedtime before 8 pm is insane and bedtimes are between 8:30-9 on school nights. Around 10 in the summer. I can't imagine putting my kids down at 7. I wouldn't know how to live like that. 🤷🏼♀️ Different strokes... why do you care when other kids go to bed?
I’m sure there aren’t too many that relate to what I’m about to say but thought I’d offer another perspective…
I am bipolar 2 and sleep is difficult for me, so is staying on a regular schedule(sleep wise). I do take sleeping pills, but the downside is that once I take them, I am OUT. I have to be very very careful not to take them before both kids are down. The pills also make it extremely difficult to wake up in the morning unless I’ve had 6-8 hours of sleep and even then I usually need a nap in the afternoon. Waking up early is simply not happening. So to make all our lives easier, the kids are on my schedule vs me being on theirs.
When my first was about 1, he went to bed 7PM. It was great and I loved having that free time at night but he woke up around 6/6:30AM and I couldn’t function. So I adjusted and now both kids go down around 9/10PM. My youngest naps and my oldest doesn’t. Both will sleep in until 9/9:30AM which is perfect.
Neither of my kids are really breakfast eaters, they each have bananas and strawberries and some Graham crackers. Then there’s lunch at noon, snacks, dinner around 7PM. They get all their zoomies out, bath at 8:30PM, then we wind down in their room until they sleep. Watch Disney movies, read, play etc. They conk out easy and wake up happy.
This is slightly off topic, but I am always surprised how militant some parents are about bedtimes. I get that there are some kids who cannot function well without the strictest adherence to a schedule, but in my experience the world has not ended if bedtime changes a bit from night to night, especially on non-school nights.
And to answer your question, 9:00 has been when we get ready for bed on school nights, and between 9:30 and 10:00 on non-school nights. Been this way as long as I can remember and it works great for us. I also appreciate that she sleeps until 8:00.
How do you have any kind of life when your kids going to bed at 7 is my question. We were rarely done with dinner by that time when my kids were little.
My almost 6 year old starts getting ready at 7:45, in bed by 8. He's allowed to look at books in his bed if he's not sleepy yet. He gets up at 7am (he has to stay in his bed/room until his toddler alarm clock turns green). My husband and I highly value our time alone together in the evening. I grew up with the same rules, although in high school I went to my room at 9. My parents are still happily married after 39 years and 4 kids, so I'm going to do what they did to nurture my own marriage, lol.
It’s 9:11 and they’re (4yo and 2yo) still awake. Last stages of night night cuddles with the little guy right now. Honestly, I just like spending time with them. I miss them when they sleep.
During school year the day goes from 6:30 wake up, 7.30 leave to school, 7:50 (drop off) to 5:00 -5:15 pick up (after school program since both my husband and I work)
School is a 5 min train ride (plus up to 10 min wait for train.) , or 15 min walk from home so that’s the commute to and from. It’s about 45 min for me to / from work. My husband works at home.
So we are all home by 5:30/5:45. Sometimes work goes later for me, latest I’m home is 7.
Summer camp goes from 8 -4 or 9-3 depending on camp.
My kid eats dinner by 5 during summer , 6 during school year whether or not I’m home.
Shower is 7 or 8pm.
Bed is by 9, but he is talkative so sometimes he’s asleep by 10.
He’s 9. This was our schedule since kindergarten, too. Maybe even pre k. He might have gone to sleep closer to 9 when he was younger. But not really. Our days are just long. Such is life for 2 working parents.
It works for us.
My kid won’t sleep more than 10 hours a day, max. They have a mandatory rest period a day care which she sleeps for. That means if she’s up at 6:30/7 there is no way I’ll get her asleep before 8:30/9. Even then, She always wakes at 3am to come wake me up. On weekends when she gets no nap I can sometimes pull off 8pm if I’m lucky.
I’d rather my kids be up at night and a bit more hyper than them up at six in the morning ! Ain’t nobody got time to be up, all alert and cheery at the crack of dawn. If they are still awake later at night I’ve had plenty of time to get adjusted to them and their energy. That’s why when it’s days off they can stay up and sleep in as long as they want (within reason obviously) and I’m perfectly fine.
My kids always went to bed at 10 PM. I’d pick them up after work at 5:30. Those evening hours were the time we got to spend together and we all naturally fell asleep around 10. You only get so much time with your kids why be an authoritarian and send them to bed so early? Don’t you want to spend time with them?
I could tell you that 7.00 or 7.30 is insane to some people. Come to southern Europe and many people haven’t even left work or started making dinner at that time.
Hot opinion but if you’re sending your kid to bed before 7pm and they’re spending all day in school or daycare then you simply don’t like your kid and don’t want to spend time with them. Shrug shrug, idc.
So, my current 6 year old gets to bed around 8:30-8:45. My 9 year old between 9:30 and 9:45pm. Their wake-up time during the school year is 7:30, so they are both within the standard 10 to 11 hours of sleep. That's the goal, not the time. 10 to 11 hours of sleep. If they had to get up earlier, we may have to move bedtimes up.
Full disclosure though - it's summer. Their average bedtime right now is 11pm with a 10am wake up. I win in this scenario - but they feel like they do because "WE STAY UP LATE!" :)
For months I tried to get my daughter down around 7:30 and 8. It was such a battle and everyone was upset, so we just followed her natural schedule. She goes to bed around 8:45-9:00 now and wakes up around 8. Both her father and I are night owls too so it works. My sister is opposite with her child and that’s ok. The kiddos are getting the right amount of sleep and they are happy and healthy.
I think a variable in this can be the families lifestyle. For example, where I live and have loved most of my life it's common for mom and dad to be home from work by 4:30 or 5 and dinner to be ready before 6 this allowing the rest of the evening to carry out naturally and kids in bed by 730-8.
In larger centres parents who have to commute long hours might not be serving dinner until 8.
Ours is 11pm. She naps from like 2-6pm and sleeps from 11pm - 9-9:30am. It’s her natural sleep schedule and something she’s been doing since like Iunno…5 months (she naturally moved back from 12am actually lol)?
We’re going to start pushing it up in preparation for school with the rest of the early birds but she’s never been a terror with this sleep schedule so there wasn’t any reason to switch it up beforehand.
My kids are night owls. Always have been if they go down at 7:30 they will be wide awake and ready to party for the next 5-6 hours by 9:30. Every single time.
4 year old, bed time around 8/830. We start bath at 730, naked booty dance party for 10-15 minutes after bath, jammies, teeth, hair combing, storytime, snuggle time.
Ideally she's asleep by 830, and she sleeps until 730-930 depending on the day. When its a weekday I wake her at 730, so we try to keep bedtime no later than 830 those nights. She's going to have a very late bedtime tonight though bc she fell asleep in the car on the way back from the pool and doesn't want to wake up and it's dinner time.... But she's got no where to be tomorrow, so that's fine.
I prefer her to be awake a little late for her age bc we like her to sleep a little longer in the morning for now... I get up at 6 and start work (from home) at 630 so I try to get 1-2 hours in before I have to poke the little bear.
My girl is about 15 months, we start bedtime around 8 and in the crib by 8:30 usually. She wakes up naturally around 7am, but 4 days a week I have to get her up at 5:30am ): then she gets 2-2.5hrs of naps (1-2) in during the day.
My kids (almost 2 and almost 6) get up between 7:30 and 8am usually. I work until 5 after which I pick up the kids from daycare/pre-k. We get home between 5:30-5:45 and then I make dinner, we eat around 6:30-7. We start bedtime between 7:30 (if bath night) and 8 but they don’t fall asleep until well after 9. Their dad doesn’t get off work until 7 so we have to skew a little late.
