Mumsnet Talk

Here. I think she speaks a lot of sense.

Oh and I speak as the parent of an 11 year old who is vile when he is tired.

Good

She can come and sort out Dd, and I can pay her in smarties

I think she means older children MsPheet but you could always ask her . I think we are talking stroppy teenagers and older children who don't have a bedtime/enough sleep.

I disagree. I don't know anyone, including myself, who let their dc "stay up too late, allowing them to get up in the night for snack or attention, and tolerating them sleeping in their own double beds or around the house."

Me neither actually Catching but I am sure there are people that do.I have to confess to letting bedtimes slide a bit in the school holidays but once they are in bed they are in bed asleep.

Damn

Sodding teens

I'm unclear, does she mean letting children sleep in the parents' bed, or giving a child a double bed rather than a single is wrong?

Dr Tanya is fab.

Is DD not sleeping well at the moment McPheet?

I don't have teenage children but I was constantly exhausted as a teenager and was also pretty miserable! I also ate loads of sweets often even for breakfast. My mum was pretty great in lots of ways but not when it came to food or discipline. DH + I are trying to make sure our son gets lots of sleep + eats well as we do think these are really important for physical and mental health. But as he's only 19 months old it's not so tricky yet!

She can come and sort out DS2 then.

It's easy for her to say you need to sort it out, but how?!

I read it as sleeping in the parents' double beds?

Nope

I have a newborn again, who wants to feed through the night

I have a 4yr old who thinks she's a teenager - does that count?
And I've been up with her since 4.30am
Apparently there's something "in her curtains".

I would like her to teach me how to get DD to sleep in past 6 am. That is what causes her to be grumpy,coven though she goes to bed at a sensible time.

Looks like there is a TV programme Here so all will be explained.

both my children are rubbish sleepers, DS has always woken up around 5am if not earlier - he has probably slept later than 6.30 once in his life (he's 5), DD is slightly better but then she has co slept for most of her almost three years - just so we could get some sleep and remain sane.

so im probably to blame then. well thats lovely and she is more than welcome to come and try to get DS to sleep longer, because we dont know what else to try with him. even starting school has had no effect. once he's awake he's awake. and yes by the end of the day he is as grumpy as hell!

as it was, i didnt sleep as a younger child either my mum actually took me to GP who prescribed sedatives so its probably karma (or hereditary)

You can send a child to their room, but you cannot make them sleep!

I think it's true that DC are exhausted. But let's not blame parents exclusively. The pressure to be busy/productive all the time is leading to parents being chronically over-extended and therefore unable to manage their families as they know they should.

Quite a lot of people end up co sleeping with older children, even if it's just for part of the night, just to enable everybody to get some rest. I for one will be watching with interest.

I think she's talking more about bedtime than rising time is she? My DS never ever slept beyond 6am with 5am being his waking time of preference. The one time he slept till 7 we were convinced he'd died in the night. And even now as a young adult he rarely sleeps much after 9am even after a night out. Strange boy.

Short of turning the electricity off and hiding all books, ipods, phones and locking up my kindle You are not going to get DD1 to sleep.

Even then she'll probably be drawing or knitting by moon light.

I thought she means little children getting up for snacks/attention and teens staying up too late on FB/texting etc.

I feel dreadful about my older DC - since she was 14ish she just won't go to sleep at a reasonable time even when she acknowledges that she's tired. The obvious solution would be to take her phone and laptop away after 10pm or whatever, DH and I managed this for a few weeks, but she slipped back into the habit of late-night FBing and now, short of wrestling her phone off her and having her rebel in some other way with potentially disastrous results I don't know what to do. She's doing quite well at school, but I'm sure she'd do better if she got more sleep. It's very frustrating. Also there's the teen body-clock change thing.

I'm sure Tanya Byron is right for children of all stages. I went to bed at 8pm till I was about 12. I don't think that's normal now.

Slow typing while everything is explained .

Dr B is right - she's fab.

I think it's very interesting and I do have a lot of respect for TB. Hopefully she will be the first to admit on the show that it isn't easy.

But if it's just a case of not sending your children to bed at an appropriate hour without electrical gadgets that's a start.

I know a few children/parents who have little or no boundaries when it comes to sleeping. Drives me insane, but I seethe silently.

My 2 DC are vile with little sleep.

The bit I didn't like was the fact she said every child should be sleeping through by 6 months. Neither of mine were, yet they sleep very happily all night in their beds by the time they were about 18months and have continued to do so.

I personally think 6 months is too early. Mine still fed in the night at that stage.

The fact that she found her own advice so hard to take is telling imo. It is not natural to be so draconian for such young babies.

For older children I agreed with every word.

I thought I may get flamed for calling DS2 'vile' Jax but he is when he's tired. Argumentative and shouty.

Sleep is magic, restorative. It's important to get children into good sleep habits from childhood (not new babies). With regular wake ups and bed times even in the holidays. It's so worth it to have an energised, non-combative adolescent around the house, however much they protest, its vital for a humans physical and mental well-being.

It would be fab if we could turn the light out and dc go to sleep instantly. I think we'd all be much calmer and happier. I would anyway!

Parents can encourage good sleeping habits - nothing too exciting before bed or a glass of milk and some toast if they are peckish before they wash and brush teeth.

Or to have a nice chat or story to clear the mind and think nice thoughts before sleep.

I do know parents that let their 8-10 yr old dc play Ds games in bed or to watch TV in their rooms until dc go to sleep. Some let dc come back downstairs and watch TV or eat late at night.

I've not experienced this desperation yet, so I can't really judge. But, I'd rather avoid those kinds of habits.

Your 'vile' when tired Ds sounds familiar Sparkling.

YY Eskino having a pre teen and a teen in the school holidays it's so tempting to let them go to bed whenever and get up whenever, but it is no good, and the behaviour does suffer. yes, a bit of a lie in and an hour later bedtime but I think mine would be nocturnal by given a choice.

Thanks Wow it really is the only way to describe it.

I agree with everything she said to be honest it is common sense really. It's not easy to develop those good sleep habits. We all do things when they are little to try and get them as settled as possible, when they are older it gets harder if they haven't been trained from early on... what she doesn't explain is how to get them into those good habits really.

Is that to get us to watch the programme MrsD?

I was a really bad sleeper in my teenage years and I can see DS going the same way. He takes ages to drop off, in fact he had just got into a really good routine of getting to sleep at a fairly decent time, then had a sleepover at a friends house.. They watched a horror movie and he hasn't been able to settle properly since . I am bloody livid about it and he's been told he's not sleeping there again! A bunch of 12 year olds watching Japanese horror films till 4 in the morning??
He's just like I was, over active imagination, seeing and hearing normal things late at night and making them into the bogeyman poor kid...
I've taken to playing classical music upstairs at bedtime for him and the baby as a way of relaxing them both as she's not a great sleeper either.
Not sure if it's genetics or whether I'm passing my shit sleeping habits onto them (I have bouts of inmsomnia).
TB is right and I will be watching the programme with desperation interest.

My two were in a great routine until they became teens. My family is a cautionary tale. However they're not too bad with most other things.

Up until last summer I was a full time youth worker for 24 years. Right up to leaving I worked with teenagers who were permanently knackered. There was little structure to their lives and they pleased themselves what time they went to bed and got up. School and college attendance was erratic.
I had a colleague whose child was exactly the same age as mine (6) and she complained that she (the colleague) was constantly shattered. It turned out that the child got up every single night at about 2.am and my colleague would go downstairs with her and feet her toys out and watch a DVD and make her a snack. In other words it was like the middle of the afternoon. The child didn't have SEN, it was solely learned behaviour. It took a lot of intervention and perseverance to break a 6 year pattern but it was done. The colleague said she did it because 'Emily' liked getting up and playing and wouldn't settle unless she had seen the Tweenies ( or whatever it was)
I am agreeing wit Tania Byron.

I do all the right things but ds still doesn't go to sleep within an hour or so of going to bed.

Seriously, wind down period, bath, snack, story, short period for him to look at a book on his own and then light out. Same routine every night.

But then, I was exactly the same. In fact far worse. My mum recalls coming up to bed when I was a baby and finding me wide awake staring at the ceiling (she had very strict sleep routines and so I went to bed at 6pm every night, the light was out and that was it as far as she was concerned until morning). Later on I'd play on my own in the dark, later than that I became a dab hand at reading by the crack of light from the bedroom door and, oh the bliss, when I finally got a bedside lamp...

Short of coshing him I'm not sure what I can do to get ds to sleep at a more socially acceptable time. He's not allowed any screens in his room but he'd find some way to pass the time within 4 bare walls tbh, and remembering, as I do, those long, lonely dark hours of trying and failing to sleep, I have plenty of sympathy.

I'll give her ds1. He needs very little sleep. His growth hormones are fine though.

I do think having TVs and computers etc in bedrooms is a bad idea.

Children need sleep and a decent bedtime

I appreciate not all children will sleep whatever you do, but I do see children up a lot later than I think is right and know of children who fall asleep with the tv on in their bedrooms or stay up gaming etc.

Sleepyhead I remember asking for a torch for Christmas one year and using it to read under the covers for hours when I should have been in bed but I got quite used to being able to read by the landing light (and listening for footsteps coming upstairs )

Hmm... I think she's right about some children being exhausted. I help out sometimes in DS's school (he's yr2) and there are definitely some children who are tired and yawning and generally unable to concentrate.

However, I think an expectation of sleeping through when babies are 6 months is unrealistic. Some will, but many don't. Both mine were still feeding at night at that stage. We didn't want to do sleep training so did co-sleep at times. Also sat with them until they fell asleep (did a gradual retreat). DS was sleeping through by 2 yrs, his younger sister nearer 3 yrs. They are 6 and 4 now and sleep really well, and are usually happy to go to bed when we tell them (which is still about 7pm)

Bedtime (at 14) is 9 on school nights; 10 at weekends, or DS is grumpy. He doesn't go to sleep straight away though, and leaves his audiobook on all night. He knows The Hobbit by heart now so doesn't listen any more.

I have seen on Ds1's FB page (he is nearly 14). It's nine o'clock in the morning and some of them have posted '8 hours ago'. They must be shattered when they get up for school.

Smug alert: DH & I put a lot of effort into getting our babies/toddlers/8 & 6 year olds into 'good' sleep habits and it's paid off. We are better parents and they are better kids if we all get enough rest.

Some of our friends with kids the same age honestly did n't put the same effort in, eg. we went home to put the kids to bed, they stayed late at the BBQ/wedding/beach.
Co-sleeping with a baby is lovely but a friend is still playing musical beds with an 8 & 6 year old, each night she makes an exhausted short term decision to let it continue.

This subject came up recently and according to my friends we are lucky to have good sleepers rather than the result of consistently banning screens early/late and curtailing our social lives for a few years. Like everyone my kids are happy and good natured on 12 hours sleep , some of there friends are often randomly vile which if you ask means they were up till 10 and have been watching TV since 6 am.

I don't call my friends on them rewriting history but then I've had a good nights sleep. [smug grin]

Good for Dr B,

If young children should generally be in bed and asleep by, say, 7.00 if rising at that time, that sounds reasonable and sensible.. until you find yourself in a situation where you as a parent have to commute an hour or more after work to pick said child up by 6, get home by 6.15 and cook, feed, wash and get ready a number of children for bed.

I am on mat leave at the moment and everything is going swimmingly precisely because I can have dinner at 5.30 or 6 at latest; we are all eating together as a family, then 5 minutes quiet play, bath, book and bed.

