If you have young children, what time do you go to bed?

[PlumBear]

Asking because we have a 7, 5 and 2 year old and are utterly broken with exhaustion.
Having dropped her nap the 2 year is asleep by 7pm, thank God, but the older 2 can still be awake at 8.30pm / 9pm. Then up around 6.30am the next day.

by the time they’re all asleep and we’ve tidied up downstairs, all my husband and I want to do is sit in silence on our phones for a few hours and decompress. Family life is incredibly noisy and chaotic at the moment and have no family nearby to help.
so we usually end up going to bed around 11pm. I know this is too late, especially as the toddler is still up once or twice in the night and can wake as early as 5am but I also know we desperately need some time to ourselves at the end of the day. We are really struggling at the moment.

how do you balance it? And what time do you go to bed if you have children of a similar age?

TIA

I’m finding it hard to figure out the problem here, what’s wrong with those times? I’m still doing football training with some of miners nights a week at 7-8pm 😂 All sounds reasonable, what i would say though is to change timing of the 2 older kids to prevent the messing about. Put 5 year old down at 7.30 then 8pm 7 year old so that way you’ve half hour to settle younger one rather than going up and down the stairs. Use reward charts weekly to encourage them staying in bed.

8 year old goes to bed 8:15 and 12year old has to be in room for 9. I go to bed at 10.

2 and 4. 7-730pm and wake around 6am.

Mine are a bit older now but when they were similar ages the 5 year old would go to bed at 7pm after a short story and then the 9 year old at 8pm after a short story in our bedroom as they share a room. It gave the youngest time to fall asleep before the eldest went in.

We would then go to bed around 10-11pm.
Up at 6am every morning.

I find it harder now they are teenagers and going to bed at 9 and 10:30pm! We go to bed at the same time as the eldest!

Anywhere between 10 and 11 for me, sometimes later on weekends. My dd (11.5) is generally down by 9:45/10 and I often go straight after her.
I remember that longing to stay up for a good while after dd went down. Not such an issue now she’s older and less demanding! Your two older ones are going to sleep quite late for kids that age though. Is that just how long it takes them to settle? If so I’d be inclined to take them up same time as toddler.

This is what I was thinking. My 6 year old is usually asleep by 7.15/7.30. I go to bed at about 9.30 and read for a while. Get up when she gets up. Anywhere between 6am and 7am.
Am still tired lol

Children go to bed at 7pm and up anywhere between 5:30-6:30. We have tried later bedtime of 8pm and they’re still up at the same time so we’d rather have more of an evening.
We tag team jobs - one clears up dinner and one does bath time etc so jobs are mainly done by the time they are in bed.
I go to bed at 8:30/9pm as I really need my 8 hours to function, DH stays up slightly later but always in bed by 10/10:30

Mine are 7 and 5 and in bed by 8 (5yo usually a bit before as DH and I take turns to do bedtimes, so will read to 5yo first). They wake up at 7, which works perfectly for us.

DH and I aim to be in bed for 10 but often it ends up closer to 11, which is still a good 8 hours sleep.

Our are up 6am, in bed 7pm, asleep usually 8pm. We read books and play card games before bed.

I don't know how my next door neighbours do it, but they have a 4yo that's up til at least 10pm every night. They obviously don't care for time on their own at nights before they sleep.

I'm usually in bed before my 2.5 year old. We go upstairs about 7/7.30.
Asleep at the same time as him - anytime between 7.30 and 10.

He wakes during the night still, and is usually awake for the day about 8am. Although ranges from 7 until 9am.

My priority in life is sleep. I can't function without it.

5yo goes to bed for about 7ish - wakes about 6:30ish

2yo (nearly) goes to bed for 7:30ish and has an hour nap in the day - wakes anywhere between 5 and 7am, usually 6:30am

12yo is in bed for 8 and reading until 8:30 (she has to be up for 6:30 so needs her sleep)

DH and I tidy up, eat dinner and go to bed for about 10/11. Gives us time to decompress but still enough time to feel somewhat rested. 2yo mostly sleeps through now though. He went through a phase of waking at 3am every day but we cut his nap short which helped.

Ours are 2, 7, 10 and 12. Little one sleeps 7-7. The older girls go to bed at 9 and sleep (maybe not right away) until 7.30. Bit longer at the weekend.

