Kids bedtimes, no adult down time

[OhDearWhyAmIFatterly]

I'm hoping parents with older kids can help me with this....
We have 3 children 6, 10 and 13. Obviously it's the summer holidays so bedtimes have slid a bit but I'm struggling as we are just not getting any down time with no kids in the evening!!!
I know we have kids and that's part and parcel but I need some time!
I'm dreading back to school and all the battles.
We get up early for the school childcare drop off, and are out of the house bu 7.15. Home by 6.
I just need a period of uninterrupted TV time in the evening after super stressful day at work....
Is it reasonable to say to older kids they have to be in their rooms by a certain time even if not asleep??
Even if we try to send them up to watch TV or read the constantly come back down for drinks or whatever so I can't watch anything!!
Are we destined to only watch family friendly TV and then go to bed for the next 5 years???
I miss 7pm bedtimes!!!!
Please tell me your routines.....

CurlyhairedAssassin

We do seem to share the same ideas of family life. My son is almost 16 but a couple of years ago whilst on holiday, we bumped into a family we vaguely know. (weird coincidence) who have a son the same age as my son. They were saying their child was moaning so much about going on holiday with them and was surprised that our son was happy to still go on holiday with us and was enjoying himself. They kept saying to my son 'maybe you will bring a mate next time or stay home, you won't want to be with your parents and little sister next year'. My son just smiled and laughed along but checked afterwards that he wouldn't be left home the following year. 😂 I don't think he has any intention of not coming away with us any time soon. I really hope both my children choose to be around us when they're older and that we socialise together. We parent when we need to but honestly, it's not often now that we have to tell them to do something. Maybe we're just lucky, like you said earlier but our children are really lovely company. They'll happily watch TV with us, chat about anything from random stuff on YouTube to politics. I think because they are so good, I don't need them to be in bed to feel relaxed. I'm just hoping that neither of them drastically change although I'm not naive enough to think that it's impossible for one or both of them to turn into total nightmare teens....I'm really hoping not though. They seem to appreciate that the reason we don't have lots of rules is because at the moment we don't seem to need them. They know that we have basic expectations that apply to everyone in the house and that keeps everyone happy.....I've probably jinxed it now and they'll both be terrible from now on.

I am very much an introvert so not bothered about things like “going out with the girls” but I am very much at home in the bosom of my family.

This sounds much like me too. Im definitely most happy when I close the door to the world and its just me, OH and the kids.

Sorry to derail thread OP. Both my kids were terrible sleepers when they were younger, struggled to get to sleep and woke up numerous times at night so I do understand feeling stressed when you are up and down to them all night.

FFS mine are not allowed to stay up as late as they like and have never fallen asleep in front of the telly or any other screen. What they are allowed to do is stay downstairs watching with us until 10 or so, one of them goes to bed then of their own accord, the other may stay up a bit longer but we will say time for bed by 10.30 or so (earlier on a school night) and off they go, no fuss, no faffing. They are also great company on holidays and days out and I very much enjoy spending time together as a family. I fail to see how any of this could be interpreted as failure to parent.

I'm getting my down time now, I'm out in the garden relaxing, DH and DD are out and DS is pottering. Downtime doesn't have to before the DCs go to bed.

Just wanted to point out that you can have different arrangements for different nights...eg we have it set in that DS hangs out with us on Weds and Sat nights, and we watch a film together or play a game. Other nights he mostly goes to his room (because he wants to watch his own stuff on YouTube).

He’s only 11 though and there’s a lot of stuff we want to watch that’s either actively unsuitable for him, or would just be boring. As he gets older, hopefully he’ll have more evenings when he wants to watch the good stuff with us :)

Pretty sure there is a WHOLE load more unsuitable stuff on YouTube that he could easily access when not monitored in his room than what he may see on telly, @tinierclanger!

He could indeed, but he doesn’t!

Changing the subject slightly, but we have sort of similar issues in the mornings. Both my kids are early risers (always awake by 6 or 6.30, sometimes even 5.30, regardless of how late they go to bed). To give ourselves some sanity at weekends and holidays, we've always had a 'rule' that they can come down at 7 and watch TV, but not before. Now they're getting older, I really want to get away from such fixed 'rules', so that they learn to manage their own time more. But equally I know that if I take away this 'rule', they would regularly be hitting the screen at 6am, which I don't really want. Anyone have any suggestions for good morning 'routines' for older kids, that aren't really routines?

Interesting Winds, you seem to have early issues!
DS1 will lay In really late in the hols Now they are 13, the other 2 stillWake up at 7/8. I let them watch tv/netfix/YouTube (gaming videos) until breakie. I feel like I spent years getting up all night as none of mine slept through and they were all early risers. So now they are a bit bigger, as long as they are ok I let them get on with it so I can go back to bed for a bit!!