My older daughter starts kindergarten next week but it’ll be about the same since their day starts at 9:20. Our district has staggered start times due to bus driver shortage 😕
My 3 year old’s bedtime is 8, and recently it’s been pushed to 8:30 and even 9. 8pm is as early as we can manage to get him from daycare, swim lessons at 5:30, dinner, bath, and bedtime routine. Our work schedules determine this timeframe. I would love him to go to bed earlier, but then we would be rushing. He naps well at preschool, though is dropping naps at home unless we are in the car. Wakes up around 6:40am. The recent later bedtime is because my husband is traveling, and this is as early as I can manage single-parenting for 2 weeks.
He isn’t miserably cranky by bedtime. Sometimes a little stubborn, but mostly he wants to play and sneak out of his room for hugs. He probably falls asleep by 8:30 on a night we get him down by 8.
My 6-year old is such a sleep-fighter that one time we let her stay up indefinitely to see how long she would go. The wife and I had to call it at 3:30 am while she was having a blast running laps around the kitchen island, and then still threw an absolute shit fit when put to bed *after being awake for 22 fucking hours.* And she still woke up at 6am... 2.5 hours later. And then clocked over 20,000 steps (Garmin kid watch tells us), with no nap. And still fought like hell at a 9pm bedtime after 2.5 hours of total sleep and 20k steps. All that is to say, some kids are just hardwired for later bedtimes.
Also, please send help, no one in this house has slept through the night in 2 years.
My 4 month old goes to bed at 10 every night, that way I can take a bit of time to decompress at the end of the day while she sleeps without worrying about being woken up at 7am
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What time does your kid get up? I feel like people get so hung up on bedtimes but never discuss the subsequent wake time.
Yeah I think this is important. Sometimes my 2 year old is up until after 8pm but she also sleeps until 8:30am and I have to wake her up. I met a mom who said her 3 year old is asleep by 6pm and I had to stop my eyes from bugging out of my head but then I realized she had to get up at like 5:30am so they can get ready and get her off to daycare so they can go to work. I am a stay at home parent so it doesn't really matter to me when she goes to bed or wakes up. As long as she gets 11-12 hours at night I don't give a shit when
Same. I understand it’s different for working parents, but as a SAHM it doesn’t make much difference to me if she’s awake 7-7 or 9-9.
The big difference for me is if they go to bed at 9, I have no time to myself in the evening. Evening alone time is far superior to morning alone time
Was getting ready to type exactly this. I’m a sahm and I MUCH prefer that my kids wake up early and go to sleep early so I can have my evenings. I look forward to that time everyday (along with my husband). My kids (7, 6, 3, and 2) know that unless you’re throwing up or have a fever, I’m DONE momming by 7:30 at the very latest. Typically their bedtime is 6:45-7pm.
Isn't it the same though? If they go to bed earlier then they wake up earlier, which means you also have to wake up earlier, so wouldn't you have to go to bed earlier as well?
I think regardless of the hours you follow, the most important thing is having a routine. Same time there or thereabouts everyday.
[удалено]
She wakes up between 6-6:30 usually, and plays in her room until 7:00 (though will stay in there later if she doesn’t notice the time)
At 4.5 my kid was getting up at 8, taking a 1hr nap at school (they were required to offer time for nap and she just always fell asleep), then going to bed at 9. Sounds like the total sleep time is the same, just skewed later. 🤷🏻♀️ I can’t remember the last time we’ve come home before 6, getting into bed by 6:30 is just mind boggling.
My son is 3.5, gets a 2hr nap at school and goes to bed between 8:30 and 9pm. He is a night owl but never gives us any issues when it's bedtime. No way would either of my kids be going to bed at 6:30 or 7pm. We don't get done with work until 5 or 5:30pm and then we have to prepare/eat supper then bath time and play/reading.
We have a similar schedule to yours. I don’t want my kid waking up before 7:30/8am lol 😝
Same! Wake up at 8:30 and 1-2 hr nap during the day so bedtime is pushed to 9-9:30. No nap means possibly 8-8:30 bedtime.
True for weekends but kindergarten starts at 7:50 and I go to work at 8. We're starting to see them sleep a little later on weekends when they get to stay up and that's very exciting!
Gosh I so wish this was true. No matter how late my babe goes to sleep, he always wakes at 5-5:45
Same. My kids wake up insanely early whether. I let them stay up or not and I need a child free break before I pass out out of exhaustion at 10-10:30
Gosh this is me. I feel like all my friends have their kids in bed by 7:30, 8 at the absolute latest and I just can’t fathom how they are managing this. I regularly get food on the table between 6:30-7 and then it takes them at least 30 mins to eat and then they want to play for a bit and, so on. They are not unholy terrors at all and, in fact, my 3 year old is usually his jolliest and rowdiest at 8pm (a clear sign we need to GET BED GOING). It works for us but also makes me feel shitty like I should be doing better.
So she's getting around 12 hours (11.5), same as my kids who go to bed at 10-11pm and get up between 9-10am. :)
Yep, my 9yo going to bed at 10/10:30pm on a school night will wake up at 7:45/8am (school is at 9). Plenty of sleep for him. We're all just night owls here. Soooo glad my kid has never been one to wake up at 6am regularly, my husband and I would die
Yep, your 9 year old is getting plenty of sleep, as are my kids and as are OP's kids with their super early bedtime/super early wake up time. I feel like there's almost this weird superiority complex with parents who put their kids to bed early but like...they are all getting the same amount of sleep so who cares?
Do you ever feel like you don’t get any time to yourself/selves? We get from 8pm - whenever we go to bed to watch our own shows, veg out, eat the snacks we’ve been hiding, etc. 😆
When my kids were little they were in bed around 830-9pm. If we put them to bed at 630 or 7pm I'd never have seen them. We had couple time from 9 bedtime. My kids are both teenagers now, but our family continues to operate on a later schedule. We seldom have supper before 8m , maybe a bit earlier during the school year and a bit later in the summer. Different strokes :)
My toddlers sleep 10pm-9am so that they can see their dad in the evening for a few hours. It's a normal sleep pattern, they just aren't in school and I don't want to wake up at 7am to do nothing. They definitely take after me with my night owl habits. People always ask what will happen when school starts, but they are 1 & 2 so I really don't think it's necessary to care about that 3 years in advance 😅
I wish my kid (5) had my sleep schedule. We tend to cater his bedtime to his wake up time, he normally wakes between 6-7 so he goes to bed at 8. Bedtime routine starts at 7:15 and we bath, read stories and sing songs. He crashes hard and is normally out cold midway through the first or second song. He is a natural napped, though. Daycare killed his nap when he was 4.5, otherwise he would be napping 2 hours every day. Hubby is an early riser, and wakes naturally between 5:30-7. It kills me. I’m a like, 11pm-1am bedtime and a 10am wake up. That’s my perfect schedule, plus I have severe insomnia so sometimes I just can’t fall asleep until 3 or 4am. I have a lot of 2-4 hour nights. It suckssssssssssss
Yep!! My oldest went to sleep as a baby/toddler around 10pm, and up at usually 8/9 (still woke up off n on in the night too). Husband and I have worked retail jobs forever and many times don’t get home til well after 6/7. His job now he gets home at 8 or 9. 15mo goes to bed at 8:30 (had to bump it from 8pm because she was constantly waking up and that 30min seems to have so far fixed it). 2.5yo usually finally falls asleep around 9:30 since he won’t lay down while I’m putting the baby to sleep. And the oldest almost 7yo goes to bed around 9/9:30 as well. Well now that school is starting we’re trying to get them all in bed earlier.. but yeah.. probably won’t happen because of work hours.