I know that 8 is too late, but even with time saving measures like slow cooked meals and things like that it is a major rush to try and have children calmed down and ready for sleep at 7 when you are working. I'd love a job within ten minutes of home where I was picking the kids up at 3 or 4 but we all know they are rarer than hen's teeth.

I think parents are continually blamed for broad issues with our culture such as working life revolving around the idea that children either need no care or are having it provided by one parent at home when this is not actually the case.

I co-sleep with my 4 year old by choice, neither of us is tired. Well, I am, but that's because I stay up late and play with the internet.

My kids are in bed by 8pm, DS1 has HFA and doesn't sleep until after midnight but he is damn well in bed. DD protests the 8pm thing, but she's 9, I'll start going later with her soon.

I've never gone home early from a party to get them to bed though, and in the summer holidays bedtime is more like 10pm (DS2 earlier) and we sleep in in the morning. We are all owls!

working9while5: "I think parents are continually blamed for broad issues with our culture such as working life revolving around the idea that children either need no care or are having it provided by one parent at home when this is not actually the case. "

YES YES YES YES SO YES!!!

(I agree with this by the way, in case you couldn't tell)

The one thing that absolutely needs time and cannot be replaced in a less time-hungry way is sleep. And it is so important. For everyone. And our culture does not respect this. And it is not parents' fault.

We got ours into a routine of bath, story and bed by 7.30 before they were a year old. We were very lucky in the fact that they slept through until at least 7.00am.

DS1(18) now doesn't need as much sleep as DS2 and can go to bed later. DS2 (16) is very good about recognising that he is tired and won't stay up for the sake of it. At least once a week he goes to bed around 8/8.30 rather than become overtired.

I actually love Dr Tanya

My DDs definetely behave worse for lack of sleep, one always has, and they are now at the stage where chatting all night is much better than sleeping. We turn the Internet off even though they don't have FB or anything similar, yet as DD1 woud spend all night on YouTube. She has said she'll turn every switch on until she finds the right one, when she does that I'll change the password. I am more relaxed during school holidays.

I don't know about DD but I'm fucking knackered.

Just a quick point.

Are humans supposed to sleep all through the night? Or is this a modern thing?

BBC article on the myth of sleep

guardian follow up on the bbc article

Personally the above is pretty much the way I sleep naturally. I very rarely sleep more than 4 hours in one block.

If we accept this theory as a possibility, then maybe it helps to understand how children might sleep. Then, you begin to question whether 'teaching children to sleep' something that is actually possible in a lot of children, if they are naturally designed to sleep in a different way.

I feel you, nightmarespoon.

My almost five year old has lights out each night at about 6.20pm. If I didn't put her to bed at this time, her behaviour would be awful. My seven year old who is eight in two months goes to bed and has lights out at 7pm. I'm not planning on changing that when she turns eight.

I think TB is right.

Flobba - random suggestion for your DS - a nightlight/landing light on until you go up to bed. I too had an over active imagination and hated going to sleep in the dark. My parents bought an energy saving lightbulb for the light outside my room and I would leave it burning until my parents came to bed.

Im struggling with DS atm (17months). He can and has slept through but since Jan is permanently ill and/or teething. He often ends up in bed with me and DH goes in DS' bed. After 17 months of horrendous sleeping from DS I havent the energy to keep getting up to him in the night (the cold weather isnt helping!)

Oh ad me again flobba - i stil always sleep with the bedroom door open - a claustrophobic thing

Really agree with PP about work. DS goes to bed at 8.30pm at best (17 months old). We try earlier but I don't get home til 7.30 and he just wont be put to bed by his grandparents or accept anything less than 1 hour of cuddles with me.

So he still naps 2-3 hours in the day. Not ideal but very standard here in France.

Working I couldn't agree more! A very valid point imo. My children are all quite little (6, 3 and 10 weeks). They all, including the baby have a bedtime routine and ( at the moment - I'm under no illusions that this will always be the case) they are all good sleepers. I'm vile (word of the thread?) if I haven't had enough sleep, so God knows how children cope. This subject is being discussed on Radio London at the moment. One Mum made the very good point that some children have so much homework that they're unable to get to bed before 9 or 10 at night. I think her son was about 9. Links in with the point made by Working, I think.

does she really say that babies should sleep through by 6 months? and no to bedsharing?

oh dear.

I'd be sorry to have to add TB to the pile of "people who haven't a clue".
I thought she was sensible.

I agree with what she says but I think w9w5 has a very good point about the expectations and pressures of modern life.

The only thing I'm unsure of is the cosleeping thing, we did this a lot in the baby phase and now at 3 and 5 they still come in to us if unwell or if they've had a nightmare. Due to my unhappy upbringing I do not want my DCs sitting in bed feeling scared and alone. No way. I do sometimes wonder if we are causing problems down the line but they do generally sleep very well (7pm-7am) apart from the odd phase if they get a bug.

Nicolaeus we do have a nightlight at the top of the stairs, a bit of a hangover from my sleep issues but the overriding memory of the girl in The Grudge is not helping!
I have to have the door open too, caused no end of ructions for a while as DH struggled to sleep without a closed door and total darkness. He is irritatingly settled at nights...
It's me isn't it, I have passed on my slepping problems to at least one of my children. Bugger.

My DS aged 21 months goes to bed at 7.30 wakes up at 7.30 and has a two hour nap in the day, my DD aged 6 months is a nightmare and I struggle with her routine because, I'm busy dealing with her brother and she is EBF on demand has always been quite little and co-sleeps at the moment so I've indulged her.

Any ideas on how to break the vicious cycle and get her to go down when her brother goes down would be appreciated. She'll go to sleep in the bed with ius when we have stories but wakes the second I move her. He was always easier to put down (he had a diary allergy so I stopped BF at 4 months because I couldn't live diary free any longer) and I think the bottle made it easier. Sometimes she stays up till midnight often and only has two naps during the day. I'm exhausted.

verylittlecarrot - yes she does. It annoyed me too. I think it is rubbish for such little ones, and ignores all the benefits of co-sleeping and breastfeeding.

The fact that she was sobbing over her 10month old baby awake in the night whilst her husband read her own leaflet on how to get your child to sleep indicates to me that the advice isn't that helpful.

I do think the advice for older children seems sounds though.

She can come sort my 10 yo DS out then!!

It's true....ds always been a shit sleeper......dh and I are probably to blame but how to fix..that is the question!!!

I didn't co-sleep because DD wouldn't have it, but how does co-sleeping have a negative impact on kids' sleep? Surely they still sleep, but they happen to be doing it in a bed with someone else?

and bedtime is my worst time of the day.... My DH is not around at that time and it's just me grappling with the pair of them

I am not allowing DD age 7 to be awake during the night, she just is.

I do allow her to come downstairs to watch TV. This is in the hope that some of us can sleep. I never do once I know she is awake though and often end up downstairs with her.

We are trying to get a diagnosis of ADHD though and will be looking at meds to help.

DS just wanders in to me and goes straight back to sleep, so he is no problem.

I agree with the comments about the working culture making it harder

I can just get DS into bed for 7:30pm after finishing work, picking him up from nursery, cooking dinner, feeding him, bathing him, bottle and story.

It doesn't leave much of a margin for quality time.

I think TB is talking about older children though, but even then, throw in some extra-curricular activities and homework and you must really be against the clock to get them in bedfor a decent time

Zola I would have thought there would be more sleep disturbance/wriggling to get comfortable etc unless the parents have a massive bed.

sparkling a 13 year old boy with little sleep is not a pleasure to be around. Neither is a 9yo girl... I know how I feel on little sleep, so expecting kids to be different isnt on my list of happy things.

I know some children dont require much sleep, but mine need a good 9 hours - always have!

I dont think every baby should sleep through at 6 months, lovely if they do though.

Tell me what to do dr Tanya. Maybe I should shit the door and pretend I cant hear my 18 month old teething DD in the night, or let her cry to sleep? She goes to bed early but still wakes up at night. i thought it was normal at that age?

SHUT, SHUT, SHUT THE DOOR.

We seem to have drifted into co-sleeping. I have bought my DS a new bed - a small double - so at least we are now comfortable. My DS sleeps like a dream when there is someone next to him...on his own in the room and he will call out every single hour!

Mamma it sounds like if she is watching TV in the night, it has turned into a real habit thing TV must make it harder to drop back off to sleep bc of the light being emitted etc.

My now almost 6 year old DS2 co-slept for about 3 years between 2 and 5. It had very little to do with "teaching him bad habits" given that he'd slept independently for 2 years and I had not co-slept with him as a baby (and I don't actually agree that co-sleeping in young children is a bad habit, or undesirable as long as all parties are able to sleep and are happy with the arrangement).

It had everything to do with some pretty big emotional issues (a bad case of chicken pox, followed almost immediately by a new baby, then a parental split, house move, change of childcare, his dad moving away, another house move) that he had no way of verbalising. His way of dealing with it was to be close to me at night, and I don't think I was wrong to allow him that - especially given that the alternative was that neither of us slept which wasn't an option in all honesty. He sleeps mostly independently now, unless something's wrong or he's ill.

I tend to do staggered bedtimes with mine, DD (3.5) goes up at 7 and after teeth and stories is usually asleep by 7.30, DS2 goes at 7.30 and is asleep by 8, DS1 (9) goes at 8 and is allowed to read in bed, he's generally asleep by 8.30. They all listen to music after reading which seems to stop them getting distracted by siblings going to bed. DS1 gets up at 6, no matter how late he goes to bed. If he goes to bed earlier, he wakes up even earlier.

I once saw her trying (and failing) to control her own kids outside the London Palladium.

I really don't agree with her views on co-sleeping. If you live in an ancient drafty house like mine, the whole family tends to snuggle together at night for warmth.

She's the first to admit to not being the PERFECT parent though.

As a rule I really like Tanya but saying babies 'should' sleep through by 6 months....

I'd missed the bit about sleeping through from six months - hmm, I don't agree with that. Good if they do, but actually my DD slept through early (she was mix fed and had a bottle last thing) whereas DS was EBF and in our bed over a year longer than DD was... But as toddlers DS was the much better sleeper! He was an angel as soon as we moved him into DD's room just before he turned 2. DD was much harder to settle at that age.

I'm horrendous if I lose sleep over a few nights, children will be the same. So I agree a good sleep routine is very important. I've got 4 very good sleepers. I firmly believe it's how we teach them to sleep when they're young. I also understand though that some are more natural sleepers than others so will take to the sleep routine easier than others. I'm very careful with sleep threads as mn's were pretty horrible to me a few years ago when I posted about training/teaching a baby to sleep. Good luck all in helping your lo's to get a good nights sleep

Optimistic yes - my mother, who made disapproving noises about how we were dealing with sleep seems to have conveniently forgotten how she dealt with her own DC3.

My little brother was 2.5yrs when we moved house. Up til then he'd happily slept in his own bed. Moving house (and some medical issues at the time) completely turned his world upside down and he spent about a year waking in the night and going to sleep in my parents bed.

I think she probably talks a lot of sense but the theory is easier than the practice?

I do have some friends that claim to have a terrible sleeper despite having a strict bedtime routine. However, when you chat to them the children stay up late on a Friday and a Saturday (because it's the weekend) and they have clubs until 6:30pm two nights a week so are late on those nights too.

The "strict 7pm bedtime routine" is therefore only three nights a week and I'm not really surprised that their DC struggle to sleep on the early nights.

