Are you strict about your teens' bedtimes?

[Dancergirl]

Or do you trust them to make sensible choices?

My two older dds are 14.5 and just turned 13 (Years 10 and 8). Lights out is supposed to be 10.30pm for older one and 9.45pm for younger. However this seems to be drifting and oldest is very often still pottering around past 11pm. Similarly with younger one, she is rarely in bed before 10.

I am quite strict about no phones or devices in rooms, they are left charging downstairs overnight. And I encourage them to turn screens off well before bedtime.

They are 'ok' at getting up in the morning, they don't exactly leap out of bed but not too bad.

So do you enforce strict bedtimes with consequences or trust they are getting enough sleep?

[Scatter]

I have 15 and 13 year old boys. They both get nagged up to bed around 9.30 and by the time they've got into bed it's usually 9.45-10.00. They then read (no phones/screens in bedrooms) or sometimes turn their lights straight off. If DS1's light is still on and he is still reading when I go to bed around 11, I ask him to turn it off and he does without complaint. DS2 loves his sleep and never has to be told to turn a light off!

Mine sleep until around 7 and get up slowly but surely. I think we'd be able to tell if they were getting really tired and grumpy. Even my 15 year old isn't really into puberty yet and I think I've read that they will get more restless at night and tireder in the morning as the hormones kick in so maybe yours are reaching that stage?

I wouldn't enforce bedtimes with consequences because they would notice the consequences for themselves if they were over-tired and grumpy I assume, but I do enforce being in their rooms and quiet without screens, and turning off their lights when I go to bed. But of course that might change as they get older, I never really know as I m̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶r̶u̶l̶e̶s̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶I̶ ̶g̶o̶ ̶a̶l̶o̶n̶g̶,̶ ̶o̶f̶t̶e̶n̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶k̶n̶e̶e̶-̶j̶e̶r̶k̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶a̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶h̶a̶v̶i̶o̶u̶r̶ consider carefully at each turn and implement fully thought through parenting decisions, in conjunction with DH, as each new challenge presents itself.

[leonardthelemming]

I read somewhere - can't find the reference, unfortunately - that changes happen at puberty which puts the body clock back an hour or two. This can mean that they literally can't get to sleep before midnight and tend to wake up later as a result. It's a pity schools don't start and finish an hour later, in my opinion.

[Dancergirl]

Yes I think I heard that too. Isn't there a secondary school which is experimenting with a later starting time? But in the real world, my dds have to be up for school about 6.45am, I'm worrying they aren't getting enough sleep.

[ChocolateJam]

My DD is 13, lights out is at 21:00 but these days she is often still awake until 22:00. My alarm goes off at 6:10 and theoretically then I wake her but more often she is up before me.

[leonardthelemming]

When I was at school we started at 0920 but in the last school I taught at, registration was at 0820. If there is a school which is trying to go back to a later start time I think that's a good thing. The only way I could avoid getting up at 0630 as a teacher was to defer breakfast until morning break...

[Noneedforasitter]

14.5 is pretty much the last time you can treat someone as a child. After that, bedtime becomes impossible to enforce.

I go to bed before my two teenagers (17 & 15) most nights. I'm just grateful they switch off the lights.

[Dancergirl]

What time do they go to sleep noneed? And what time up in the morning?

[Dancergirl]

scatter I love your post

Sometimes I feel I don't know what I'm doing with this parenting teens lark and it seems that everyone else does!

[SecretSquirrels]

Mine are older now but around 13 I got fed up of trying to enforce bedtimes and negotiated. The Battle for Bedtime was getting us all down. The agreement was that as long as they had lights out at a sensible time on school nights there would be no limit on weekends.

This worked a treat. DS1 in particular was thrilled to be allowed to stay up half the night at weekends and after a few 3am sessions he was fairly sensible. DS2 always liked his bed and seldom stayed up late.
Also they were responsible for setting alarms and getting up in the morning which they did reasonably well.