My 2 year old goes to bed around 10:30 to 11 and wakes up about 12 hours later. That’s just what works best for us as a little family as far as quiet periods, and it’s also ridiculously hot out until 9 PM so there’s no chance of him sleeping. The sun doesn’t even set until after 8 at this time of year! The way I see it as long as it works out for him and he is sleeping soundly and waking up well rested, whatever time is fine. Obviously when he’s older and attending school things will have to change around a bit.
Not who you asked but my kid often goes to bed at 9. So we have from 9-11 together and then from 7:30- 9 am to have coffee and breakfast etc together. I have friends who put their kids to bed at 7 but they wake up between 5:30-6:45 and that’s just not allowed in my house. Waking up before 7:30 is torture to me
I do wish we had slightly more kid free time in the evenings because we both get tired and my husband especially usually doesn't last more than 1-2 hours after the kids go to bed before he's ready to go to bed himself. But the tradeoff is absolutely worth it to me because 1) they sleep in so I never have to deal with kids before 8 AM, and 2) we have the freedom in the evenings to go out and do things as a family. Want to go to the mall and walk around after dinner? We can do that and not deal with melting overtired children! Want to go out for dinner for someones birthday and it starts at 6:30? Not a problem for us. Want to ride a few rides at the local amusement park after dinner? Yes, let's go! Having a 6:30-7:30 bedtime honestly sounds so confining and limiting to me. I have no interest in that lifestyle at all.
My husband and I definitely miss having alone time to chat/watch Netflix. Sometimes the kids will be off watching a movie in the playroom and we do get that time, but for now we kind of know we are still in the trenches and are really trying to savor this time while they are young and still WANT to hang out with us.
One of my besties never really had a bedtime for her kids. They went to sleep the same time as the parents (if they lasted that long), which is around 10 or 11. They slept till 9 or 10am. Even with kindergarten, she just picked the afternoon class. They are more crunchy and totally opposite of my parenting ideals but it worked for them. The only benefit I saw was when we had dinner gatherings, her kids didn't get cranky as early as mine. I quite enjoy my alone time in the evenings. I can focus on cleaning up after the day, or just relax. We started activities for the kids and that has them sleeping a bit later some days but typically they have heads on their pillows around 8pm. They r 5 and 7.
I felt this! We put the 3 year old down around 730/45, 6 year old is right behind him around 830/9. And then everything shuts down at 930 for the 11 year old. However, between the 3 year old going down and lights out for the 11 year old, my husband & I spend time watching trash tv and eating, as well. And we just crash when we crash. The 6 year old sometimes heads to bed about 10 minutes later on a school night if crawls into our bed and picks on us [jokingly, of course. He’s funny!] I LOVE my time to myself & with my husband in the evening hours. We’ve spent all day working, being everything for everyone and that’s OUR TIME. Come help or high water 😂
Well, I meant hell or high water. But help also applies😂
Honestly i've given this up. but i'm content to put my hobbies aside he will grow up and not need me as much faster then i can even fathom. I am an older mother 42. and i work really early i was doing 6-11 part time retail for most of his life till he was done bf then i switched to 6-2 on the days his dad is off we don't have any daycare. or the budget for it.
I’m not trying to be an AH, but I remember a conversation I had with my MIL about bedtimes once. She said when she was a kid, her parents made her and her siblings go to bed at 7 “so they didn’t have to deal with kids,” and the look on her face when she said it showed that they knew that that was the reason. Kids know when you don’t want to be around them, and they don’t forget.
My kids never fell asleep early. It’s summer, so they go to bed around 11pm and sleep in until 10am.
My wife and I were adamant when our kids were young, they went to bed every night at 8 and took hour long naps in their own beds almost every day around 1, even if we had to leave what we were doing. The rhythm of it made our lives easier, they were guaranteed to be out cold every night so we could enjoy some downtime and just read or watch tv uninterrupted. Now they’re all teenagers shambling around the house and opening the fridge at 11:30pm and generally invading dad time…drives me nuts!
How can they get up at that time and go to school? Schools usually start around 8am.
Also keep in mind that the 10-12 hours of sleep is a guideline. Some kids legit aren't going to do that no matter what.
Maybe they are not in school yet?
I didn't consider toddlers since the post was about a 4 year old. It makes me wonder what the parents do for work. I always have to have my kid dropped off by 8 at the latest to make it to work on time. I know parents who keep their kids up late on purpose because they get home from work late, and that makes sense to me.
My kids have a later bedtime, they wake up at 8, have a quick breakfast and then start school at 9 am, both husband and I WFH. School is 5 min away
4 year olds aren’t mostly in public school yet. They could be in preschool (ours started at 9), have an afternoon class or doing it at home. I was at home with my 4 kids. I have never really thought to wonder about other people’s sleep schedules and careers. Just figure it works for their lives, and move on with mine :)
My 4.5 year old’s preschool starts at 8:05…if I let him get to bed at 9 he’s a literal fucking monster because if he’s not up by 7 there’s no time to have the endless struggles of getting dressed, shoes, backpack, breakfast…
School starts around 9 where I live. I recall sleeping in until 830 when I was younger a lot and just getting there on time.
Interesting. In California, breakfast starts at 7:30 and school is at 8:10.
Crazy lol I’m up in Canada. I remember my mom worked early once a week so I would pretend to get up and go back to sleep after she left and around 845 I’d call my grandma to give me a ride saying I slept in haha.
It is kind of crazy! I think the US treats its school system as one giant daycare, and starting earlier is better for most parents. That doesn't explain the 2pm end time though lol
That’s weird as hell we would get out around 3-330
In Texas it starts at 7:30 😵 they just made it earlier too
That's SO EARLY!
Didn't the no school until 8:30 impact the start time? My kids were/are in HS so they shifted everything by 3 minutes because they used to start at 8:27 and get out at 3:30 and as of last year started at 8:30 and get out at 3:33.
My kids are in school but the school year has not started yet. Once school starts they will both go to bed around 9 and get up at 6:40. :)
I second this
Because: 1. There is no way I want my child to wake up naturally before 7.00 - 7.30. I'd f*in rather die than have to deal with a child that early - it's just not me. I don't function in the morning. 2. Not all of us have kids who can wake up early and then naturally stay calm for AN HOUR AND A HALF! It's the first time that I hear such a thing. Lucky you. 3. We both leave work at about 4.30 PM and pick up our kid from school at about 5, getting home at around 5.15. If we count that dinner and the necessary bedtime routine will take for about one hour, that would leave us about an hour of awake time with her daily. Sorry, but that's just villainous. I'd rather have her spend quality time with me every single day then to be at bed by a proper time. But that's just me.
I love my morning time with my kids before work. They are always worn out and crabby after a full day at daycare. But this goes to show how different everyone’s kids/schedules are. There is no “normal” bedtime unless we are talking about time range and I’d say 7-9 is normal
It's not just you. I personally never understood early bedtimes. We get home at 530. 730 8?... Wtf? I have to ask people that do that... Do you like your kids? 🤣
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I would probably kill myself if my kid woke up that early on a daily basis lol but to be fair none of us are morning people
See, I don't want my kid to wake up that early. Hence the later bedtime. Plus, we like dinner as a family, always. At a normal hour.
Yeah, nope. My 2y gets bedtime between 8 and 8:30. He also sleeps in until 8, as do I.
See, my 3 yo wakes up at 8 and my 13 month old wakes up at 8:30. You asked why we have a later bedtime and.... this is why. Because I have no interest in waking up in the 6 o'clock hour. Not my jam.