Saying that, I was always the other extreme and was the one that was obsessive about DS's bedtime and wouldn't go to any event for years if it meant he would be late to bed

I am pretty evangelical about no screens in bedrooms. I went through years as a teen of needing a VHS DVD on ALL night to sleep. It was the only way I could distract myself from the thoughts I had (self harming/abuse/breakdown etc).

It took hard work to get out of that rut and I am determined to keep screens out of my DCs' rooms as long as possible. Lit screens interfere with melatonin production, so we don't have a TV in our room either.

I have CFS/ME now, and a very common symptom of that is sleep problems, but I think thanks to being obsessed with 'sleep hygiene' it is the least troublesome of my symptoms.

i've been the teen who sleeps all hours and is allowed snacks through the night and tv - dont do it!! be strict as heck with them - i'm now mid twenties and am a rubbish sleeper, have no basic routine and fall asleep randomly throughout the day pretty much anywhere i can although it may well be caused by pregnancy just now.. still, it's horrid.

my 5yr old still sleeps with me

I am not sure about the co sleeping. I would imagine if both parent and child are getting decent sleep that's ok if it's a short term thing?

Satine5, that's what my mum did. She shut the door. I learned not to cry. Didn't make me fall asleep any sooner, but mum & dad got their post-6pm "adult time" and a civilised dinner. So that was nice.

This applies to older children I think - of course no child should be up late watching TV, playing computer games, or on social media or the internet - that is pretty much obvious. I used to teach secondary school, and it obviously required no great amount of insight to notice that the 11 year olds who were discussing what happened on CSI last night were also the ones with reading ages years below their actual age, concentration problems, bags under their eyes etc. more frequently than random chance would have dictated

However those who are smug because they have toddlers who sleep well make me cross - I have a set routine in the eve, don't keep my children up late etc. but my toddler is an absolute nightmare sleeper. I have 2 older children who sleep brilliantly. They have all been treated the same.

People who smugly take credit for their children's sleep may have done things right, but it is not all down to them - there is a huge dollop of luck/ temperament of child in the mix.

For a smug parent to statistically prove their brilliant parenting and wonderful routine led to their children's good sleep habits you would require them to have a very large number of children - more than is biologically possible.

I have no patience for people who think they've got it right because they are lucky with their 2 or 3 (or even several) children, even though of course I concede that there are some obvious things (like letting children have TVs and computer games on in their rooms without restriction at night or not having a bedtime at all) that can mess up a potentially "good" sleeper, I contest that anyone's perfect routines and consistency would get a child who is going to be a "bad" sleeper sleeping 12 hours in toddlerdom.

With older children, the peer presure thing kicks in too. My dd1 (8) has a 7 o'clock bedtime. She's allowed to read until 7.45pm then lights out and sleep. She needs her sleep, so needs to be in bed at this time. She wakes naturally around 6.30-7 so no problem in the morning. The issue though is that she wants to be able to stay up later because her friends do. I am forever hearing "x goes to sleep at 9 o'clock everyday", or "y stayed up to midnight at the weekend".

I told dd that she didn't need to mention to her friends that she goes to bed at 7 if she didn't want to, but that her bed time wasn't getting any later! She even had to give up an after school sports club because they wanted her to do extra hours which would have meant 8.30 earliest bed time twice a week. To me, sleep was more important.

Apologies if someone has already pointed this out, but as dc get older, extra curricular activities tend to assume that they'll stay up way beyond what I (and I think plenty of others) would consider a 'sensible' bedtime.

So dd is 10 nearly 11, her regular bedtime is 8.30 with lights out by 8.45 at the latest. Yet her sea cadets unit junior session time (so all under 12) doesn't finish til 8.30 - and if she went to the main session as well (to be fair a lot of the juniors don't) it doesn't finish til 9.15.

A couple of weeks back the juniors went on an outing on a Monday school night where they weren't even expected back til 9.30. Luckily dd wasn't bothered about missing it, because I know that if she was that late to bed at the start of the week, it would just mess her up for several days.

DSs both play football. DS2's training is 7.30 to 8.30 on a Thursday night. He gets in about 8.45 and is not ready to go to bed, he has to wind down. It bugs me.

Also DS1 has training 9-10pm, but that's on a Friday night fortunately.

Sorry, x post with runoutofideas.

It did help dd to know that her babysitters 14 y/o sister also goes to bed at 8.30, even though she isn't allowed to tell anyone else!

I have 3 dc. They are all different and their need for sleep and their sleep patterns reflect that.
Dc2 needs more sleep than the others; but he his much more active than the other 2.

I don't know sparklingbrook. It started when he was a baby because I was feeding him but has carried on and I have so many issues around bedtime routine with my other child I don't think I have been strict enough with him <sniff> and I really don't get near enough sleep anyway <gets out tiny violin>

Does your other child sleep in their own bed Owl?

DD1 gets to sleep absolutely fine, around 7pm, she is 3.5. But she will often get up in the night and come into our bed. And frankly rather than keep getting up and putting her back I would rather get some sleep myself. Its not just kids who don't function well on little/disturbed sleep!

DD2 is a pain to get to sleep, she is 2, she will go at about 8pm when she has fallen asleep on me in front of the telly. She does not nap in the day (if she naps she will go to bed at 10pm!). But once asleep will sleep until 7am in her own bed.

DD2 is noisy and disturbs her sister when I try to get them to bed at the same time.

I was a pain to put to bed and got up in the night and didn't sleep through til I started school so I guess it is my come-uppance!

yes, both the other two sleep fine and in their own beds
The 13 yo has severe learning disabilities, autism and seizure disorder though and everything has to be within the routine otherwise she will not sleep. The 11yo is fine and will go up by himself and read. But the youngest is awful and I feel on eggshells trying to keep him quiet so he doesn't wake the other two - shares with the 11yo - but mainly the eldest with sn. I feel like I am stuck in a viscous circle with it all tbh

I wonder where she gets this info from, yes there are people who do this but I don't think it is widespread at all.
Most people I know have never let a child into their bed, its considered the one place that is free from dc.
As for bedtime all dc are different. There was a girl at dds old school when y3 couldn't sleep until 10.30. She was G&T and extremely bright, just didn't need much sleep. There were others who needed to be in bed at 7pm, most parents know their own children's body clocks.
I am pretty lax with bed time myself to fit in with what dd is doing as she needs to be still performing at 10pm sometimes.
It depends on how your life works, no two families are the same.

Owl that does sound very difficult, you both need sleep as do your other DC. Don't beat yourself up about it.

I have DS age 17 and 15. When they were younger I was ruthless about bedtimes and sleep routines mainly because they were evil when they didn't have enough sleep.
Eventually though it becomes necessary to back off and let them make their own decisions.
In our house the end result is that DS1 will get to bed about 11 on school nights but at weekends and holidays he keeps ridiculous hours. It was 4am when he went to bed on Saturday.
There has been a lot of research suggesting that teenagers sleep patterns are actually different. This is a really good article on teenager's sleep.

I've never been too convinced about the appliance of science: too much of it disagrees with the rest of it IMO. I've tried all the usual cures with 11 yo DD but to no avail, she's just as crap at it as me. I don't let her have any screens in her room (if I ever find any in there, I confiscate them), she has a set bedtime and I send her up about 30 mins before I expect her to turn her light out, but most nights she'll come back down claiming to be unable to sleep. Me cuddling her off invariably works, but is hard on me if it goes on too long and ain't great for the relationship with DH, which worries me a lot. Trouble is, I was in and out of hospital as a kid and hardly slept at all before my teens. They took my mum and me into hospital for a while once, her for a rest and me to find out just how many drugs it took to knock me out! That was the answer for years, so I'm only just trying to learn how to do it without myself cos don't want her to take pills for it too - they don't work longterm anyway. Will watch the show: if it doesn't annoy me too much, I reckon I could learn something.

Some children just can't sleep, even though they need sleep. I'd love her to sort out DS2 who is perpetually grey with exhaustion. He has had a bedtime routine from the age of 1, including warm bath, small healthy snack and drink, story time, quiet time, lights out. No screens in his room or at any point in the two hours before bed. But he still lies awake from 9pm to 11pm and then has to be shovelled out of bed whimpering in the morning. We took him to the doctor who admitted she too was stumped.
He finds it hard to concentrate in class, but because he's quite bright, he keeps up easily. Pretty concerned about secondary school when he really will have to concentrate and stay focused to keep up.

My preteen and teen go to sleep far too late. But they get up ok for school and are both doing well. Aren't stroppy. The both eat very well as I make mostly homemade and they like fruit and veg. DS1 has started napping in his own room. He's 15 so needs plenty of sleep. DS2 is 12 and has boundless energy but isn't hyper.

I think we're all different. I slept as much as I could when that age.

racingheart does your ds2 take any multi vits? They've helped ds1. I know he's older but he was tired a lot for a wee while. Although he doesn't get enough fresh air. Does ds2 get outside much?

My children are appalling at getting off to sleep, neither can get off without an adult in the vicinity, drives me bonkers, I am going to get on top of this next school holidays. They are 6 & 8, and I think , bath, story, kiss & cuddle, then sleep, should do it. With adult going downstairs, is reasonable? Or am I harsh??

I totally disagree with strict bedtimes.
We are a late family, we work late, eat dinner late and that is just the way it is, if kids are tired they take a nap. I think there is too much pressure on parents to have perfect sleeping children...some are good sleepers, some are not.

I also think my kids are super adaptable. They travel great, sleep anywhere (friends sofa or bed if we are at a dinner party) and its because we don't have some strict routine...if they don't get a story or bath or whatever one night, oh well, they still manage to sleep...if they are a bit tired after a wedding so be it, we all enjoyed ourselves. My friends that kill themselves over the sleep are just unhappy.

Satine5 was not advising anyone to just shut the door so they cant hear the baby crying, she had written '..shit the door', so was correcting herself.

oh goody
another reason why we are crap parents

My two children (daughter aged 4 and son coming up for 3) go to bed around 9pm - 9.15pm each night
They go to nursery 4 days per week whilst I work. it all started when my son started at nursery at 6 months and the girls who looked after him always commented on a what a dream he was to look after because he slept so much during the day only to keep me up late into the evening because he was not tired. No point in telling the girls to keep him awake - why would they when there was one less demanding child because he was sleeping? Since then it is a kind of habit now - upside is my husband gets to see them for some milk in front of a quick cartoon (assuming he is not so grumpy and short tempered that he cannot be bothered with having them on his knee for a few minutes) and i get to read to them both whilst they are having their bath - but basically my husband (and more vocally my mother in law) expressed their horror at what a crap and awful mother i was letting them go to bed at 9pm. I would like them into bed earlier because i know they need their sleep and they get up relatively late (7.30am ish) which won't work when they start at school because they will have to be up earlier. However i also feel slightly emotional that if i put them into bed at 7pm i will only get to seem them for a very rushed 45mins - 1hour when i get them back from work. all in all I know they need more sleep - (my son still has a nap at nursery but my daughter does not) but they nursery routine and my working day hours added to the fact that I am crap - have made it difficult.

I know plenty of parents who are like that. One friend lets her son have his afternoon nap at 5pm then wonders why he stays up till 10pm and wakes up tired for nursery. She's 'tried' getting him down at 8 every night but its hard because they are out for meals or visiting or shopping. I feel so sorry for him when he is being told off again for something that he probably wouldn't do if he'd had a good kip.

That said, my DS has slept through since 6 months and never wakes. Hes down at 7pm everynight and we have always had a consistent routine and guess what : he can be a little terror too. Not all behaviour's are sleep related! Kids just act up sometimes because they are kids!

