to rhink if your baby/ child goes to bed at 6 or 7pm

[firstforthought]

that it seems only natural they wake between 4 and 6 am?
I have read of people being sad or frustrated that baby wakes this early to start the day and i am thinking huh??
i have always put baby to bed when I go then I can expect a few hours broken or not then as the child gets older make bedtime earlier.

Both of mine go to bed at 7 and usually wake at 6.30 / 7 am. Ds age 2 still has an hours nap at lunch, Dd age 5 obviously doesn't.
Didn't think this was unusual, but considered myself lucky.

OP, I agree that is the case in some cases but in my (limited) experience the majority of children I know in real life seem to need (and get)12 hours. This thread is filled with examples of children sleeping 12 hours, even more. In the UK at least many parents need to be up by 7am latest in order to go to work/get their kids ready for nursery/school - if our kids need 12 hours sleep (as my DD does) then a 7pm bedtime seems normal.

My DD went through her early waking phases in her early months but once she turned 2 these phases disappeared. I kept her bedtime the same throughout. In fact I expect when she starts school next year she'll need more sleep so perhaps an even earlier bedtime!

All 3 of mine have always slept 12 hours.If you look at recommended hours of sleep for kids it's bang on.

Mine goes to bed at 7.30 and wakes up around 7.30-8 in the morning. When I needed him to be awake earlier, he went to bed earlier.

my son goes to bed at nearly midnight (finally calms down)

and wake up at 8 lucky me

an aquaintance used to put her DC to bed at 5.30/6pm (meaning tea was at 4pm, and lunch was at 11am) because she'd had "such a hard day with them". She wouldn't listed to anyone who suggested that she could avoid the 4am starts every day by thinking about moving her routine on a couple of hours and fitting in with the rest of society a bit more.
(I know I sound harsh, but she was dreadfully drippy about "it's so hard, I have to go to bed myself so early and I never see my DH", plus she still inflicts the early lunch on visitors. I have ishoos with her anyway, so am B a bit U ).

I have one DC who sleeps for Britain, and runs on a 25 hour day, which means she's constantly fighting to stay on time with the rest of us, and one who would wake at 6am, but then have a three hour nap each morning - loads of MN time, but not that great for her till we managed to sort it.

Before my DS was born, we expected to keep him up with us till 8 or 9. But unfortunately he goes into complete meltdown if we haven't started his evening routine by 6.30. This means we have dinner at 5.45/6pm and he's up around 6am in the morning. If we do manage to keep him up later, he still wakes up around 6am but is really grumpy all day. So we have just shifted our day a bit. No problem really.

im lucky, my girls 3 and 2 go to bed at 6- 6.30 and generaly sleep through till 7-7.30. by 6 the kids are asking to go to bed, and are shattered, and it works well for me because i get the whole blissful evening to myself, i do the housework then too, so we can spend the day making mess and not worry about it. its a deal that works for all of us.
i love my girls but if they suddenly decided that bedtime was going to be 9 or 10pm i think id be distraught!

I don't know anyone who is up for the day at 4am! We have periods where our two are up early but I'm talking 6am at the earliest (tries to forget that one time where DS2 would wake at 5.45ish...)

DS1 (6.5) goes to bed at 7.45pm, is asleep by 8pm and wakes at 7am.
DS2 (nearly 4) goes up at 7pm, is alssp by 7.15pm and wakes at 7am.

If they both started waking at 4am onwards we'd have to rethink bedtime but at the moment it works for us. I love to have the evenings to myself and would gladly sacrifice later mornings for this.

OP depends I suppose

My youngest can go to bed at 6:00pm or 10pm and he still wakes between 5 and 6am. Ever since he came out of nappies he has done this. He wakes for a wee at approx 5 and wont go back to sleep, although then he's shattered come 5pm and we struggle to keep him awake past 6:30pm.

His bedtime is 7pm but we've tried different times and it makes no difference. I whinge about being woken up at 5am because I'm knackered.

Def depends on the child. DS goes to bed a 7, and wakes between 6:30 and 7. But even if he goes to bed later, he still wakes the same time. Go figure

Franca

Can I ask how Italian children function once they start primary school? The wholse start school at 8am for 6 days a week along with a late bedtime makes me think the chlildren must be exhausted most of the time unless they nap during the afternoon.

I know my niece and nephew didn't nap after around 4 years old but they geneerally went to bed at around 9.30pm/10.00pm and had to be up at 7am in order to be dropped at schoool before 8am. They did this Mon-Sat. DS would be beyond exhausted if we had that routine. My dns were pretty tired too but they seemed to manage OK

My ds was a 6.30 till 7 am.
dd1 6.30pm, 5.50am
dd2 completely different, always wnet to bed between 9-10 and will sleep in till 8-9pm
dd3, is 7am till 4 or 5, its hell but I can't keep her awake past 7 most nights.

DS1 (4)always gets up at 6. He goes to bed at 7-7.30. I have lost count of the number of times people have told me to put him to bed later, but it makes no difference. We went on holiday for 2 weeks and he was up until 10.30 - 11 every night (Haven caravan park ) and even then he only slept until 7.30 - until the last day when we had to be out of the caravan by 10 and he slept til 9.45!

Bumbling I obviously can't vouch for all Italian children, but they all seem to survive

Personally, I think the average Italian child goes to bed too late.

We moved back to Italy 3 yrs ago, when our dc were 3.5 and 5.5 and people were shocked (and a bit envious) that they'd go to sleep at 8.

Now they are older bedtime is usually at 845. I wake them up at 7.30. School here in Milan is Mon-Friday from 8.30 to 16.30.

8.45

8-7 when dd was younger
She is 10 now and does 9-7.15.

I think children going to bed at dinner time is bizarre
Is that at weekends too?
It makes me wonder what happens if you go out for dinner/ to friends houses. Does it mean you have to be home by 5, even at weekends?

Both my dgs go to bed between 6.30 and 7 and wake up 12 to 13 hours later.my own dc had set bedtimes until age 12-we enjoyed the child free evenings.

All of mine have been 12hrs so about 7.30pm to 7.30am.

Do any of the kids going to bed at 6pm or 6.30pm see much of their working parents? I suppose it depends on the hours worked but my husband would never see them if I'd put them to bed at what I consider dinner time.

All children are different. My DD (3.5) goes to bed at 9:30pm and sleeps till 7:30am. If we try to put her down any earlier she wakes up much earlier. The times suit us fine.

Depends on the child. Until DD was 2.5 she slept for 14 hours plus naps. She's 4.8 now and still sleeps for 12ish hours (though can handle late nights).

My daughter goes to bed at 6 and I have to drag her out of bed initially in the morning. I wear her out loads in the day though so she never makes it past 6/6.30 at latest

As everyone else says, it depends on the child and every parents' set of circumstances.

My DS has always been early to bed, early to rise. From 3 months old, he was dropped off at nursery by 7am so it was very much part of his routine. Now he is 12, he has a bedtime of 9pm and is up by 7am.

DD1 (8yrs) is an owl. Can't get her to sleep of an evening, doesn't want to wake up in the mornign. Nightmare for school.

DD2 (13 mths), down by 6.30pm, up by 7.30am. Perfect!!

Yes, weekends would be nice for a lie-in with the DD2 but the hours she does in the week work perfectly for school run and I wouldn't want to change her sleeping habits. It works well for her and us.

Also what worraliberty said
If you or your dh are full time workers when do you spend time with the children if they are in bed at 6/6.30?