I do same. I wouldnt get up with the 13 or 15 yr old. Unfortunately I had a big age gap and my toddler wakes at 5 .....

if you have an alexa in their rooms could you set it up with reminders to shower etc? even smart bulb to go out..!

Such a timely thread, I tried starting one on this. There are so many factors to consider as children get older:

Only TV and consoles are in the living room, and we really don't want TV in bedrooms for anyone. No laptops etc either yet.

Adults (me & DH) not actually wanting to watch much tv in the evening, we just want some quiet reading / chatting time until our bedtime of 10-1030pm. We work in the same place so we see each other plenty!

Children aged 8 and 11 - the oldest one at high school and wanting the later bedtimes of his friends, the youngest not wanting to be left out and being a bit of a night owl anyway

Living in France where mealtimes and bedtimes are generally later (most families eat btw 7:30 to 8:30, bedtime seems to be around 10pm for children of this age). I would agree that there is a bit of a Brit thing about early bedtimes for children, not so much here. (My personal theory is that because French people work long days - due to the two hour lunches ;-) - and the children are in pre-school 0830 to 1645, 4-5 days a week, from the age of 2/3, the parents actually want to spend time with them in the evenings! They can also take an afternoon nap here until they are 5/6 yrs old).

Daily routine is all over the shop... DH and DS are in and out as they are teacher / student and only have to be in school when they are teaching / have a lesson. DS2 is more routine. I work pt, 3 days a week and different hours each day. So I usually watch all my adulty-zombie-horror faves while doing the ironing ;-) so we really like the evenings to be a bit more routine, it's hard work otherwise,

House size - we are in a 2-bed appartement, our DC share a (big) room so they don't really get alone time when they go there and just end up annoying each other. Letting them have tvs / watching tv on Ipads would solve this in one way.. but for us it's more important that these things are put away well before sleeping time.

We really haven't cracked it at all. It's very messy atm, we aren't back to school yet. The rules I hope we can put in place are:

Dinner at 7pm
No consoles / gaming / Ipads after dinner.
Family TV okay till around 8-30pm. Reading / quiet chat / board game until 9pm. Children encouraged to bed... they can read etc and put their lights out when ready (DS1 talks about wanting to stay up late like his mates: truth is he's a lark, so is usually zonko by 9:05pm and up at 6:30am ;-) and he has to be in school for 8am). DH and I to bed by 10pm.

So that boils down to a 9pm bedtime (but go to sleep when ready), and no tv / devices for anyone from around 8pm.

@WindsBeginToSing

I have exactly the same issue! mine are 8 and 11 now and tbh I am sticking with the 7am rule as it's the only way to restrict endless YT / Minecraft in the early hours and let me stay in bed a while. Personally, I'm not planning to change this until they naturally start sleeping a little later in the morning, which will restrict things without me having to intervene.

Wally, glad to hear someone has the same dilemma. Recently though I've begun to worry that being allowed to come down for TV at 7 is actually going to stop them ever starting to sleep later (the only time they EVER have to be woken up at 7 - and it's still v rare - is on a school day when they're not allowed screens). But I feel like if I now say 'no morning screens at weekends' then I'm treating them as younger, not older. I'm just hoping that starting secondary and some teenage hormones might make DS1 occasionally sleep until 8!

Also Wally, re the evenings, you raise another issue, which is younger siblings. My 9 YO happily accepts that my 11 YO has a slightly later lights out time when they're just reading in their rooms, but I foresee all kinds of annoyingness from him if he's in bed and the rest of us are downstairs watching some family friendly TV.

Twelve year olds here. No technology after 7. Can watch tv in living area until 8. In their bedroom ready for bed by 9. Lights off by 10. Sometimes they choose to turn the light off at 9.
Some nights my asd child fights this and is not in room until ten.

@WindsBeginToSing but I foresee all kinds of annoyingness from him if he's in bed and the rest of us are downstairs watching some family friendly TV.

My two have the same age gap. We usually get round this by letting the older one watch a documentary that the younger one isn’t interested in, so he then doesn’t understand going up first to get ready for bed. The older one likes politics or social affairs programmes which the younger one is not into yet, so off he trots. If he DOES become interested in that stuff, well, I’d then consider him old enough to stay up and learn something from it!

Doesn’t understand?!? Doesn’t MIND!!!!

WindsBeginToSing we have the same 7am rule. It's still necessary for the 8 and 12 year olds, not least because the 8 year old will wake the 12 year old if he isn't awake by 7 no matter how late they went to bed (obviously he's not allowed to, but he gets up and goes to the toilet and accidentally-on-purpose knocks things over or sings ). They are very close and ask to share a room in th holidays and Friday and Saturday nights, though we don't allow them to on school nights because of keeping each other awake/ waking each other up.