I initially read her and agreed. Until I saw what she said about younger children. Apparently they should be sleeping 7-7 by six months and if they aren't you do controlled crying. That just isn't what I believe (for example, neither of my two have ever been ready for bed at 7, they like closer to 8. And I think six months is way too young for cc for me), and it made me question everything else she said.

I have always been strict about bedtimes but that is mainly because I need my sleep and cannot function on a small amount like other people can. I have to sleep at least 8 hours a night otherwise I cannot cope with functioning on caring for DC during the day. For me it is so important from early on that they learn to sleep and go to bed at a sensible time. My two go to sleep at 6.30pm (2yo) and 7pm (5yo) respectively.

Having just spent the weekend with my brother and sister and their children, I am resolved to be strict about bedtimes with my DC until they get to an age where they qualify as adult company (around 16). My Neice aged 11 was allowed to stay up until 10pm hence my nephew (her cousin, not her brother) who is also 11 was also allowed to stay up til 10 because it wasn't fair to treat them differently when all together. I go to bed shortly after 10 myself as DS wakes at 6.30. As a result the adults had absolutely no time to relax and talk about grown up things as there were children in the room and they were getting quite a lot of attention. It got on my nerves.

you dont need to be taught to sleep its natural bodily function.my kids havnt got bedtimes and never had,they go to bed when they are tired which is between 6 and 9 pm depending on what they have been doing,kids only stay up as late as possible when they have previously had bedtimes.

Of course 6 months is too young for controlled crying, and of course it is not clear whether it has negative affects on the children later, and anyway doesn't "work" for all children even if you do use it.

IronBru nothing personal but your comment hits a nerve - I know so many people who say that if I mention how many times a night my nearly 2 year old wakes - they imply that because they need sleep no child of their would wake frequently at night, and that as mine does that means I (not my child, but me) don't need much sleep do you think those of us with non sleepers are more able to function on very disrupted sleep than you? Do you think parents with toddlers who don't sleep don'T have bedtimes and bedtime routines? Do you think we "let" them wake frequently because it doesn't actually matter for us? Of course not! But we have to! You cannot actually make children sleep, you can chose not to parent at night, you can leave them to scream while you roll over with your ear plus in, but if you are not inclined to go to those lengths and you have a child who, despite everything, wakes 6 times a night, you get up - and you may not be happy about it, but you don't "need" 8 hours any more than the parents who are surviving on 5 hours scraped together separately.

I think she is quite clear that some children need to be taught how to sleep. It is as much for their good as the parents and it has to be done young to work.

However controlled crying is now out of vogue so lots of children are sleep deprived, its not fair on them really

That should have been we have to cope ! Sleep deprived, you see

6 months is not too young for controlled crying

Its not fair on them to leave them to scream mind ? For increasing intervals, if you've got a child its not going to work for, that will just continue to build up? I tried it with my eldest. 4 hours before I gave up. My friend's DD fitted when she tried it. Lunacy. Its a bit of a catch 22 because if it worked for you, you think its the cure and those who don't do it are fools, you need a child it hasn't worked for to know it isn't magic. It is also traumatic for the child unless they give in easy...

Sleep just clicked for my eldest when she turned 2, before that she wasn't terrible but didn't sleep through - and she has slept 11 hours solidly ever since. I didn't teach her. She must be a genius

any age is too young for cc imo.i completely disagree with it.

You cannot compel a child to sleep ( or eat,or revise). You can provide all the necessary supports but children are individuals in the same way as adults.

Most parents try their best most of the time and I am a bit hacked off about parents being blamed by "experts" for all the ills of society.

Right,I feel better now.

Mindosa - if your original post was answering me, I said that for me six months was too young. I was trying to be diplomatic. TBH, I am anti-cc at any age.

But my original point wasn't really about the pros or cons of CC. It was the fact that Tanya Brydon said if your child wasn't sleeping 12 hours at six months, CC is what you do. Not that it's one of your options. Not that some children learn to sleep a little later than others. That's what you do. Situation X, do Y. I don't believe being that rigid works in any aspect of parenting a young child, but especially sleep.

I think like all child rearing advice and studies it's just food for thought TBH. Nobody can be accused of being a bad parent if they are doing what's right for their set of circumstances and everyone is getting sleep surely?

There are options.

This thread struck a nerve with me as I have an 8 yr old SS. He spends Sat nights with his mother & is allowed to stay up until 10.30+. Me & his dad then pick him up Sunday morning & have a tired, grumpy, horrible child to deal with. He fell asleep in the car the other weekend on the Sunday morning. That is unfair to both SS & DP. Mind you DP also used to let him in bed with him as they used to fall asleep watching DVDs until I came along so they are both as bad as each other really. Also, there's a reason why there is a 9pm watershed on TV - if you don't want your child to see anything they shouldn't then they should be in bed by then.

That article has really put me off Tanya Byron because of the controlled crying issue. As AmandaP says, she doesn't give it as one of many options or as a last resort, she gives it as the first choice. She seems to have a very poor understanding of physiologically normal baby sleep if she thinks categorically all babies should be sleeping through by 6 months. I suppose it just demonstrates to me that even experts frequently disagree - there will be many other child psychologists, equally well qualified, who wouldn't advocate controlled crying - so in the end you just have to take what advice works for you and your family and ignore the rest.

I have an 11 year old who is also vile when tired OP.

I have brought his bedtime forward by at least half an hour and not only is he falling asleep so clearly needs the extra kip but he is much nicer to live with!

freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2013/03/10/owls-and-larks-the-importance-of-sleep-chronotypes/

I'm slightly less owlish nowadays, but til I was 45 ish I could neverget up early. Huge disadvantage in life.

at the vile pre-teens valium. It does make a big difference when they get enough sleep.

I do think regarding older children it should be obvious to parents when they aren't getting enough sleep, it's all in the eyes.

Re babies it's been a long time, but whatever gets you through TBH. Both DSs were in bed with us because we wanted. some. sleep.

I do think this is a problem, and parents do have a responsibility to make sure their children get enough sleep. Some people do have to be taught good sleep practice, even some adults. The current trend against CC is unhelpful, because it gives the impression that any kind of sleep training for babies is wrong, and that babies will learn to get adequate sleep, by themselves. This isn't true for all children.

Some of the theories about why CC is potentially damaging for babies do not hold water. The stuff about raised cortisol levels proves nothing. We don't know when else a baby has raised cortisol. Does a tired, fractious baby who is being held by a parent have low cortisol, or is it still raised because they are upset? We just dont know because the studies have never been done. Leaving a baby in daycare causes raised cortisol levels for an extended period of time, eg weeks. Nobody uses this argument against daycare. There is no evidence that raised cortisol causes harm in the long term anyway. We know that lack of adequate sleep does though.

CC is rarely as horrific as many make out.

For my DC it was 1 or 2 nights at less than an hour each time and then maybe a couple of minutes for a few more days and then settled sleep.

I believe that to be better for them and the more responsible thing than allowing a cycle of poor sleep to develop.

But do you believe that that is how a parent should treat a sleep problem. Do you not believe that a parent has the right to choose the option that they feel is right for them and their child?

Part of the reason I am anti CC is because we tried with DD1. It was horrific. It wasn't less than an hour, that's all I can really bear to say. I swore never, ever again. Parents need to choose. And any expert who says their way is the only way is, IMO, being vain and unrealistic.

Mine were great sleepers until they were just over two. I tried one of the Tanya Byron House of Tiny Tearaways methods with DD1 which was to return her to her room repeatedly and say "Night night" but after an hour of hysterical screaming it was far easier to sit with her for five or ten minutes until she goes to sleep.

Hmm I am a bit dubious about the TV show, I though Tanya Byron decided she wasn't going to make tv programmes about parenting anymore as it caused more harm than good.

I'm convinced the bedtime thing us true. I try to have mine in bed at 7 most night but busy working family lifestyle does make that tricky at times. I can see how families struggle when everyone is tired.

There are also families who just don't care. We had to move as out neighbours children would be running around screaming at 1am long after I wanted to go to bed. They were all under 6 but one did go to school.

I think the aim for any method should be for everyone to get as much sleep as possible, other than drugging them surely anything is acceptable if those are the parameters. So for us, taking them into our bed didn't work as then the adults couldn't sleep. For other people co-sleeping works well. There is no law that says kids have to sleep alone or go to sleep on their own.

It's not the fact that cortisol is raised during stress as I understand it, it's that the levels drop and do not stay in the system causing (unknown) damage when the stressed baby is calmed by a loving parent attending to their needs.

Cc babies that learn not to cry and to "self soothe" do so out of despair, to them there is no point in crying because their needs (for comfort, for company, for affection) do not get them attention. I thought this was common knowledge?

Amanda beyond love, educate and care for their child I dont believe a parent has to do anything specific but I do believe controlled crying would sort out a lot of sleep problems.

I also believe that whilst we have all gained so much more respect for children and they are treated so much better than lets say we or earlier generations were, I think we have lost a lot of parenting skills and we are doing our children no favours in the long run.

Eskino I think you are confusing a short spell of CC with long term neglect.

I do think she is right to highlight as an issue.
Some afterschool activities finish far too late and often involve dragging along a younger child for pick up time.

Nursery, work and commuting don't help.

You can stick your fingers in your ears , claim your kids are in a good routine but if they've been used to being entertained/ screen time / adult attention past a suitable o'clock then perhaps that's a good place to start before blaming genes.

For those who are currently weeping through sleep deprivation during those early years - it really does get easier, stick with it.

I tend to agree with her. It is hard to sort out a bad sleeper but with persistence it can be done.

I have one great sleeper and one terrible sleeper. Routine, gentle encouragement, tough love, tears and upset have been involved, but she is in a proper sleep routine. Some children need more or less sleep and it's upto parents to find that happy amount of sleep that they need. One of mine needs 12 - 13 hrs, the other 10 or 11. If you have to wake them up in the morning they are not getting enough sleep. I think the earlier you tackle it the easier it probably is. Ideally it needs to be sorted before they start school.

I have several friends who's DC are allowed to stay up late on a random basis and they are then surprised when they are struggling at school and playing up at home.

However, I do think there are some exceptions, a very few children do need more help and professionals need to be available to assist parents who are really struggling. I can think of one such child and the parents are just left to struggle on with it.

I think having to wake them up in the morning is a red herring. If they are very slow and nightmarish in the morning then maybe there is a sleep issue. I have to wake mine up and most mornings pretty soon they are full of the joys of spring. Unlike me.

Depends on the child...

DD stopped taking naps at around 6 months - so I just went out with her and if she decided to sleep she could do so in the sling or the pram... 90% of the time she decided not to.

She's now nearly 4 and goes to school from 9.00am to 3.15pm and then to an after-school nursery till 6pm.

By the time I have got home, made supper and had some time with her it's pretty much 8.00pm which is the earliest that DH comes home and he likes to spend some time with her in evenings as well.

If she goes to bed before 9pm she is guaranteed to be up again by midnight. If she goes to bed at 9.30/10.00pm then she'll sleep through till 8am with no problems.

We all co-sleep and have done since she was born - willingly and happily.

She has never done overtired and grumpy - and is non-stop go all day at school so I can't see any negative effects. Her teachers were a bit surprised but said that she must just be one of those people who doesn't need much sleep.

DH and I are both night owls and go to bed around 1am so it works for everyone.

An awful lot of our friends and relatives seem to get very upset that we don't have her in bed by 7pm, not sure why as it doesn't exactly affect them.