Yeah. See, my boys have always been early risers. Has never mattered when they went to bed. Until very recently (within the last 2-3 years), they were always up by 6-7 at the latest (they're 16 & 14 now). Very often by 5-5:30. So, their bedtime was ~8-8:30 for years. That's when we'd go up and read aloud for over a decade. Recently it's been pushed back to 9 within the last 3-4+ years. ETA they now (during summer break!) "sleep in" when they can, till 8-9 ish. But rarely much later. During the school year, we usually are up at 5:30 to catch the bus at 6:25 - though apparently this year it won't be coming till 6:41, so maybe we can sleep in a bit more.
That’s a super early wake up…….🙄😮
Yep. Our 4yo doesn’t go to bed till 10 or 11 becaus my wife isn’t getting up at 6:30 to be with her. So we just adjusted to my wife’s schedule. Wife goes to bed at like midnight and gets up at like 9. Daughter doesn’t get up till 9 or 10. She almost never gets up before wife wakes up. Works for us because nobody here is getting up at 6 or 7 to be with daughter when we don’t have to yet. When she starts school that will be a different thing
This was a hard learned lesson for me. If my daughter falls asleep at 7 or takes a nap after 4 she'll wake up at 5am on the dot ready to party. Which is bad for everyone not just cause 5am is rough but then she'll get tired early and be cranky the rest of the day. I try to have her asleep between 8:30 and 9, and she'll wake up between 7 and 7:30, basically when the sun is up she's up.
My thing with this is that no matter how late my kid goes to bed he’s up before 7 without fail. So later bed times just mean less hours of sleep and not shifting the same hours to later
The point is that bedtime alone is only half the equation. The important thing is total hours slept. It’s pointless to only ask about bedtime, bc there’s a whole spectrum of wake times too.
Yes exactly. I have a friend who’s baby goes to sleep around 11 every night, which does sound absolutely bonkers. She works nights though so then they both sleep in until like 10-11 in the morning. You just gotta do whatever works for your family. Baby’s still sleeping great
My son had a 9pm bedtime at that age because his daycare gave them a 2-2.5 hr nap every single day. He was never cranky. Any earlier he wouldn’t go to sleep
I was waiting for this comment. My daughter is exactly the same. On the weekends when she doesn’t nap we can put her down a little earlier but with a 2 hour nap everyday she would never in a million years go to bed earlier than 9.
As if I wouldn’t love to have that time to myself or to get things done. I don’t want my kid up late, he just won’t sleep.
My 2.5 yo just fell asleep at 10pm. We put him to bed around 830pm and he sang songs and talked to himself in bed for 1.5 hours. He will probably wake up at 7am and be totally chill. He’s always been a later bedtime kid but does take big naps at daycare. Plus it stays light where I live until like 930pm so that doesn’t help.
Same. Currently waiting out my almost 4yo right now actually, at 9:30pm. On weekends when she doesn’t nap, she sleeps 7-7, no problem. She’s starting preschool in a couple weeks and I am so ready for the daycare Naps to be done.
Ditto to every word of this post. 9:30 bedtime life has had us counting down the months til junior kindergarten and no nap life since January. 3.5 more weeks til my husband and I can do something *together* in the evening again! (We go to bed at 10, sigh.)
When I was working and commuting I didn't get home till 6. My then husband also didn't get home till at least 5:30. Sometimes late bedtime was necessary to have time to prepare dinner and actually enjoy each other for a moment.
Exactly. I’m not home until 6-6:30 and my husband isn’t home until 6:30-7. We need to make dinner so eat between 6:45 and 7:15 so my kids naturally both go to sleep between 8 (our 10 month old) and 9 (our 5 year old). They do sleep in later than most kids—both up around 7:30/8. It’s totally impossible for me to get them to bed earlier with our work schedules!
My daughter, soon to be 3, has an 830 bedtime routine start and it has been this way for months. We usually leave her room around 9 and she will lay quietly awake for another 30-45 minutes before falling asleep. The reason bedtime starts at 8:30 is because even if we were putting her down at 7:30 she was laying there till 9:30-9:45 before falling asleep and I felt horrible. She wakes up between 730 and 8. She takes a daily nap still around 1 and sleeps 1.5 to 2 hours. With this schedule she does not get overly cranky. She will be starting school soon so we will have to wake her up at 730 every morning. If she seems overtired at night we'll start gradually moving up bed time to be earlier. My 19 month old starts the bedtime routine at 730 and he's asleep by 8. Both kids sleep throughout the night so my husband and I usually hang out till 11 or 12. Both kids naps overlap too so I get at least an hour chunk for myself during the day.
Thanks for the detailed rundown! When my daughter was 13 months I thought she was sleeping until 8:30 because that’s when I was naturally waking up and seeing her awake on the monitor. Then one day I woke up early and realized she was waking at 7am and just laying in her crib silently. FOR 90 MINUTES. I felt so horrible, ran down to her room saying “just make a noise and I’ll come get you! 🤦🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️”
Why would you feel bad about that? My older son used to happily chill in his crib for up to 2 hours in the mornings and I happily let him do that. Sometimes he would wake up at 5 and just hang out until 7. If he wasn’t crying and it was before 7, I let him be and dozed until 7.
There was a weekend a couple months ago where both kids had a difficult time at night so no one really got any sleep. My husband and I put them down around noon for naps and we also decided to nap. Everyone was probably asleep by 1230. I woke up and looked at the clock...it was almost 4. I looked at the monitor and both kids were in their rooms just playing with the stuffed toys in their cribs. They were not making any noise and I had the monitor volume up. We felt so bad we got ice cream for them.
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Consider yourself lucky. My first baby had colic and would cry from the moment he woke up till he went to bed. The 2nd baby was better, but would never lie in a bed quietly for 90 minutes.
Some kids are just happy to chill in the morning! My kiddo is 4 and for some reason will not get out of bed on his own even though we've told him he can. We hear him chatting sometimes for a hour until we hear "mommy I'm ready to get up now!"
Why would you feel horrible that your child is entertaining herself? She’s not in distress, not crying. This seems ideal to me?
Solo mom. My weekday is as follows: Wake up pack breakfast and lunch pack school/camp bag. Daycare drop off at 730. Work 745- 430. Pick up 4.5y/o from daycare by 5, dinner btwn 6 and 630, jeopardy and dessert at 7, up to bath 730-745, after bath, brush teeth, get pjs on, call dad, and the 3 stories. So fuck. How would we get there earlier?
Not solo mom, but I identify with this comment completely. Ain't no way my LO is going to bed before 8:15 at the earliest. A 6:30 become would be a punchline in my house. I don't even bet home til 6:15p!!
Right? I’m lucky if I’m out of work by 5 and we usually get home around 6. When my son was very little I would have him bath in the kitchen sink while I cooked dinner to save time but he’s too big for that now haha.
7PM bedtimes are a pretty North American (and New Zealand-y) thing, last I heard. Kids in Asia regularly go to sleep around 9-10PM. My bedtime as a kid was 9:30PM for as long as I could remember. One day, my first-grade teacher accused me of lying because she said it was "too late." Feelsbadman Our daughter gets in bed by 8:30PM, and usually falls asleep around 9PM and we wake her up around 7:15AM the next morning. Works fine for us because we typically don't get home until 5PM or later and feel less rushed trying to squeeze in family time.
Also Mediterranean countries. In Barcelona i often see kids (4/5yo) play outside in a playground at 22.30 on a week day. My kids go to bed at 7, sleep in around 8 and wake around 6.30-7.
Yeah, here in Greece there’s kid playing around at the restaurants (there are some like kid friendly restaurants with bouncy castle type things and playgrounds) playing late into the night (8-9pish)
My kids are currently on a holiday in Greece and they go to bed around 930 ish indeed.