[Noneedforasitter]

During the week they get up at 7 for school. Neither needs waking (normally). Bedtime is anyone's guess, but they both go up to their rooms between 10.30 & 11.

At the weekend, the 15 year old won't come down before noon normally. The 17 year old has a Saturday job and walks the dog, so gets up early even at the weekend. Now I think about it, she's a better functioning adult than I am.

[Floralnomad]

My dc are 23 & 16 , we have never had bedtimes , pre 11 they had a time to be upstairs but that's as far as rules went .

[Dancergirl]

secret so what time is a sensible time on school nights?

[leonardthelemming]

14.5 is pretty much the last time you can treat someone as a child.

The Citizens Advice Bureau defines a child as someone under 14. That makes sense to me - they haven't taken the word adolescent out of the dictionary. Yet.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Mine automatically puts herself to bed before 10pm even at the age of 16 (but has to be up at 6:45). Even at weekends she goes to bed at the same time. I guess she needs her sleep.

[Curiousflannel]

I used to try and make my dd go to bed around 11 last year when she was 15/16 and still at school. I would take her phone etc off her overnight but she used to be messing around for hours in her room. Just to piss me off I think.

Now she is 17 and at college I try and tell her to go to bed at a reasonable time but she refuses to and she is up till all hours on her phone. It drives me nuts but I've given up trying as it just leads to arguments. Most of her friends are up very late as well. Every now and then she will be really tired and turn lights out at 12 ish and she catches up with sleep on a weekend. I don't know how they function but I hope that common sense will one day arrive.

[notquiteruralbliss]

No rules in our house. Mine have been known to go to bed as I am getting up. Though ( in my defence) I do occasionally get up stupidly early.

[Stoneagemum]

Mine self regulate, dd(13) usually goes around 9 and ds(16) I have no idea I go to bed at 10 and unless it is school holidays he is in bed before I get up at 6am.
They always get up on time for school thou so I have no reason to enforce bedtimes (lucky me )

[BackforGood]

My youngest (now 14) has never slept deeply, or for long stretches, so I made a conscious decision a few years ago I was wasting everyone's time and creating nightly tension and frustration by trying to make her go to bed at what many would call a "sensible time"...... but then she was 2 1/2 before she ever went to sleep before about 11pm so I may have a slightly odd child there.
dd1 (now 17) loves her sleep and is really good at self regulating - I got in tonight at about 9.15pm and she was tucked up in bed with the light off, asleep.
ds needed us to direct him more (in terms of telling him to get to bed), but then he could never get up in the mornings, whereas dd2 never has a problem and also gets up at weekends and holidays when she doesn't need to be anywhere.

I guess what I'm saying is, it's individual to the child.

[Sparkyduchess]

My very very nearly 17 year old gets 'reminded' at 9.30 on a school night that he needs to come downstairs for half an hour and then gets packed off to bed at 10 pm, when he then spends 30 mins getting himself ready.

If we didn't prompt him, he'd stay up till all hours, and would be awful the next day.

For now,he's happy to go along with my nagging although I'm sure that will change.he grumbles occasionally that his friends stay up later, but he concedes that actually, he'd be crap at realising that he should go to bed and would suffer for it the next day.

[nooka]

My 15 and 16 year old have a 10pm bedtime. We don't tend to enforce it too strictly but usually they are in their rooms between 9.45 and 10.30. dd finds getting to sleep difficult and gets ill when she is overtired (migraines) so we've always been pretty careful about avoiding late nights. ds has always been surprisingly compliant, even though his friends go to be much later. Luckily his main group of online gaming buddies live in a different time zone, so our 10pm is their 1am.

[MaybeIAmJustNotReasonable]

DD is 16 and will go to sleep anytime between 8:30 and 10:45, she's always up in the mornings
She has her phone and sometimes laptop in her room but I trust her to know her limits. If not she'll still get up between 6:15 and 7, and just be tired that day.