Agree with AmandaPayne on the cc and babies, esp the ridiculous notion there is a set age (and that that age is under 1 year) at which babies "should" sleep through. Also on the inappropriateness of the proscriptive "if X happens then do Y, Y only, no alternatives, no looking at why X is happening and considering the best options" approach of the article.

Mind just because something worked a certain way for you doesn't mean it would be like that for everyone else, if only they'd have good old fashioned common sense like you and not follow parenting "fashion".

If I only had my middle child then probably I'd be in the smug camp, patting myself on the back and rolling my eyes at the incompetent because my child slept through (from 9 months, not 6, but I think 9 months is pretty early for a breast fed baby). My eldest slept through from 2 and both my older 2 have slept very well indeed ever since then, but my youngest is another matter. My 3 have all been quite different, some people have 2 or 3 who's sleep is similar, it doesn't mean any of us can assume our approaches would work for other babies or families.

I often wonder why so many people think they have it sussed with sleep and can tell others that they are not being fair on their children if they don't follow the same method, this doesn't seem to happen with other areas of parenting. None of my children have ever been "bolters" / "runners" who run off at the first chance as toddlers - I know that this is simply luck, not down to my parenting genius, and if I told people who do have toddlers that run off that they need to do exactly as I do in order to teach their children to walk sensibly, and in failing to teach their children this by, say, 24 months old they are being unfair on their children, I would be not only wrong but also patronising and presumptuous... I do think the parallel extends to sleep.

My teenagers sleep just fine and often take themselves off at 9pm. Its me who has chrnic insomnia. I wish Dr Tanya would sort me out (in a non pervy way that is). I've tried everything!

Reading this though fog of exhaustion, after being up literally all night with my nearly 6 month old dd. She won't settle in cot but has now stopped co-sleeping as well, unless I am sitting upright holding her in my lap and feeding her every 20 mins (so not much 'co' in that situation!). Posted desperate thread on this in sleep!

TB's thoughts about babies sleeping through make me feel even more hopeless. I am tired enough to be contemplating cc, and I will find it hard to argue with my mother/m-in-law etc. etc. when they quote this at me as evidence that I should just leave her to cry. My grandmother sternly informs me that in her day babies 'just slept'. Am literally feeling sick with dread at another long night though, so perhaps I had better watch the programme...

I don't think waking them up in the morning is always relevant, as my non sleeping toddler is also awake under his own steam and bright and bouncy between 5.30 and 6am pretty much every day. He goes to bed at 7.30pm but takes anywhere from 10 minutes to 3 hours to fall asleep (in the dark, holding my hand) and wakes every 2 hours, if I am lucky, more if not.

You should be guided by your own child, and your own instincts. Some children certainly need less sleep than others - and have different waking and sleeping patterns (i.e. early to rise early to bed or the opposite), just as adults do.

My DS has always gone to bed late all his life, just as we his parents do too. It's just his pattern and he is healthy, happy and has always achieved exceptionally well at school.

Weary in her day babies did not just sleep, its just mothers were too embarrassed to admit theirs didn't, because it would make them look like incompetent mothers, so they struggled on as best they could with a fake smile and extra eye make up, just as they did if their husband was violent or they had Pnd or 100 other things that these days people are more often able to more open about and try to deal with.

Just picking up on what AmandaPayne said, does Tanya B really think they should be sleeping 12 hours flat at 6 months? I would have thought that was incompatible with breastfeeding for a start (well if mine were anything to go by) but I am a bit softy parent and I do think it has most probably been my sleep downfall

I've often wondered if routine loving parents have routine loving children who just conform instantly?

Having had the runner (so bad I had a tracking device as well as industrial reins and dog leads), the non-napper and child with the separation anxiety from hell, I have never had the chance to do smug parent yet. On the other hand, DD's lack of interest in sleeping does mean that we don't have to plan to be home by a certain time and haven't had to massively compromise the things we did pre-DC.

I think babies did just sleep back then actually. There wasn't much choice for mothers but to leave them, given the amount of work invoved in running a house without a washing machine an other modern inventions.
Obviously everyone born before about 1965 is emotionally deranged as a result...

it's my runner that will not sleep in his own bed

I am astounded by how many of my acquaintances are up in the night with four year olds for the most ridiculous reasons and then complain they are exhausted! I can't believe they don't say 'I am NOT getting up three times a night because you cannot find Teddy.' My DD knows if she has a bad dream or wets the bed I will sort it out, but if she wakes me up for something stupid she will get very short shrift!

Agree with you MrTumbles (cross posted with you) - my now 7 yo ds was also a non-sleeper, and although he's now great at bedtime/night, he still wakes up at 5/5.30 every day. He just does. Don't think there is anything we could do to change that. And as my dd is our third non-sleeper in a row, it is nice to hear someone say it's not just down to us failing to do the right thing. I often feel like friends/family whose dcs sleep like angels think I am just a total muppet for 'letting' this happen.

Pyrrah, am also still waiting for something to be smug about... In meantime, had better go and start bedtime routine before putting baby down for night [hollow, hollow laugh].

I can't believe they don't say 'I am NOT getting up three times a night because you cannot find Teddy.

Well I can say this to DD2 and it works. She's 4 and she sleeps pretty well. Whereas as DD1 was bloody horrendous for getting us up half the night when she was 4, and there was very little we could do. It was just a phase probably related to the recent arrival of her younger sister and it passed soon after she started school.

They're all different and I wouldn't be quick to make a judgement that another parent isn't trying hard enough.

so they struggled on as best they could with a fake smile and extra eye make up, just as they did if their husband was violent or they had Pnd or 100 other things that these days people are more often able to more open about and try to deal with.

You forgot leathering children and ignoring/covering up sexual abuse, something else 1960s parents were brilliant at.

I agree that some kids need less or more sleep than others but I also think some parents don't do themselves or their kids any favours.

A lot of posters won't allow any crying or self soothing at bedtime and that imo does your baby/child a massive disfavour, also not having bedtime routines, being strict about bedtimes etc.

I have had to do all of the above as my dd is terrible if she gets anything less than 12 hours a night.

'self soothing', girliefriend, mine just didn't/don't do - just immediate, awful, desperate crying, which I can't ignore. I do have strict bedtime routine (bath is running at 1800 hours!) but it just didn't/doesn't work. How much crying is OK? (which is obviously the million dollar question).

We were extremely firm with her. In fact I think the whole street heard me being firm with her at 4am on some mornings. She was also extremely stubborn. She is far more reasonable now at 7. DD2 is not very stubborn at all, just personalities.

curious mama thanks for asking about DS2. No he doesn't bget nealry enough outdoor exercise. he's not a sporty boy and needs a lot of encouragement even to go out on his bike with his friends. I need to work more on that. And he doesn't take vitamins either. Which do you recommend? How do they make a difference? very intriguing.

I really don't know anything about TB, maybe her views are badly misreported, but I am easily finding online lots of heated debate about her apparently ignorant comments in many areas.

I find any blanket statements saying that all people should sleep the same way are very ignorant. How we think sleep should happen is extremely biased culturally. Some cultures thought that lots of naps were the ideal pattern.

I seem to rememeber that she wrote in the times that two year olds shouldnt be allowed to nap past 2pm because "it will affect their night sleep" which in my experience is utter bollocks.

I wonder what Jo Brand makes of all this?

Not Jo Brand stoopid. Jo Frost!! It's probably unasseptable.

Well, an extract from her recent Times article (since I can't link and I think it is a reasonable quantity for fair comment) is:

“When I hear parents say, ‘my child is a bad sleeper’, I groan. No kid is a bad sleeper. Yes, some do fall into sleep more easily than others but fundamentally as a parent it’s our job to teach them to sleep: it’s part of how a species socialises its young, just like teaching them to wash their hands after going to the toilet.”

She says that a baby should be able to go to sleep on its own and stay asleep until morning from the age of six months. If they can’t, they need help to learn the skill. “Many parents are too tired themselves to tackle a child’s sleep problems, and some lack the power to take control because they worry that they will cause them long-term harm if they lay down boundaries. They get so caught up with wanting to be liked by the child that they lose the ability to be authoritative. They might try controlled crying for a couple of nights then give in. Some parents get into bizarre routines: five kisses then one song, then it becomes seven kisses and two songs when the child says ‘you don’t love me’. Whatever happened to saying no, it’s time for sleep?

Byron isn’t a fan of letting them cry until they sleep, which is too distressing for both, but she does support controlled crying — while understanding how difficult it can be for parents. She and her husband Bruce Byron, the actor, used the technique with their oldest child Lily when she was 10 months old. “She wasn’t sleeping and I’d be there standing over her cot at 4am, rocking her and sobbing while my husband was frantically reading a booklet I’d written about how to get your child to sleep. In the end I rang the woman who trained me. What I’d found was that it’s different when it’s your own child, especially your first.” A few nights of controlled crying followed.

“I said to my daughter recently, do you hold any resentment against me for that controlled crying I did? She said, ‘What controlled crying? Shut up Mum.’”

So her own child was 10 months. Not sure what she did with her other children.

And more here:

Professor Byron’s guide to sleep
Babies 0 to 2 months: 12-18 hours per night; 3 months to 1 year: 14-15 hours per night.
From six months, children should be in a pattern where you put them down and they fall asleep on their own in a dark or dimly lit room, and sleep right through until morning. If they don’t, think about the environmental cues you’ve set up for your child to sleep — on your lap in front of the TV? Being rocked? Falling asleep on the breast? If they associate these things with sleep, they will continue to need those cues both to fall asleep in the evening and to get back to sleep when they wake in the night (something we all do as we go through sleep cycles). Introduce a clear routine: last meal at 5.30pm or so, play for a bit or watch some TV until 6pm, go upstairs for a bath (the increase in core body temperature can induce sleep), then straight into pyjamas. Have a final drink, clean teeth, then a story and a song and a final kiss goodnight. If they scream and cry, leave it five minutes then go back, gently pat them and just say in a low-key way, “ssh, ssh it’s night-time now” and walk away. Leave it 10 minutes before returning and then lengthen it to every 15 minutes. Keep doing that until they go to sleep. By the third night they are usually sleeping well. If you can’t face that, go in every five minutes instead and do the same thing. This usually works in three to five nights.

Actually, iirc she is wrong about the bath. It used to be believed it was the warmth from a bath that makes you sleepy, but apparently it's actually the gradual returning to normal of your body temperature.

sleepyhead you misunderstood me, I was correcting my post, where I said shit the door instead of shut the door! I am against cc, for the same reason. I only remember it done once to me, bu I still have a vivid memory of it and it was awful. I woved never to do it to my DCs.

Ok, gawd. I'm living in hope that in 10 years time, I'll have a teenager who is going to SLEEP! And then this comes up telling me they won't be sleeping then either?

I'm with the its partly the child. DS1 is awful. DS2 is much better, even tho we did the same thing.

And last night they both came into bed with me. Why?? Because both had had vaccinations. So, sleep through pretty much anything DS2 woke up and wanted cuddles (hes nearly 2). So he came into bed with me. Thats wrong???

I think she's right about the technology before bedtime, I sleep better when
I don't stay up on here half the night like an addict switch the computer off at a sensible time.

I don't agree with what she says about children being in the parents double bed though, my DC has health issues which he worries about from time to time and sleeps better when not alone in bed as it is less worrying - he knows somebody is there who will notice if he is having problems. She's making a blanket statement and doesn't know the situation, whilst I would prefer to not have small people in my bed sometimes it is the only way to get any sleep for medical reasons.