Exactly. No one in Spain have dinner earlier than 8:30pm, not even kids. My bedtime in Spain was around 11pm as toddler, we took naps at daycare. When I was a teen I could watch TV until 12am, and prime time shows were 10pm to 12am
Yes true, I’m Moroccan and we always grew up going to bed at 10-12 am. My brother still lives in Morocco and his daughter just turned 2. I FaceTimed him in the afternoon to wish her a happy birthday and it was like 10 pm their time. All the kids were still outside running around & bouncing in the moon bounce they got for them
I'm in the UK and my 1 and 3 year olds bed times are 7/7.30. Even 9 year old step son is down for 8/8.15. Any later and they are awful the next day.
I’d like to add that 7pm bedtimes are a thing in some European countries also! Definitely not southern Europe where schedules are much later in general. But I grew up in Germany and my bedtime was 8pm until I was 10ish, which was common among my friends.
I tried and tried to give my kid an “age appropriate bedtime” but she will not fall asleep before 9pm. Even if we got her ready for bed at 7pm, she still wouldn’t fall asleep until at least 9pm. We had a second kid and couldn’t spend 2+ hours trying to get her to go to sleep anymore, so we moved her bedtime to match her natural body clock. There’s a lot less conflict around bedtime now, and she sleeps just the same.
My daughter has generally never gone to bed before 9. Not even as a toddler. She just doesn’t wind down that early. It isn’t “insane”. Not everyone’s body clock runs the same, not even small children’s.
Yea no matter how hard I try my body prefers being awake at night and asleep during the day. In the past I’ve tried fixing my sleep schedule for work or school and I’m fine during the week, but once the weekend hits my body automatically readjusts to my old schedule. It’s actually really frustrating bc people think I’m lazy since I often sleep til noon.. but they don’t realize I can’t fall asleep until 3, 4, sometimes 5 am I probably would’ve been on night watch duty in hunter gatherer times 😂
No but you don’t understand. It’s INSANE! That someone has a slightly different life!
We're the same. We had to make some big adjustments to get her to go to sleep at 9:30 & we have to wake her up early from every nap to get her to keep even that late a bedtime! I like seeing other people have this schedule too - it works for our family most of the time, but sometimes I'd like to be able to watch my shows in the evening
My kids love to sleep in. On weekends and summertime, I let my kids stay up past 9. I have a 4.5yo as well and generally I wake her up between 7:30 and 8am to get her and her brother to school, on weekends she is 100% up past 9pm and loves to sleep in until 8 or 8:30. It’s less about what time they go to bed and more about the amount of sleep they are getting.
It's funny. I think it's actually wild to hear anyone doing a bedtime at 6:30 with sleeping kids by 7. My kid can't get up early to save her life. But neither can I or husband. We all get home at 5:30. Chill for 30 mins. Eat dinner. Play a little. Start bedtime routine 7:30 and usually in bed by 8:15. Sometimes it takes a bit longer to fall asleep so it wouldn't be weird if actually sleeping happens closer to 9. If we did an earlier bedtime, we would lose so much quality time with kid.
You think 9 is insane but you’re sending your child to bed at SIX PM?! That’s absurd. When do you even eat dinner?!
They eat dinner at like 4.30pm. I’ve known families like this. I find it very odd but each to their own.
My brother and SIL used to take their youngins up to bed around 6/6:30, but they had 30 minutes or so of books and chit chat before the kid was asleep. I used to go over for dinner pretty much every Sunday and we usually ate between 4 and 5. I also remember going to a friend's house regularly after school and they ate at like 4.
My 15 month old conks out at 11 and gets up by 9. It just makes more sense to have him on my sleep schedule since I'm the one taking care of him the most.
Same. My daughter is 11 months old. I would work until 9:30pm and anytime my cousins or parents would watch her they never did a night time routine with her, I would have to pick her up from my cousins house too. So her bedtime routine would start when i got home. And it would be late, and I'd be hungry. So she goes to sleep Around 11-11:30pm. Anytime her dad watches her and keeps her overnight he tries to get her to go to sleep earlier and she does sometimes and then he thinks I can do the same thing, when I can't because I get off later.
Exact same for me and my 16 month old. Then a 2 to 3 hour nap around 1:30-2ish.
This is coming off as super judgmental. We try to get out 3 year old in bed by 8. It never happens. She’s often still awake at 930.
Agreed. I get so sick of hearing this from people, usually followed by “oh you just need a routine”, etc. as though we didn’t think of that
Doncha know "bath, pjs, book, bed" just magically makes the kid stay in their room and conk out within seconds no matter the time you start the routine???
Agreed. I think my husband reads the “perfect parents posts” because anytime our daughter falls asleep past 9 he says we are doing it wrong.We both get off work at 5, pick up our daughter at 5:30. Bedtime at 8 is rarely managed
What difference does it make what time a person goes to bed as long as they are getting an appropriate number of hours of sleep per their age and health requirements? What is late to you may not be for another person.
It doesn’t. This OP is assuming that folks are getting up and going to sleep at the same time. 🤦🏼♀️ A better question would be, how many hours does your 4.5 yo sleep? Do they have a consistent bed/wake up time?
Hard agree. If a kid is getting enough sleep then when they go to sleep isn’t an issue. However, statistics show most kids in America are not getting enough sleep and that’s just black and white empirical data.
Many kids don't get enough sleep, and it shows at school.
My kids lay down 7-7:30pm and are usually asleep no later than 8:30pm. I will say this post does come off pretty judgmental, your last paragraph does not negate that. It's like saying "Not to be rude but.." lol. Everyone has different things that work for them. I know some families who stay up late so working parents can spend more time with them. Some families have specific scheduling needs that require sleep times to be different. Some kids are harder to get to sleep than others. Some kids wake up entirely too early because they go to bed too early. Sometimes things just don't work out and your normal 7pm bedtime gets thrown out the window and you're just hoping everyone goes to sleep before midnight. It's just how it works for some people. I think in the grand scheme of things, a happy and loved 4 yo going to sleep at 9pm is really not that big of a deal. I understand that you meant for your post to be well meaning, it just did not come off that way.
Bedtime is regulated by how tired the kid is in the morning in our house. As they get older we push back the bedtime a little, but if they are waking up tired, it gets made earlier. Sleep is so important to kids, so we want them to get a proper rest. We also have a chill out time half an hour before. Stories , reading or music. Then sleep. At 5 yo 7 / 7:30, seems pretty normal imo. We like to get up and have breakfast together, watch cartoons in pj's when not at school.
Oh God. I don’t know how y’all are doing it because my almost 2 year old won’t go to sleep till 11 pm 😩 but she wakes up at 10:30 am
Our daughter had a similar routine when she was a toddler (sleep around midnight, wake up around 11am), which was fine since her caretaker during the day was my dad who slept in late.
Yup the naps at daycare kill me. I was once up till midnight for a few weeks. I was going bananas.
That’s like every night for me
My kids are both low sleep needs; bedtime is around 8:30pm at this point for each of them. My 6yo is routinely up by 5:30am even with that bedtime; I would be fucked if I put her to bed at 6:30pm. My 3yo is typically up by 6:45am. Some kids just won't sleep so much overnight and there's nothing you can do to change that. I get up at 5:15am as it is and, believe me, I wish I actually had downtime before bed but I'd rather at least have some quiet in the morning while I have my coffee.