We normally have TV time from 8-11pm and go to bed at 11pm. Up at 7 for work. I have everything set out for the next morning in each of their rooms as we have a quick turn around in the morning.

My youngest is 8, but I’m in bed 9-9:30pm. I have cancer and I do not mess around with sleep. I’m straight to bed after he gets out of the shower. Older one is 13 and she sorts herself out. Dh tidies the kitchen, loads dishwasher and takes the dog out.

At your children's ages bed time was 1900-1930. Even when she was older she would still go to her room at 1900 and read etc until 2000 to give me space

9:30/ 10pm bed for us . 2 year old asleep by 6:30 and 8 year old in his bed at 7:30 and reads for an hour . The day normally starts at 5am no matter how late my 2 year old goes to bed so I’m never up late .

Reading these posts makes me wonder what people are doing. 7pm bedtime. Bath and story before that. In bed for 7. No ipads. No tv. Goodnight. See you in the morning. If they get up (which they they won’t unless there’s an issue that isn’t just ‘something hurts’ or ‘I need a drink’ straight back to bed. It’s not that difficult. If you’re sitting with them while they go to sleep or they keep getting up then you’re doing something wrong. Create a good bedtime and sleep routine and it will pay off.

Well massively depends on (a) age of child and (b) time they get up in the morning for a start.

You sound very pleased with yourself but not all kids and families are the same.

Between 9-10

@Jk987 i have no idea what you think we ‘should’ be doing but I am broken and exhausted by 8!

Honestly if you think it’s “doing something wrong” for sitting with a young child while they settle to sleep you need an empathy implant.
May this type of motherhood never find me.

Kids 8 and 11 - upstairs at 730, ready for bed by 8pm, we do 8 yr old DS reading book, then a story (he still enjoys being read to), DD 11 reads/draws etc. Bed by 830, DH and I usually go to bed about 1030.

My toddler goes to bed between 6pm and 7pm (he usually asks) then sleep
to 7/ 7:30am.

My older two are 12 and 14 and we go bed at same time around 9 / 9:30pm. I get up at 6:30

some of the comments are interesting, I’ve 3 kids all diff. First never really been alseep
before 9pm but always in bed by 8, never laid with her cos took 90 mins for her to fall
asleep, was always happy to sit draw then later read, no2 always asleep with ten minutes of going to bed (usually around 8) and from birth fell asleep on his own, was up at 5 ish for years… no 3 sleeps so much better when in bed for 6:30pm (often 13 hours!) but likes me to lay with him. You just have to find what works for yours…

The ages of the the children are in the post. It depends what people want. If you want an evening to yourself then you get them into a routine that allows that.

7 year old usually asleep by 8:30 or 9 ish but he sleeps in our bed and needs me there with him.

11 year old asleep about 9:30 DH put them to bed as I’m in with DS.

DH then tidies up downstairs and is up about 10:30 and we either read of watch tv (silent, with subtitles as DS is in our room). Asleep by midnight usually. We don’t get any time by ourselves in the evenings at all.

alarm set for 7 but usually get woken by kids around 6 ish.

Yes (and no)

DS started sleeping through uninterrupted at around 18 months; great. The trade off was he woke at between 5 and 530 every day. Those ‘little daydream’ sequences on CBeebies were very familiar to me.

I absolutely hated it and tried everything; earlier bedtimes and later bedtimes and Gro clocks and treating it as a night wake. None of it made any difference. He went to bed at 7; I tried even earlier but then the risk was a half four wake up so er no, thanks. I was really, really tired and I do think that’s why I struggled a fair bit with ds, in retrospect, but anyway, an ‘evening to myself’ when you’re up at 5 was basically 7-9, two hours, not loads in all honesty.

He dropped the nap at around two and three quarters and he started sleeping later then. (When I’d tried without the nap before he didn’t, weirdly, it was some thing that had to come from him,)

DD has never really done the crazy early wake ups, once in a blue moon but not regularly.

They are both in a good routine - I’m on my own with both of them a lot so do need a watertight schedule. But often children have their own schedules and routines with regard to waking up and going to sleep and that’s without things like nursery as a factor (dd still sleeps at nursery and not at home so always takes ages to go to sleep on nursery days.)

My 3yr and 2yr old go to bed at 5pm. Youngest between 6/7pm. I always get in to bed for 10pm