So what if you let your child sleep in your bed at night? If you're happy to do it, and are happy that your child is happy, and everyone is healthy and well adjusted why should you concern yourself what Dr Tanya bloody Byron, or anyone else for that matter, thinks?

As long as we're all happy as a family I really couldn't care less what anyone else thinks about what we do here.

My maxim is, my family, my rules, your family, your rules.

Satine5, no I wasn't suggesting you did - I was just saying that it wasn't at all out there to think that many people would be suggesting that you just shut the door. A lot of grandparents for a start, it's what they did. And like me, a lot of children didn't actually learn to sleep. They just learned not to cry.

I hadn't actually noticed your second post - or the typo in the first! Clearly brain addled because of my poor sleep hygiene . My parents should have manned up and just drugged me. Actually, quite a bit of that went on in the 60s and 70s as well....

But her advice isn't aimed at the happy families Perri. Maybe someone reading the article who has a stroppy teen, or a child that doesn't concentrate may put two and two together and connect the sleep thing. People who have the sleep thing sussed and are happy with what they do won't be interested in the article.

We have recently discovered that you can block internet access on specific devices at set times. So the dcs ipads/pods are blocked overnight, it is brilliant.

I am really strict at night time. They can share when ill but get cuddles in their bed if scared. If they are trying it on they get returned to bed without a second glance.

I was an insomniac. Sleep is essential.

And only idiots let their teenagers have mobiles/tv/computers in their rooms at bedtime. Far too much temptation.

My ds1 was a terrible sleeper for his first few years and I think this contributed towards my pnd. My ds2 was up crying most nights til he was 8 months old. I was in a terrible way, so exhausted and unwell, so I decided to leave him to cry - I was so so tired that I did not even mind hearing him crying most of the night, I could not even think straight. Call me a bad mum, but I did this for 4 nights and by the 5th he was sleeping through and has done ever since!

My dc are 12 and 8 now and both go to bed at good times (8.30 and 7.45) and always sleep right through til morning in their own beds. They both stay up a bit later on the weekend, but again not too late (9.30 and 8.30).

Over a child's lifetime, I am sure that a couple of nights of cc will not do any harm. There are many more situations that could harm a child, and the long term benefits of a good nights sleep must outweigh any harm done.

Someone earlier mentioned routine loving parents and cc. I wasn't a routine lover, fed on demand, we were out a lot etc and ironically I need very little sleep and never minded the endless feeding interruptions. However once I knew they could go through I worked on helping them sleep through the night. It was for their sake.

I havent read the whole thread but our DSs school sent a letter home reminding them to send children in Yr 4 to bed by 8 pm. Some children do stay up so late they cant concentrate at school.

I apply the rules that I had at boarding school for my own children.

Yr 7 - bed by 8

Yr 8 - bed by 8.15

yr 9 - bed by 8.30

... and so on getting 15 minutes later each Year.

Flowers ^"I think babies did just sleep back then actually. There wasn't much choice for mothers but to leave them, given the amount of work invoved in running a house without a washing machine an other modern inventions.
Obviously everyone born before about 1965 is emotionally deranged as a result... "^

That may be true for naps, when I believe putting babies in the garden in the püram at set times and leaving them there was "in vogue" (though people used slings in some sectors of society, I have a photo of my great aunt (who was the eldest of many children) wearing my grandmother (who was the youngest) in a shawl used as a sling, which must have been taken in about 1930. However I'd bet a lot of mothers did everything in their power not to let their babies cry at night in our grandmothers' generation - so as not to wake their husbands...

No electronic devices in bedrooms. Absolutely not.

Absolutely agree on no electronic devices and sensible bedtimes for school age children of course, pretty sure 99% of people on here will do with some variation on what is sensible and how flexible the bedtimes should be on non school nights. Toddlers and babies are a separate subject - after all they are the only group of human beings anyone ever advocates leaving to scream themselves to sleep...

MrTumbles - I agree, we do all sorts with our toddlers and babies that we would not do with adults. Even this week I witnessed my dniece being fed vegetables that she obviously didn't want to eat at all, and crying amd spitting them out, and I witnessed my friend's ds aged 2 wailing and crying in the playground at school as he was being passed over to the childminder.

I wonder why co sleeping for adults is the norm whereas for children it is considered wrong in some way. And if adults don't sleep in the same bed it is often assumed there is something not right with their relationship.

Morebeta - Did that go all the way up to sixth form? 9.30 in year 13 seems a little harsh.

When I wonder do Y13 pupils study for exams if they are being tucked up like toddlers at 9.30? DD (Y4) goes to bed at 10 earliest and her brother on Y13 goes at 11 or later. They are fine. I am haunted by childhood memories of rigid early bedtimes and lying awake and hearing the theme music of the 9 o'clock news start ... And finish ...

Feel better after reading Pyrrah's post up thread.

My DD is the same. She has never needed much sleep. We tried but pretty much gave up on bedtimes about four months ago as we were spending most of the evening battling with her to go to sleep. It wore all of us out. She stopped napping not long after she was 1. I am always amazed when I hear about 2 - 3 yr old's still having naps.

HV said to me that some children just don't need much sleep. The only time she sleeps for 12 hours is when she is ill.

She also regularly co sleeps. Everyone I know thinks this is 'wrong'. I put her upstairs between eight and nine. She goes to sleep when she is tired. Then again, she doesn't need to be up early in the morning.

I hold my hands up, my 10 year old does stay up till 10-10.30 but he always gets up for school. My problem is that he has 2 older siblings so he thinks he is missing out on something - what I do not know

He is not however allowed to be on his xbox till late, he is allowed 2 hours and that will be shortened once he starts high school as he will have homework to do first.

TB has a really good point re sleep but she isn't the first one to say so.
I truly believe that we are all sleep deprived in one way or the other.
Even as an adult, saying that you function well with 6 hours of sleep and you couldn't possibly sleep more doesn't make sense. If you can't sleep more than 6 hours in the night then you are more likely to have a sleep problem.

Same with teenagers and children.
Teenagers actually need more sleep because of all the growth spur etc...(Just see how difficult getting up in the morning is for them or how good they are at having a lie in during the week end) and just at that time, they are under pressure to go to bed later (as the adults do) and have all the electronic stuff around (whihc means they never ever really switch off. They are always waiting for next text message).

I would be more careful re babies. I don't actually agree with her pov re control crying etc... but again the fat that babies do behave better when not so tired is quite obvious.

The saddest thing is to see young children with huge bags under their eyes, looking tired and worn out when they should be full of energy and bouncing around.

Bonsoir I have done all my studies wo any issues at all and was going to bed by 9.00~9.30 as a teenager.
I then went to Uni (Grandes Ecoles and classes prepa in France...) and did some homework until later on at night but tbh it didn't last very long. Mainly because after some time, when you are tired, it's late you are not as efficient so I learnt to organize myself in a different way.

I don't really see the point of being in bed later and later (and toddlers don't go to bed at 9.30pm in my house either [winl])

I think of myself as an owl, but in truth I am just over tired because I go to bed too late and then struggle to get to seep because I'm over tired. It's a hard habit to break, especially as my dh doesn't seem to need as much sleep as me.

I have an 12 and 13 year old and they go to bed at 9, lights off at 9.30. dd gets migraines if she doesn't have enough sleep, and like me often struggles to get to sleep. She's taking magnesium at the moment, which apparently makes you feel a bit sleepy. We've also used melatonin in the past.

MrTumbles I've had to have help in from family in the early days as I could not cope, nearly had a nervous breakdown because of lack of sleep (in the obvious new born days) which carried right up to 16 months. Did have input from the HV too, to help devise a plan to get DS2 to get to sleep. I could not function, could not remember things, struggled to string a sentence together when in social situations. I have met other mums who manage to go to every class going with their babies throughout the week (sleep deprived), but I could not do this because I was so exhausted. It took several weeks, but after doing the gradual retreat technique DS2 did realise he could self settle and go to sleep by himself. And life carried on, I was getting the sleep I needed and I was able to function again and go out and meet friends and so on.

I have a medical condition which means I am more tired and exhausted easily compared to the average person. So my comments may have hit a nerve, but it was not intentional. It was unique to my own circumstances and I'm sorry if I offended yourself or anyone else.

In the early days I went to bed at 7pm to sleep, and slept right through until woken in early hours of the morning just so that I could get 8 hours in. Whatever it takes!

morebeta I aim to get ds(11) in bed for 8 too and he can read until he is sleepy which tends to be only about 10 minutes. He is a MUCH nicer child than when I give in and let him stay up until 9pm.

I have a question for those of you with teens who are bad / good sleepers - did you sleep train them when they were younger? If so at what age and what methods did you use?

As a parent of two under 3's it would be very interesting to know if what we do now makes any difference to later habits...

My two slept all night from roughly the time I stopped BFing them - 13 months after about 2 nights of CC, which was surprisingly easy and minimal. However as toddlers they would sometimes climb into our bed; not a problem for me. They grew out of it.

DD now 16, pings back to life about 10pm and views the practice of going to bed at a sensible time as boring, babyish, pathetic.... (I think). She got out of the habit of reading in bed when she was 12ish. Ipod and texting took over from 13/14 and now she has a smartphone (Christmas present from GP's who were feeling unusually flush last year) so FB, Instagram, Twitter available all the time. She also won't have a bath. Her days are quite hectic - lunch time activites, after-school clubs 3 days a week and various bits and bobs in the evenings so she must be mentally tired. Many, though not all of her friends are like this. Physical activity might help. I am going to address this soon.

DS - almost 14 - is much more sensible. He has a much less hectic lifestyle, gets more exercise and isn't on FB or twitter.....

It's not always the parents' fault. Teens' sleep patterns naturally get messed up by hormonal changes. Here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/articles/emotions/teenagers/sleep.shtml

Sorry, here:www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/articles/emotions/teenagers/sleep.shtml

How much sleep people (adults and children) varies though. I need much more sleep in the winter, when I am tired, stressed. My dcs are the same. Ds just doesn't need as much as most children his age and never has. As a baby/toddler a 7pm bedtime would guarantee a wake up time before 6. Now he is 8 and sleeps 9pm-630am (he is never woken for school). Dd is a different kettle of fish and I think she could do with more sleep, because of her brother she tends to go to sleep 830ish (she is 6). But twice a week will fall asleep closer to 7.

I have spent years trying to get DC to sleep past 5am, later bedtime only made them more tired.

Finally, now that they are 7 and 4 they sleep in until past 6 am, but my 7 year old says he isn't sleepy at 8 pm and I find him playing Lego or drawing out of bed at about 9 pm.

I don't think we have a major problem though, I believe each family has slightly different habits, but I can't speak for the whole nation.

OH i see, because we really want our dcs to be overtired, grumpy and under achieving don't we? I wish people like Dr B wouldn't make sweeping generalisations about parents like we're totally stupid. And I don't agree with one soloution fits all type attitude, children are individuals.

DS (7) has always had problems getting to sleep. I have tried everything, from earlier bedtimes/later bedtimes, more exercise/less exercise, what to speak of lavender, massages etc. and just leaving him to it. DS is prone to nightmares which is a big contributor.

I know DS doesn't get enough sleep. But I can't MAKE him sleep. I'm fed up with it, he's fed up with it. And the last thing I need is Dr B wagging her finger at me.