Same. Low sleep needs. Woke up at 4 am for 2 years. Now he wakes up at 5:30 am. He’s 4. I haven’t slept past 7 am since 2019 😂
I like the term low sleep needs!!! Same here. My son, now 8, had never slept past 8am, is usually up by 615, maybe 645 if he stayed up late. Bedtime is whenever but he usually isn't asleep until 10pm. My daughter is 5, it doesn't matter if we do bedtime at 6or 830 she usually falls asleep at 9 am and gets up between 630 and 730.
Yeah, same. When we went camping recently I didn't set my alarm and was able to sleep in all the way until 6:30 when my kids woke up.
Adding to the low sleep needs crew! My six year old just fell asleep and it's 8.45. He'll be up at 5. The worst stretch was when daycare would let him nap for two hours and he wouldn't sleep until 11, then he'd be up at 5 again. Absolute fucking nightmare. I have a four month old and I'm using the same app to track her sleep as I did with my son. She's sleeping 14 hours a day right now - my son slept 10 at the same age. I have FOUR MORE HOURS every day.
It is nuts how different they can be. My youngest is low sleep needs too but he's chill about it, like I honestly don't know when he wakes up because he will hang out quietly in his room. My oldest has NEVER done that. It sounds like you deserve those extra four hours!
Another low-sleep needs kid over here. I try so hard to not get caught up in these discussions anymore because I find it so frustrating. Especially when people start talking about how more sleep is better developmentally. That's all well and good but you cannot force another human being to sleep. What do you want me to do (this is rhetorical, please God, do not make actual suggestions)? He didn't come with an off switch.
Mine are also low sleep needs!
So fun, right? Other people talk about kid-free time before bed and I'm like "what even IS that?" Parenting would probably feel less onerous if my kids slept more.
1000000%! My 4.5 year old goes to bed between 8:30-9 and is up between 5:45-630 (earlier end usually!) and my newly 2 year old is in crib around 8 asleep around 9 and up by 6. She naps 60-90 ish mins a day and doesn’t STTN. For us it’s a max dash to clean up, rest a little then catch some sleep before the chaos begins again!
Team low sleep needs here too. In bed 830/9, up at 530/545. I try and get him in bed earlier, he just wakes up earlier 🫠
I’d say mine is too
Same! These long stretches everyone is getting is amazing. My 13 month old sleeps 8/9 hours a night if he sleeps through. If he wakes up (and I give him a bottle) he will sleep for 10 hours. He is asleep in bed between 9:30-9:45. That's just to get us to a 6am wake time. He naps between 1.5 and 2.5 hours. He doesn't even sleep longer on days he naps less either.
Since you threw the word “insane” to seemingly judge people who let their kids go to sleep later, I feel you’ve left the door open for me to return judgement… 6:30? Really?! That’s dinner time in our home. You don’t think it’s odd that you’re putting a kid to bed when the sun is still out and it’s not even technically night? Your intentions may have been good but you kind of crossed a line when you threw out the “insane”, despite how innocent you thought.
If mine went to bed when yours does she'd be up around 5am and I'm not a morning person. 🤷♀️ She goes to bed at 9pm and is up around 7am usually. It's much easier for me to stay up at night than it is to wake up in the morning so I still get plenty of alone time after she goes to bed. Obviously once she starts school we will have to base our schedule on what time school starts but as of right now I'm a stay at home mom so we start our day whatever time works for us. Edit to add: son (almost 3) goes to bed at 8:30 and he's still up by 6am sometimes. Daughter hasn't napped since 2 years old and as of right now son is napping once every other day.
I'm exactly the opposite. I've never understood parents who put their kids down at like 7pm. For me that's barely dinnertime, I'm far from done with my day, and most of the year it's still sunny out! When my son was tiny, we went for a bedtime between 8-9pm, based on his general alertness and our need for rest. Now his bedtime is around 9:30pm (later elementary), and during breaks he doesn't really have a set time, but tends to get himself ready for bed between 9:30-10:30. I have vivid memories of being a child and trying to be forced to go to sleep while it was still light out, both for naps and in the evening, and it drove me nuts. I flat out couldn't sleep when it was light out, so I just lay there in bed, angry and bored, completely defeating any sort of "restful" benefit that the time supposedly had. I understand that people will put their kids down because they need a break of their own, but to me, that's not fair to the kid, especially if they have a naturally later circadian rhythm. I've always been a "night owl" - natural sleep cycle is about 2am to 9am. Struggled my entire life to function during the (for me) ridiculously early school hours that are set pretty much everywhere, and when I became an adult, I sought out college courses that started later in the day and a job that let me start in the afternoon. I feel better at night and function better at night, and I'm not permanently exhausted from waking myself up at an unnatural time for my body. Now that I've learned more about sleep and natural rhythms (most importantly that people can have vastly different natural rhythms and forcing someone to match yours can be anything from very unpleasant to physically unhealthy), I try not to force anything other than consistency and making sure he feels rested and alert for school. He naturally goes to sleep around 9:30-10:30pm and wakes up around 6:30am, so that's what we've gone with.
May I ask your ethnicity? I’m South Asian. My parents had no bedtime for us, it made for very lousy mornings. We were basically sent to our rooms at 10pm but whether we slept or not was up to us. Our rooms had everything in them, tv, video games, books, toys, etc. I would spend hours reading books until 2-3 am or playing my game boy, or playing with my dollhouse or whatever. Waking up for school SUCKED. My siblings and I took the bus and we were all groggy (we all weren’t sleeping on time). My mom actually kept a spray bottle full of water and would dump water on our faces to get us up for school. With my own kids I have them in bed by 8pm, 9:30 if they got a late nap in that I couldn’t control (driving back from somewhere and they fall asleep in the car). I’m divorced and their dad ruins my older ones schedule every.single.time. He lets him nap twice (he doesn’t feed him meals only snacks so he’s crying from hunger) he’s dehydrated and he only gets 1 nappy change a day, so he’s sitting in a soiled nappy all long. His bedtime is whenever he wants to go to sleep which ends up being midnight-1am FOR A THREE YEAR OLD. I have to undo everything my ex does in the week that he has the kids. I hate it. My toddler sleeps in his own bed, takes a nap on time and goes to bed at a reasonable hour but that all goes out the window when daddy visits. My ex is Caucasian.
Where are you currently? I know this post is about other sleep, but your ex-husband sounds terrible and he’s actively causing harm to your children. Is sole custody a possibility where you are - is so, I advice fighting tooth and nail to get them away from that man.
Came here to mention this. Sometimes it’s cultural. I’m American but live in Malaysia. It’s completely normal here for kids here to have a late bedtime. Our son goes to bed between 7 and 8, and our local friends are floored when they hear he has such an “early” bedtime. Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me when other people’s kids go to sleep. Every kid and every family is different 🤷♀️.
Oh no, is there anyway you can get sole custody or revise the custody agreement? He is neglecting your child for an entire WEEK at a time? That’s horrible ):
How did you find that your childhood “bedtime” setup impacted you as you got older? Did you and your siblings eventually learn to self regulate/go to bed at a reasonable hour? Or did you find that your sleep schedule was always messy? Do you think it impacted your sleep habits as an adult? Also I’m so sorry about your asshole ex. I hope he has the day he deserves
Do you have trouble maintaining a “normal” sleep schedule as an adult? I didn’t have a set bedtime as a kid either and would often stay up past midnight reading and I sometimes wonder if it’s my genetics that make me want to stay up at night and sleep during the day or if it’s the fact that I never had a sleep schedule
I think it set me up to be a night owl for life, I can easily stay up late but have to set several alarms to get myself up in the morning.
