Are UK parents obsessed with getting their kids to bed early?

[RosieLeaLovesTea]

Am I the only one that thinks UK parents are obsessed with getting their kids to bed early? I see posts of 7pm/7.30pm, some as early as 6pm.

I work full time and don’t get home until 6.30pm. We don’t eat until 7pm. So generally 9pm is bedtime. Plus it means that if we do go out at weekends our kids are used to going to bed a bit later.

I can only imagine what the kids school would say if I sent them in with a letter saying they needed to sleep for 2/3 hours after lunch😂

What?

I sat down to watch Eastenders in peace, I didn't realise I was meant to be warming my DH slippers 😂

My two year old goes to bed around 7 and wakes up around 7. So clearly she needs 12 hours, more or less. I don't want her getting up later because that wouldn't work well with our schedule as a family, so she needs to go to bed at 7. The baby also goes to bed at that time, because I'm not doing separate bedtimes! Baby sometimes wakes earlier, but I tend to get up not long after 6 (that's just how I'm wired) so I don't mind if baby's up at 6.

I imagine if your child goes to bed later, either they get up later or they have longer naps (the two year old barely naps now). That's fine if it works for your family's schedule, I don't think there's a right or wrong about these things, though I do think it's beneficial to the child to be in a routine at least most of the time.

Kids in the uk don't get to have a lunchtime nap for 2-3 hours they're still at school and parents are still working

If I put mine to bed later when they were little they woke at the same time but would be grumpy all day as they hadn't had enough sleep. It varies but little ones need 10 hours + sleep. I put them to bed according to the amount of sleep they needed and what time we generally needed to get up the next day. When they were primary school age they could probably sleep in a bit on holiday and would cope with a later bedtime. But not when they were younger than that.

Not obsessed but I a value sleep. Children need 10 to 12 hours sleep. I hate the thought of sending them to school with not enough sleep. I also value my down time once they have gone to bed, if I didn't get that I would really struggle to be a good parent! I do cleaning then and have down time.

We don’t have naps in the UK, it’s rarely hot enough to need to be up late to do activities and our schedule is based on working 9-5, school 9-3. Kids have lunch at school at 12 so they can’t last until late at night to eat. It’s just a routine that makes sense here, no point in keeping overtired kids awake.

Yes, sleep needs vary. DS needed 11 hours at two, 10 hours at school age so 9pm to 7am was fine. A 7pm bedtime would have had him up at 5am.

I’m British, and had often wondered how children in other countries get enough sleep. I forgot about naps, in the UK it’s rare to have a nap at a set daytime hour unless you’re a very young child. I’m guilty of wanting the adult time in the evenings, they can play in their rooms for a while but I’d like a bit of time to wind down and watch TV that isn’t suitable for children.
I’d seen this guidance Sleep needed, and assume that mine still don’t get enough sleep. There don’t seem to be enough hours in the day to fulfil this, before needing to get up for school.

In the UK it's warm for a few weeks a year, if you are lucky. We don't have a siesta culture as it's not generally 40C at 3pm - 6pm and 25C until midnight. A lot of the year it's dark/cold and people go to bed early as they are up at the crack of dawn to go to work (or earlier in winter).

The pp forgot to say that she's clearly (like me) in a country where school finishes at lunch.

Mind you, with some of the entitled parents on here, you can imagine it won't be long before teachers start receiving notes like that.

We need to be awake for 7 on day that I work. My youngest needs 12hrs, middle 11hrs and oldest 10 hrs sleep so that means I take my youngest up at 6.30 and she's asleep for 7. My middle child goes up to read at 7 for lights out at 8. My oldest goes up to read at 8 but lights out at 9. This routine gives me a chance to spend some quality time with each child before bed too.

The amount of sleep a child needs does not change just because you get home late from work. Years of research shows how much sleep most children need but if you know better then crack on. If children have to get up for nursery or school then they have to go to bed at a reasonable time for their health. Perhaps UK parents just take this more seriously than the continent ?

How do people who let their kids stay up till 9 or 10 get them up and out the house in the mornings? We have to leave the house at 7.30 on work days. If my kids went to bed at 9 regularly in primary school and were up at 6 they wouldn't have been able to function, they needed more sleep.

There were no naps in my school after the age of 5 in my hot country so enough sleep the night before was essential. Each to their own but good sleep hygiene has anyways been a priority in our house.

Ds slept in line with the minimums given there, do your children get less than that?

He would take himself somewhere comfortable for a nap or go to bed early if he felt tired when he was two or three, if we had been up later for celebrations or similar. He never got overtired as he would just sleep.

I’d love to get DD7 off to bed earlier but she’s night owl, it’s 9pm usually, sometimes 9.30 before she can actually settle down. I’m a morning person, like being up at 5am. She needs to be up at 7am for school but struggles to get up in the morning, but despite many tries at getting her to bed earlier she’s wide awake!

Yes, we all eat together as a family a 6pm too. Works for us!

I come from a culture that does later bedtimes so I wasn't expecting to be a 7pm bedtime person. But DS1 was very clear as a baby that he saw 6pm as his bedtime. From about 3 months old, you couldn't keep him up after that if you tried. It was actually quite inconvenient and we had to adjust our working hours so that we could pick him up from nursery by 5 to get him down. We have gradually shifted that to 7-7:30 now that he is 7 but you still can't keep him up much past 8 even on holiday.

DS2 is not like this innately but it was convenient to have them both on the same schedule so we also put him to bed by 7/7:30.

They are both up around 6:30 which is fine as we need them in breakfast club for 7:45 to get to work. I would love a lie in at the weekends of course but day to day it wouldn't suit us to have late to bed children and it wouldn't be quality time as they would be sleepy and grumpy

I always think these threads have an undertone from some posters of "oh but my children are sophisticated continental types and not in bed for 7.." but hey I can get a babysitter and get to the theatre...

👏👏👏

Not in this house. My DD is rarely asleep before 9pm, happily gets up at 6:30. I'm best on 6 hrs, myself, so I have no-one to blame except myself and my genes!

I don't see the point in them having a nap after school just so they can stay up late in a country where for the majority of the year its dark by 7 o'clock and often pissing it down with rain

I also don't see the point in a 2 year old quietly pottering around while I have a glass of wine and read a book at gone 9 at night

Some of these comments assume a very particular lifestyle. No way DH would be back by 6.30 and I would be able to rustle up a dinner after a full day at work. Equally, kids have to be up by 7 to get them to nursery on time. It just depends on your lifestyle.

DS didn't usually nap at two, just slept 11 hours at night, but him going to bed later meant I had an hour in the morning to myself, to shower and sit quietly with a coffee in the morning light. Evenings were easier for us to do our own thing as he was winding down and playing quietly after dinner.

Sorry, meant to quote @TimeToMoveIt I was a lone parent so that quiet time in the morning was important to me