I'm with you whethergirl, have exactly the same with DD (10). I agree that I was probably lax at the beginning (we went to a lot of trouble to have her and it was a while before I got used to her being there!) but we've always had a routine. She fights it all the way, but I think a) we need adult only time and b) I don't want to have to worry about what she sees on the telly. Anyway, we'd all be better without the telly. Nothing keeps DH awake after 10pm unless DD talks very loudly as she often does, especially when she can't sleep. I've tried everything I can think of and want Dr to refer me to a sleep clinic, but she doesn't. I don't really know what to do to convince her. Keep the sleep diary for a year maybe? We did it for six weeks and all she said was that she couldn't see any patterns. That's because there aren't any, but it doesn't mean there isn't a problem! I've never needed a lot of sleep, but I do need more than I'm getting and reckon I need help as much as DD does. We often end up in the spare bedroom cos I don't want to wake DH. Am dreading secondary, when she'll have a longer day, if that doesn't cure the problem!

Everhopful I'm not even sure these 'sleep clinics' even exist! GP has always brushed it off. Went to see a pediatrician neurologist about various other symptoms ds had, and when I told her he had sleeping problems, was just told 'some kids are like that'.

I find that amazing really, something that can affect a child's well being, behaviour, concentration, school results, and general physical and emotional health is not treated very seriously. Maybe it's because there really is no treatment?

And if one more person says 'have you tried lavender'....

I didn't read it as a criticism of people whose children don't sleep - my own DD is terrible for going to bed and really hard to rise in the morning. I think the problem is more about a complete laissez-faire attitude to children's bedtimes. There's a difference between struggling to sleep properly and just being allowed to carry on as if it were daytime.

I totally agree with Dr T, she is not basing this information on anecdotal information there has been a lot of research into the effects of poor sleeping habits which have been linked to obesity, poor health and messes with your genes

I agree with those that say there is variation between individuals on how much sleep they need and also some people just are early morning people as opposed to late night people. I think that we all have individual biorhythms but I think that it is those that are late night people that suffer as they are the ones who ultimately do not have a choice about how long they can sleep in the morning - school starts and they have to be up for it.

So basically what I'm trying to say is that Tanya is correct but unfortunately life just doesn't work out like that - it doesn't make you a bad parent, if you just don't get in till late after a long commute but it does mean that you and your children may be getting less than the optimal amount of sleep. Just one of the consequences of the way we live.

whether I don't think TB is pointing her finger at people like you though. Because very clearly you have tried A LOT of things to help your dc to sleep.

The people she is talking about are the ones who don't even think that their dc need more sleep and suppose that 'they just don't need more than that'.

I can see how this is happening. A baby/toddler who is a nightmare to have a nap, doesn't settle down easily in the evening. An older child who wants to be grown up and insists to stay up late etc...
dc1 at some point woke up everyday at about 5.30~6.00am. No way he was going back to sleep. So we though perhaps he needed a later bedtime etc... He didn't. He had worked out that when he was getting up early, he could play on his DS. That thought was enough to wake him up in the morning earlier and earlier. And of course, going to bed later wasn't making any difference.
At that point it would have been easy for us to think he just didn't need any sleep and leave him going to bed at 9.00~9.30 instead of 8.30 (he was 9yo). But it would have just taught him how to function with little sleep.

I guess there is a difference between 'making' a child / teenager go to bed, and 'letting' them go to bed. I make my dcs go to bed quite early but they are both always fast asleep within about half an hour and don't wake up until 7 .30 in the morning. If I was putting them to bed and they were awake for hours then I would obviously rethink. It does depend on the child. Although we are a family of early to bed, early risers so maybe it is just what they are used to.

There is a big variation between what people need but I think a general point is that lots of people don't enforce bedtimes with older children even if the children / teens do actually need that extra sleep and find it hard to get up or are tired and grumpy by day.
DS has started to fight against having a strict weekday bedtime. He is 12 and goes to be at 8pm. He gets really tired in the week and I have to drag wake him up for school everyday so I make him go to bed at 8pm on weekdays which apparently is 'completely unfair' and 'even 5 year olds don't go to bed at that time' There are programmes he'd like to watch and he'd definitely have more screen time if I let him but he does need more sleep than some even if he doesn't want it.

Some children need far less sleep but maybe the symptoms of being sleep deprived aren't as obvious in some children as they are in others (seeing my DS with the duvet clamped to his head makes it pretty easy to tell he is still tired in the mornings!). Maybe some parents attribute grumpiness to hormones or other stresses when in fact an earlier bedtime would help despite no obvious tiredness signs.

The problem with teenagers is that the melatonin that makes them sleepy is released later and later but they still need 10 hours or so sleep.
Some of the schools start as earlier as 7.30 in the US and they found by moving the start time to later they had better results, better behaviour and less fights.
I also agree with TB that babies dont really need feeding in the night after about 6 months. Mine are 15 and 17 now and I let them regulate themselves some nights they go at 9 others in the holiday it might be 1 if they dont have to get up in the morning. They were both sleeping through from 12 weeks but never really had a bedtime before 8.

"early to bed, early to rise, makes children healthy and wealthy and wise."

My DD who is 8.4 goes to bed at 10.30-ish, and often doesn't put her lights out until 11 or 11.15. She gets up at around 8am (school starts at 9am). She isn't sleep deprived - she has long days, lots of extra curricular activities and still races up four flights of stairs rather than take the lift at 6pm.

The only thing that makes her tired and grumpy is going to the school canteen!

I've always been a bad sleeper. The thing about sleeping is you can't make yourself do it, it is something that happens to you and the more you try the less likely it is to come (and can become a big problem)
With DCs not getting to sleep you could try telling them it doesn't matter if they sleep or not, instead they should concentrate on just resting their bodies ie lying cosy and relaxed in bed, giving their muscles etc a nice rest. Tell them it doesn't matter if they sleep or not, by doing this they will still feel rested the next day (white lie).

The idea is that sleep will come naturally if they stop trying. This often works for me, if I have no big issues on my mind.

Bruffin that is interesting about the American study and makes perfect sense to me. I have never had any problems with DS1 and bedtimes but he is now 12 and trying to push his bedtime from 9.30 to 10, I have been quite relaxed about him doing this as he is just not showing signs of tiredness before 10. But up till this year he has always been a very early riser he now still wakes at 7 on school days but at the weekend he will sleep all morning if I let him.

DS2 sleeps 13 hours a night <very smug>

Bonsoir.

Is your dd G&T or very bright? I ask as girl at dds last school like this. Her dad was a post man up very early and really wanted some time with his wife at night. They tried everything but it was just how she was. But so bright, and never appeared tired at all.

Bonsoir.

Is your dd G&T or very bright? I ask as girl at dds last school like this. Her dad was a post man up very early and really wanted some time with his wife at night. They tried everything but it was just how she was. But so bright, and never appeared tired at all.

No I don't think so! She's physically very resilient, though. She's ski-ing this week and her instructor (she is on her own with him) had apparently already been warned about her ability to keep going with no breaks by last year's instructor!

My younger girls are all in bed by 7pm-7:30, but they watch a film in bed after that time, they are asleep by 8:30-9pm, they are 4 & 6. My 2yo goes to bed at 6:30 with no tv, and is asleep by 7pm.
My 10yo on the other hand is a night-owl, no matter when she goes to bed, i normally find her sitting reading a book and some ungodly hour!!- She goes to bed at 8:30, except for weekends when i allow her up until 9.
Having next to no sleep isn't good for her either, she's very grouchy and irritable at times. But will she sleep......

will read all these posts for tips!

Interesting Morethan my amazing non sleeping Ds is quite bright, very physically active as well. If he isn't "run" his usual 9 hours a night drops to 8.5 or even 8 and we loose our precious childfree hour.

I can't see how co sleeping long term has any benefits to getting your children to sleep when they are older, after 6 months im a great believer in sleep training and own beds.

mine are great sleepers now, Im sure its from teaching them when they are little.

I agree Mrs Bucket. A friend of mine still has to lie down and go to sleep with her dd - now 8 - or she won't go to sleep. She used to be a massive fan of co-sleeping - when she was a single mum with one child. Now married with a toddler she is less enthusiastic as she would quite like a bit of "adult" time in the evening and that is not happening which is really getting her down. I think TB is spot on where she says we have to teach our children to sleep ie get them into good habits in the same way that we teach them to do anything else. Looking around at friends I would say those "lucky" enough to have good sleepers are those who reinforced good habits from a young age. That is not always the easy option at the time - and I speak as someone who was too tired to kick three-year-old dd out of our bed and preferred to play musical beds for the best part of year - but it does pay dividends in the long run. I'm still enforcing 9pm bedtimes for my two (now 11 and 9) - reading allowed, but no electronics in bedrooms - left to their own devices (and their father's I have to say) they would go much later, but it is better for everyone this way - though definitely not the "easy" option for me.

I think you do have to reinforce bedtime habits as children get older.They certainly won't "know" that they need to go to bed. Even an adult will stay up late watching something, knowing full well they were tired enough to properly drop off at 10.30 yet, somehow hang on till 1am with a good film. So you cannot expect children to put themselves to bed when they NEED to be put to bed.

MrsBucket I agree that there are some co-sleeping up all hours children who have bad habits. But it is possible to co-sleep with a child that has good sleep habits. We co-slept with all ours, intermittently, when it suited them or the occasion, and they are ALL very good sleepers, even the ASD child who was naturally a bad sleeper as a baby. We trained him out of it by constantly reinforcing good sleep habits, but it did not mean forgoing co-sleeping, which I found a lovely part of early parenting. I would never co-sleep with a child over six, I think they do want their own space, but occasionally I will lie down with my younger children if they are having difficulty tuning out. I don't think it is that much different to being snuggled up with family members on a sofa of an evening. I certainly would never expect to do it night after night unless there was a particular issue.

I agree that children need to be 'put to bed'.

Have never understood the co-sleeping thing either, tbh. Mine's were always put straight into cot after a breastfeed, even if it meant having to heave myself out of my own bed to place them there each time, that's what happened. Tough on me, but it's worked out in the long run. Never had any trouble with mine staying put in bed. Had the odd trouble with the self settling thing around the 16 month old mark, but it sorted itself out quick with the 'gradual retreat technique'. Was in tears a lot at the beginning but it worked out fine in the end.

I am very strict with bedtimes but I need time to myself in the evenings to unwind (especially when DH is night shift).

I am also of the opinion that it doesn't matter what the children want, you are the parent and you are there to set the rules, so to speak, whether they agree or not is not up for discussion (IMO). Regardless of age.

I spoke to sleep specialist on Tuesday who advised my 12 year old DS he needs 9 and 3/4 hours sleep per night.

He was fine until him and his DB have separate bedrooms, now he plays on x box when I go to bed or plays around with his ipod, I have started unplugging the wifi. He started waiting on me sleeping and plugging it in again, I have started taking the Sky box to bed with me.

I loved cosleeping though. I still do! My ds1 (3) coslept until about 11 months.. the next four were up and down with getting him into a routine but by 15 months it was done and it is still "done" now. Dh can be a bit soft and want to cuddle and drag it out but in general it is fine.

Ds2 is 8 months so still in with us. I will move him out shortly. I suspect he will be a bit easier than his brother to transition as he is in general a better sleeper in the bed too, doesn't wake to feed any more unless he is unwell so ready to make the move I think.

I never understand the idea that if you don't have children doing something from the earliest possible opportunity that inevitably means you are setting yourself up for outrageous ongoing battles forever more. I wouldn't have wanted my son with me in the bed past one but the first year was lovely and I have lovely memories of us having those cuddles. He will come in at 6.30 am for a cuddle most mornings (we leave for nursery at 7.15) and I think it's really precious. I didn't like the four months of working on it but it wasn't horrendous either, we managed it well and he is a great sleeper now without ever having done cc or what have you.