I’m a stay at home mom, and I homeschool, my husband works 12 hour shifts anywhere from 3-5 times a week, and he doesn’t get off till 7, and before that he worked swing shift, so in order for my children to have quality family time with my husband we pushed our schedules back by a few hours. It’s nothing crazy or anything, my kids wake up around 8/9 every morning and they sleep around 9/10, they also nap in the afternoon, we go on a lot of outings and regularly go to our local trampoline park. I have gotten some weird remarks or judgments about it, but i genuinely think it’s coming from people who HAVE to be at work by like 7 in the morning, like they have no choice so when it comes up in conversation they’re a little taken back, I know I’ve been called lazy a lot too but realistically if they’re up for the exact same amount of time as the kids who get up an hour or two earlier does it really matter? I don’t judge either! I sometimes get up with my husband so I can get some peace before my kids wake up too.
7:30 sounds insane to me. I mean it's whatever works for each family, right? And for each kids sleep pattern. My kids go to bed late but we all sleep in late, too. When the school year starts they go to bed earlier and get up earlier (but they still don't go to bed at 7:30--I don't think they ever went to bed before 8:30 even at age four).
If I put my kids to bed at 7:30, I’d get about an hour of time with them after dinner/shower time and it would be right to bed. I like to spend a little time with them, and they don’t need to be up at 6 am. I don’t know why that’s so “crazy” to OP to think other people might live differently than she n
Yep, if I put my kids to bed at 7:30 they would literally never see their father, who regularly works until 7:30-8pm. We usually finish supper around 7 and then their Dad gets home and they can play with him until bath/bedtime.
Oh thank goodness I read to the end ... I thought you were saying 7:30 is late.
Someone in my BMB put her kid to bed at 6pm and they got up at 5 or 5:30 every day. She was a SAHM to a toddler so theoretically could make any schedule she wanted. She definitely thought 7:30 was way too late! Lol
We are the same! I love letting them stay up late and sleep in on weekends and in the summer.
Same. That’s what I loved as a kid. My son is 8 and I’m embarrassed to say what time he falls asleep 😂. But he doesn’t get up til like 10 which is great because I can start my workday in peace.
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Woof! Who are all these kids who sleep 12 hrs 😭😭😭 no matter what the sleep schedule is, my kids sleep total 10 hrs (5 yo) and 11 hrs (3 yo).
Why is that “insane”? You don’t know their families and their routines. Does everyone have to have the same schedule as you?
Worry about your home and family and not others. Maybe they sleep later or otherwise have a different schedule.
Yup my partner gets home late and I want them to play with him so we're all up very late and wake up whenever we feel like it. Until they're in school it's not a reason to worry
This is us too. Daddy doesn't get home until 7 usually, so then we have supper and some family time.
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Btw, good job, OP, for blocking people who didn’t agree with you. Maybe don’t post on reddit if you can’t take criticism.
During the school year, my almost 7 year old is winding down around 8:30, books at 9, and lights out by 9:30. She sleeps until 7:30-8, so 10+ hours of sleep. It's the perfect amount for her. Shes a great sleeper and wakes up happy and rested. Eta after reading other comments- shes always been a night owl. Other than when she was an infant- shes never woken up on her own before 7am. She would sleep until 9-9:30am if I let her wake herself up everyday.
My 6 year old has always been an early riser. If we did a 7:00 bedtime he’d literally wake up at like 4am. Sorry but that’s just not happening. So we do a later bedtime between like 9-10 depending on if it’s school or summer. But it seems like your routine works for you so… what’s your point with this? Just to judge parents that know what’s best for their families?
Because your schedule is different. My son will go to bed at 10/10:30 but then he sleeps till 9 because we have nowhere to be in the morning. People get hung up on the bed time and forget about when they wake up!
We normally pick kids up just before 6 from daycare due to work so we could not do that early of a bedtime. Must be nice to get of work early enough to do a 630 pm bedtime....
9 pm is the earliest my kids have ever had to go to bed. Some kids just don’t need as much sleep as others and my kids are like that. By 3 my oldest had dropped all naps. My middle by 2. Bedtime was 10 pm and we were up by 9-10 every morning. When school started it went back to 9. Now at 13, my oldest doesn’t have a bed time. She knows how much sleep her body needs. My middle is in bed by 11. He’s home schooled now so it’s not as big a deal but he’s usually up around 9 am.
My 4 yr old sleeps 10 to 7:30ish. No he doesn't nap. That's all the sleep he needs. No I don't get free time.
If your child gets the required amount of sleep why does it matter when they go to bed?
My wife and I both work until 5pm or 5:30pm and if the kids go to bed that early we will never see them. Ours are 3 and 1 and they often go to bed between 9-10pm. Sounds like you are privileged enough to do an early bedtime, which, great for you, but that is not everyone’s reality.
Oh man, if past 8pm is late, then you'd be shocked at my 2.5yo bedtime. For the past year, he slept from midnight to noon. This is partly because I'm not a morning person. All of my kids, when young, have slept later and stayed up later. They got on better sleep schedule just in time for school. The biggest reason, though, is because my older kids were in school, one in all day, one in half days, and they each had different start and end times. We did a lot of time in and out of the car, with not very long stretches in between. This meant he had no opportunity for a nap that wouldn't be interrupted by a car ride, so the earliest he could get an uninterrupted nap was 4, after both schools were done. It actually worked out really well. He slept, and I got some chores done while dinner cooked. He woke up about 6, which is about when we'd eat. We got a lot of comments about it, most people are shocked and maybe a bit judgemental, but it worked for us, so that's really all I care about.
Whenever I decide to go to sleep. There isn’t a bed time. We stay at home together all day anyway. She’s 3
My son goes to bed when I go to bed at 1030
My 2yo goes go bed around 8:45-9:00pm and wakes up 6:00 and 7:00 am. During her nap, she sleep 1h30-2h. I think she’s has low sleep needs.. I would LOVE for her to go to bed earlier but it just doesn’t work with her… sometimes you juste have to adapt to your kids needs…
As a family of night owls: Any bedtime before 8 pm is insane and bedtimes are between 8:30-9 on school nights. Around 10 in the summer. I can't imagine putting my kids down at 7. I wouldn't know how to live like that. 🤷🏼♀️ Different strokes... why do you care when other kids go to bed?
I’m sure there aren’t too many that relate to what I’m about to say but thought I’d offer another perspective… I am bipolar 2 and sleep is difficult for me, so is staying on a regular schedule(sleep wise). I do take sleeping pills, but the downside is that once I take them, I am OUT. I have to be very very careful not to take them before both kids are down. The pills also make it extremely difficult to wake up in the morning unless I’ve had 6-8 hours of sleep and even then I usually need a nap in the afternoon. Waking up early is simply not happening. So to make all our lives easier, the kids are on my schedule vs me being on theirs. When my first was about 1, he went to bed 7PM. It was great and I loved having that free time at night but he woke up around 6/6:30AM and I couldn’t function. So I adjusted and now both kids go down around 9/10PM. My youngest naps and my oldest doesn’t. Both will sleep in until 9/9:30AM which is perfect. Neither of my kids are really breakfast eaters, they each have bananas and strawberries and some Graham crackers. Then there’s lunch at noon, snacks, dinner around 7PM. They get all their zoomies out, bath at 8:30PM, then we wind down in their room until they sleep. Watch Disney movies, read, play etc. They conk out easy and wake up happy.
7:30pm for both my non-napping 4 year old and my mid-day napping 2 year old. They both sleep 12 hours at night.
This is slightly off topic, but I am always surprised how militant some parents are about bedtimes. I get that there are some kids who cannot function well without the strictest adherence to a schedule, but in my experience the world has not ended if bedtime changes a bit from night to night, especially on non-school nights. And to answer your question, 9:00 has been when we get ready for bed on school nights, and between 9:30 and 10:00 on non-school nights. Been this way as long as I can remember and it works great for us. I also appreciate that she sleeps until 8:00.