The 7am rule dropped out of relevance for our 14 year old when she finally, at 13, started sleeping past 6am naturally! Until last year all 3 of them would have been up at 5:30am given the chance, even when they'd been to bed late for some reason. She still gets up earlier than most teens (she's up, showered and dressed now despite no specific reason to be) but finally sleeps in if she needs it.

If you observe your child's changing body clock and habits I think it'll be obvious when they no longer need the 7am rule or bedtime.

What matters is that they get enough sleep, and from my former career as a secondary school teacher I know for a fact that a huge percentage (rough guess about half) of pre-teens and teens don't get enough sleep, and suffer for it at school.

11 year olds need 9-10 hours sleep and even teens need more than adults - no wonder with all that they are living through with growth spurts, hormones, brains still rapidly developing, pressure of school and growing up emotionally etc - on average 8.5 to 9 hours, so if they have to be out of bed at 7am they still need to be actually in bed, not about to go upstairs to faff around, by 10pm on school nights.

Said 14 year old no longer has a holiday bedtime but generally chooses to go up when her little brothers do at 9pm latest, sometimes earlier if they seem tired. She only really chooses to stay up if we're going to watch something unsuitable for the 8 year old which she wants to watch too.

Her phone disables itself except for emergency numbers at 9pm in the holidays, 8pm in term time, so although she can stay up she can't sit glued to her phone

Mine are younger but 10 & 9 year olds go up at their bedrooms at about 7.30 - 8pm (in the holidays 7 - 7.30pm in term time). I do their bedtime routine, teeth (& story for 7yr old) & they are free to read or play quietly. 7yr old goes straight to sleep. I don't set a time for them to have lights off as such but 9yr read for about an hour & 10 yr old plays for a bit & then reads. I check on them when I go to bed at 10.30 - 11.30pm & they're asleep.

nothingsreallynewunderthesun that made me smile about your younger child 'accidentally' waking up the older, as mine would do exactly the same. Only this morning, DS1 awoke to find DS2's face about three inches from his, just 'checking' if he was awake.

Thanks all, it sounds like the 7am rule stays. My husband will be pleased, if it weren't for morning TV we might never have sex again .

I'm really enjoying all the different ideas and viewpoints thanks!
One thing I will add is, I did read that when children go through puberty their bodies and brains go through the same amount of growth and change and babies and therefore need more sleep. This was the reason they layed in bed until midday!

Most teenagers only need about 9 hours I think. Some may need a bit more, some less. If they genuinely were asleep till midday it’s no doubt because they were awake till the early hours gaming/reading/listening to music/on social media. I think for the kids that do that it’s a bad habit because they then want to do this during the week in term time and then they act like zombies in a school the next day. Good sleep hygiene is so important.

Mine seem to need a standard amount of teenaged sleep. During this holiday they have been asleep by 11pm. They have been waking up naturally at around 8am. Occasionally it’s been 11.30 and then they may sleep in till nearer 9. During term time it shifts so that they get up about 7.15 so are asleep by 10.15. If it slips to around 10.45 for whatever reason then I find I’m having to wake them up next morning.

According to the Sleep Council:

While there is no hard and fast rule, the general guide is toddlers need around 12 hours of sleep a night; children aged three to six – 10-12 hours; seven-12 years olds – 10-11 hours; and teenagers – around eight to nine hours.

Which means, OP, that your 13 year old could well only need a little bit more sleep than you do. Which does eventually mean that you will all be going to bed at a similar time to each other. i get ready straight after mine are settled in bed lights off nowadays. It is what it is. You just have to accept it, or be prepared to risk your teenager feel alienated by being expected to keep out your way.

Re-Reading because for some weird reason I also love to hear about other families’ way of doing things! : Your term time schedule does sound gruelling though. Out of the house by 7.15am and back at 6pm! It is a long day and I can see why you need your downtime if that’s every week day.

Does mean, though, that the 13 year old if getting up at, say, 6.30, may only need to be asleep by 10.30pm to feel fullly refreshed next day. If that’s the time that you need to be asleep too ideally then obviously you won’t get any time at all really when you are awake and the 13 year old isn’t.

I can tell you that 13 is still quite young in terms of enjoying their company. In a year or two you may well find that actually you welcome them staying up with them and you have a laugh with them watching stuff you enjoy together. It is completely different to parenting much younger kids when they are whining or bickering with each other or have left their toys all over their floor. Teenagers can be great company once they hit 15 or so.

Thanks for taking the time curly to really get stuck into the thread. I know everyone is different and that's why it's interesting to hear other people's routines. I do really like hanging out with them, but you are right work is pretty gruelling and I guess I just need some time to process the day and I'm used to doing that by sitting in front of the TV for an hour!