I'm with irnbru I'm very strict. I have a 12 year old- bed at 8, can read till 8.30. No tv, laptop in her bedroom. She has to leave her phone downstairs.

I don't really understand people who say, you try taking the phone off my 13/14/15 yr old etc. I make her- she has no choice. If she doesn't do it, then the phone is taken off her for 24 hrs, then 48 hrs and then a week. I don't care how uncomfortable she trys to make my life, or how stroppy she gets, i'll just impose more/longer sanctions. No way could i have a situation where she dictates.

3 under 3's go to bed at 7pm. I start singing the grand old duke of york, and they march up the stairs themselves. I only do/did co- sleeping if they were ill and i did cc with all of them . The twins were the latest to sleep through at 9 months.

Wake up time is usually between 6 and 7am.

I think sleep is important but I don't think that co-sleeping or feeding to sleep or responding to your child in the night is detrimental to a long-term relationship with sleep. Actually I think the opposite - I think these things help build a positive association with sleep. DS has never protested at the idea of bedtime, he co-slept until 2, fed to sleep until about 3 and I would lie with him until he was 4, he now goes happily to sleep after a story, kiss and cuddle and will sleep through until morning.

"Cc babies that learn not to cry and to "self soothe" do so out of despair, to them there is no point in crying because their needs (for comfort, for company, for affection) do not get them attention. I thought this was common knowledge?"

Widespread myth, not common knowledge.

Nobody actually knows what a baby thinks. It may very well be "These parents of mine clearly love me since they are usually all over me, but they are awfully slow and really no fun in the nit, so I'll just sleep until morning comes".

... no fun in the night, rather.

Does Prof Byron have children?

Yes she has two Swedish.

Not only does she have her own, she sees lots in her clinic which is why she knows it is a huge problem. I think that she nearly always speaks common sense.

Thanks Sparkling. I just wouldn't listen at all if she doesn't ;)
My son is only 5, but I am trying to "sort out his bedtime routine". He's a night owl though. I can't force him to sleep at 7pm. I can get him in bed, but he still won't sleep.

I think the idea is to sort of sleep issues before they are 5. Or even 1, for that matter.

Like lots of things to do with upbringing, some DC naturally settle into being good sleepers and others need lots of training. And it's always easy to be wise after the event.

If I could go back over my DD's life and start again, there are plenty of things I might have done slightly differently in order to optimise her habits. But that is because it is only as she has got older that her nature has emerged and we know her, and hence what we might have done earlier to help her with things that didn't come naturally to her. The full-on approach where parents decide exactly what sort of routines and habits their DC are going to have before getting to know them rarely works out for the best IMVHO.

I have a 14yr old boy and 3yr old and 4yr old girls, i always had a very strict bedtime routine growing up, and naturally i followed suit with my own kids, although i do feel for my son sometimes and wonder if i am doing the right thing as most his friends are still online etc after 11pm some even after midnight! he comes home from school does homework, eats dinner has a bath then the next couple of hours are his until 9 45, i actually think it's very difficuct for parents most my sons friends from school are out clubbing in the city centre at the weekends, something i dont allow as the clubs don't come out until 10pm at the earliest, although we have agreed that next yr when he's 15 that we will allow him to go (providing he is happy with being picked up by us) teenagers are a minefield they really are x

at 14 year olds out clubbing.

My DSSs (17 and 15) think they are lucky in one of their school friends is allowed to invite the class over to their home one evening for Coca Cola and Haribo... different worlds...

Are you serious, Cheeky, you have strict bedtimes for your 14 year old, but when he's 15 you'll let him go clubbing?

I imagine if they finish at 10pm, then it is an under 18 club, with no alcohol.

I use to go to one when i was 14. It was extremely strict. If anyone looked drunk, seemed drunk, or became drunk, they were not allowed in/thrown out.

My 7 year-old DSD has a pretty strict bedtime routine - head to bed at 7:30, lights out by 8:00/8:30. The adults in her life have all been tempted to keep her up later than this - either because us parents work late and barely see her between childminder pickup (around 5:30/6pm) and bedtime, or because the babysitting grandparents "never" see her and want to play. The consequences of keeping her up late haven't really been worth it, though. She's a very whiny, moany, helpless version of herself when she's sleep deprived. She definitely needs 11-12 hours.

I do wonder if Tanya Bryon has a point. I was at my local pool last night for a swim at 7:30pm. The pool was literally full of children. It's not like I think children don't belong in pools, but it was awfully late for them to be there. None of them looked older than 11, and a few of them were clearly younger than 7. The littler ones didn't start to leave until 8pm at the earliest, and the older ones were still there when I left at 8:15 - the session ended at 8:30. Even if you allowed for kids getting a later wake-up call on a school morning than my DSD has, I doubt those kids would have gotten lights out until at least 9pm. Primary school starts at 9am. I don't understand why those kids - especially the little ones - weren't winding down and getting ready for bed. I heard one girl starting to kick off in the showers, with mum telling her, "Oh, you're like this 'cuz you're wanting your bed." No kidding!

"I was at my local pool last night for a swim at 7:30pm. The pool was literally full of children. It's not like I think children don't belong in pools, but it was awfully late for them to be there."

7:30 - awfully late?
If I'd thought that my dds would have missed out on Brownies as the meetings ran from 7-8:30pm.

Some girls at my school went out clubbing at 14/15 with older siblings, this was in the late 80s. Not that I would condone it!

DD's swimming lesson start at 7.35pm on a school night we used to do 8am saturday morning when she was younger but I decided 6 nearly 7 was old enough for one late night a week. She eats dinner beforehand though, and showers and gets into pjamas there so its straight home to bed.

But isn't that the point that Tanya Byron is trying to raise? That maybe we're all being a bit lax about how much sleep kids need? I doubt my family is the only family getting a child up around 7 in the morning to make sure they're dressed, fed and at the childminder in enough time for us to get to work. So, if most young children still need 10-12 hours of sleep, why are we scheduling Brownies or swimming lessons for 7pm?

FWIW - I was at a public swimming session last night - no lanes and plain old splashing about. I was not crashing swimming lessons. :-p

I also think that swimming at 7pm is too late for primary-school aged DC. My DD, who is in year 4, does a lot of extra-curricular activities and they all end by 6pm except one, art, which is on Friday nights and ends at 7.15pm. Art is very relaxing for the DCs and a good way to wind down at the end of the week, so the schedule doesn't matter.

My DD doesn't sleep much but she does like and need a lot of quiet time to herself. She much prefers coming home for lunch (1 1/2 hours) than staying at school in the canteen, and it does her a world of good, and she likes to spend time with her toys, or drawing, or playing the piano, or watching a film, for a good part of the weekend and in the evenings.

More sleep per se is not, I think, always the right response to tired, grumpy DC. Sometimes they just need a different range/variety of activities.

DS had his swimming lessons at 4pm. Any later was not practical as I had dinner to sort out. He's nearly 6yo. Swimming lessons at 7pm would not even be considered by myself as it's too late in the evening, IMO. Maybe when he's of high school age. He's asleep at 7pm!

Dd1(9) slept through from 9 months, dd2(4) is still hit and miss on whether she sleeps through and dd3(3) slept through from around 9 months too. Dd2 has definitely been the "vilest" of the 3, which i think is due to lack of sleep. They all go to bed at 7pm and while the other 2 can sleep until i wake them in the morning, 6am is normal rising for dd2 (as well as a few wake ups in the night) Although she is getting better now.

"why are we scheduling Brownies or swimming lessons for 7pm?"

Brownies was 7pm because that was the earliest the brownie leader could do after getting home from work and having her tea. And as its voluntary we were very grateful that she gave up her evening for our children to have the great times the had there. It didn't seem to impact negatively on them sleep wise at all.

"why are we scheduling Brownies or swimming lessons for 7pm?"

-because we work and therfore need it to be after work
-because the Brownie leader/swimming coaches work and need it to be after work

Yes, and maybe the best thing we can do is support initiatives that would actually make work more manageable when we have young children and allow both ourselves and the Brownie leader to get home at a reasonable hour. The fact that Brownie leaders and swimming coaches need to do things after the close of business doesn't change the fact that young children need up to four hours more sleep than their parents do. Perhaps something besides the child's sleep routine ought to change.

And in the meantime, perhaps it is time for us all to accept that - for instance - taking little kids to play at the pool (not for lessons, not for community service, only to play) at 7pm on a weeknight and not leaving said pool until after 8pm might not be the best thing to do for them.

I find swimming at 7.00~8.00pm late too but that's the time that is avaialbel for dc1 who is in a swimming club.
Not possible to do it an earlier. The pool is busy and there would be no volunteers to train the children.
Is it late? Yes it means that dc1 comes home and goes directly to bed and even then it usually slightly later than her normal bedtime. But the other choice is no swimming at all... (All the swimming clubs have similar times for swimming)

The other side of things is that it means we can actually take her swimming because if the class was ta 4.30 or even 5.30, we wouldn't have time to come back home from work and take her there.

Agree with Probably though, this is the point that TB is raising. That we are actually quite lax about bedtime for our dcs, just as we are lax abut our bedtime and it doesn't do any good to them (or to us!)

I think you have a point Bonsoir. Not everyone is an extrovert and some quiet time would I think suit some of the very approx 25% who are introverts.

I was always relieved to get out of school - you can get too much of just other people!

Indeed. I think that modern lives are designed for extroverts who need to be doing things with others for much of the time. Introverts who are required to lead extrovert lifestyles get exhausted and drained, but not because they lack sleep.

I had no idea that these clubs for children ran so late. I used to go to Brownies and I'm sure it was at 6, although perhaps it was 7, I can't really remember TBH. Certainly Rainbows finished earlier, although that was a bit pointless if parents had children in both groups...

I think it's a bit sad that someone said above that sleep problems should be sorted out by 1 year old. Some 1 year olds do wake up in the night - this is normal. I was still co-sleeping when DS was 1 and I don't think it's done him any harm at all. I'm all for positive sleep associations, but let's have realistic expectations for sleep. I don't think that forcing children into something they're not ready for can be helpful long term - we wouldn't do it with potty training.

Generally it's clubs for older ones that run late, Guides after Brownies, Scouts after, beavers. All using the same hut, one after the other.

Swimming club, runs after public lessons, that can finish late.

This means late nights for DCs still at primary as Guides starts at 10 and we have seriously good Y5 swimmers.

Scouts finish at 9, which is too late for 10.5year olds, even with my lax attitude to bed time. By the time DC has got home and wound down, scouts can be fairly lively, it can be gone 10pm.

When leaders are volunteers they are at work and then need to eat- they have to start later.

I think 9pm is a bit late but then sometimes they have to run after Beavers/Cubs don't they?

My DC do various clubs, the latest finish time is 8.30pm for Cubs which I do think is a bit late but it's one night a week so it isn't the end of the world. The other two are 7.30pm and 8pm, the 8pm one is a Friday night so I don't mind that.

High School age, it's 9pm for both Scouts and Boy's Brigade.

I had the usual ups and downs sleep-wise with the DCs when they were young but got through it - however, now they're in their teens it's a whole different ballgame. Don't anyone assume that establishing good sleep habits when they're young means they're sorted for life!

We are living in Italy and the 5/6 year old next door is quite often up screaming at 11pm still. I find it really odd...

I have two littlies by the way - 1 and 3. The one year old goes to bed between 6.30 and 7pm and the 3 year old 7/7.15pm.