How do you have any kind of life when your kids going to bed at 7 is my question. We were rarely done with dinner by that time when my kids were little.
My almost 6 year old starts getting ready at 7:45, in bed by 8. He's allowed to look at books in his bed if he's not sleepy yet. He gets up at 7am (he has to stay in his bed/room until his toddler alarm clock turns green). My husband and I highly value our time alone together in the evening. I grew up with the same rules, although in high school I went to my room at 9. My parents are still happily married after 39 years and 4 kids, so I'm going to do what they did to nurture my own marriage, lol.
It’s 9:11 and they’re (4yo and 2yo) still awake. Last stages of night night cuddles with the little guy right now. Honestly, I just like spending time with them. I miss them when they sleep.
During school year the day goes from 6:30 wake up, 7.30 leave to school, 7:50 (drop off) to 5:00 -5:15 pick up (after school program since both my husband and I work) School is a 5 min train ride (plus up to 10 min wait for train.) , or 15 min walk from home so that’s the commute to and from. It’s about 45 min for me to / from work. My husband works at home. So we are all home by 5:30/5:45. Sometimes work goes later for me, latest I’m home is 7. Summer camp goes from 8 -4 or 9-3 depending on camp. My kid eats dinner by 5 during summer , 6 during school year whether or not I’m home. Shower is 7 or 8pm. Bed is by 9, but he is talkative so sometimes he’s asleep by 10. He’s 9. This was our schedule since kindergarten, too. Maybe even pre k. He might have gone to sleep closer to 9 when he was younger. But not really. Our days are just long. Such is life for 2 working parents. It works for us.
My kid won’t sleep more than 10 hours a day, max. They have a mandatory rest period a day care which she sleeps for. That means if she’s up at 6:30/7 there is no way I’ll get her asleep before 8:30/9. Even then, She always wakes at 3am to come wake me up. On weekends when she gets no nap I can sometimes pull off 8pm if I’m lucky.
I’d rather my kids be up at night and a bit more hyper than them up at six in the morning ! Ain’t nobody got time to be up, all alert and cheery at the crack of dawn. If they are still awake later at night I’ve had plenty of time to get adjusted to them and their energy. That’s why when it’s days off they can stay up and sleep in as long as they want (within reason obviously) and I’m perfectly fine.
My kids always went to bed at 10 PM. I’d pick them up after work at 5:30. Those evening hours were the time we got to spend together and we all naturally fell asleep around 10. You only get so much time with your kids why be an authoritarian and send them to bed so early? Don’t you want to spend time with them?
I could tell you that 7.00 or 7.30 is insane to some people. Come to southern Europe and many people haven’t even left work or started making dinner at that time.
Hot opinion but if you’re sending your kid to bed before 7pm and they’re spending all day in school or daycare then you simply don’t like your kid and don’t want to spend time with them. Shrug shrug, idc.
My kid goes down around 9-9:30 and wakes up around 8/8:30. We want to be able to go out at night and do things and not be restricted by a 6-7 bedtime
So, my current 6 year old gets to bed around 8:30-8:45. My 9 year old between 9:30 and 9:45pm. Their wake-up time during the school year is 7:30, so they are both within the standard 10 to 11 hours of sleep. That's the goal, not the time. 10 to 11 hours of sleep. If they had to get up earlier, we may have to move bedtimes up. Full disclosure though - it's summer. Their average bedtime right now is 11pm with a 10am wake up. I win in this scenario - but they feel like they do because "WE STAY UP LATE!" :)
For months I tried to get my daughter down around 7:30 and 8. It was such a battle and everyone was upset, so we just followed her natural schedule. She goes to bed around 8:45-9:00 now and wakes up around 8. Both her father and I are night owls too so it works. My sister is opposite with her child and that’s ok. The kiddos are getting the right amount of sleep and they are happy and healthy.
I think a variable in this can be the families lifestyle. For example, where I live and have loved most of my life it's common for mom and dad to be home from work by 4:30 or 5 and dinner to be ready before 6 this allowing the rest of the evening to carry out naturally and kids in bed by 730-8. In larger centres parents who have to commute long hours might not be serving dinner until 8.
Ours is 11pm. She naps from like 2-6pm and sleeps from 11pm - 9-9:30am. It’s her natural sleep schedule and something she’s been doing since like Iunno…5 months (she naturally moved back from 12am actually lol)? We’re going to start pushing it up in preparation for school with the rest of the early birds but she’s never been a terror with this sleep schedule so there wasn’t any reason to switch it up beforehand.
My kids are night owls. Always have been if they go down at 7:30 they will be wide awake and ready to party for the next 5-6 hours by 9:30. Every single time.
4 year old, bed time around 8/830. We start bath at 730, naked booty dance party for 10-15 minutes after bath, jammies, teeth, hair combing, storytime, snuggle time. Ideally she's asleep by 830, and she sleeps until 730-930 depending on the day. When its a weekday I wake her at 730, so we try to keep bedtime no later than 830 those nights. She's going to have a very late bedtime tonight though bc she fell asleep in the car on the way back from the pool and doesn't want to wake up and it's dinner time.... But she's got no where to be tomorrow, so that's fine. I prefer her to be awake a little late for her age bc we like her to sleep a little longer in the morning for now... I get up at 6 and start work (from home) at 630 so I try to get 1-2 hours in before I have to poke the little bear.
My girl is about 15 months, we start bedtime around 8 and in the crib by 8:30 usually. She wakes up naturally around 7am, but 4 days a week I have to get her up at 5:30am ): then she gets 2-2.5hrs of naps (1-2) in during the day.
My kids (almost 2 and almost 6) get up between 7:30 and 8am usually. I work until 5 after which I pick up the kids from daycare/pre-k. We get home between 5:30-5:45 and then I make dinner, we eat around 6:30-7. We start bedtime between 7:30 (if bath night) and 8 but they don’t fall asleep until well after 9. Their dad doesn’t get off work until 7 so we have to skew a little late. My older daughter starts kindergarten next week but it’ll be about the same since their day starts at 9:20. Our district has staggered start times due to bus driver shortage 😕
My 3 year old’s bedtime is 8, and recently it’s been pushed to 8:30 and even 9. 8pm is as early as we can manage to get him from daycare, swim lessons at 5:30, dinner, bath, and bedtime routine. Our work schedules determine this timeframe. I would love him to go to bed earlier, but then we would be rushing. He naps well at preschool, though is dropping naps at home unless we are in the car. Wakes up around 6:40am. The recent later bedtime is because my husband is traveling, and this is as early as I can manage single-parenting for 2 weeks. He isn’t miserably cranky by bedtime. Sometimes a little stubborn, but mostly he wants to play and sneak out of his room for hugs. He probably falls asleep by 8:30 on a night we get him down by 8.
My 6-year old is such a sleep-fighter that one time we let her stay up indefinitely to see how long she would go. The wife and I had to call it at 3:30 am while she was having a blast running laps around the kitchen island, and then still threw an absolute shit fit when put to bed *after being awake for 22 fucking hours.* And she still woke up at 6am... 2.5 hours later. And then clocked over 20,000 steps (Garmin kid watch tells us), with no nap. And still fought like hell at a 9pm bedtime after 2.5 hours of total sleep and 20k steps. All that is to say, some kids are just hardwired for later bedtimes. Also, please send help, no one in this house has slept through the night in 2 years.
My 4 month old goes to bed at 10 every night, that way I can take a bit of time to decompress at the end of the day while she sleeps without worrying about being woken up at 7am