to ask if this is a weird way to 'do' kids bedtime?

[alificent]

After browsing Facebook and reading other threads on here tonight, I've noticed lots of people saying about having put the kids to bed ages ago but them still crashing around, having to keep going up to them etc.

I read to all my DC together then give the middle ones different books to look at while I take the eldest to her room and tuck her in. I have a little chat with her then I sit in the room with the middle DC and breastfeed the baby. Within ten minutes they are all asleep. It never occurred to me to 'leave them to it' until they ask for me to do so. Does anyone else do bedtime like this or am I in the minority?

Bluesky, you should tell your SIL to stop beating herself up. They are all different as you rightly say, some cosleepers sleep better, some worse. I was the opposite, I regretted not cosleeping with DS, when coslept DD slept much better. Perhaps we parents over-estimate our own influence

The DC very rarely wake in the night unless they're ill. But no, they don't need me to sit with them to re-settle and they stay in their beds.

My eight year old gets bath, teeth, kisses and off to bed. What she does once she is there is up to her. It's worked for us for three older children

Maybe they fall asleep so quickly because they're extremely tired. (I have RTFT but can't see what ages the DC are.) 9 o'clock sounds quite a late bedtime.

I stay with mine until they fall asleep. They're 2&6 and both sleep in the same bed, my bed infact. So I just lie next to them for 10mins. It's nice.

I guess I started doing it as they were both breastfed to sleep from birth and it's a difficult thing to crack, esp as they were both fed well in to toddlerhood (youngest still is)... So it's just stayed that way, it works for us. Might not work for others but I don't care about that, or what others do.

DS (4) gets his PJs on, has a wee and washes his hands and then one of us does his teeth and then reads him one story (or half a story if it's a really long one). He then gets into bed and sings to himself for about 10 mins before falling asleep. He's been creeping closer to 7pm for a while now but I think he needs to go back to 6.30pm bedtime again as he's getting a bit tired in the day again.
DD (8) and DD (7) sleep in a room together and they get themselves ready for bed and then are allowed some reading time/story read to them (depends when they actually get into bed how long they get) until lights off at 7.30pm on a school night and they then go to sleep. The younger one tends to fall asleep first and the older one takes quite a lot longer but lies there quietly (most of the time) until she does. I'm going to start sending her to bed later so that she can read for another half an hour rather than lie awake in the dark.
I've always put mine to bed awake and left them to it since they were babies, so that they learnt to self settle.

I agree that mine fall asleep quickly because they're tired. I didn't want to risk suggesting that others took longer because maybe they aren't that tired because I'll be accused of being smug about how fulfilling a day my DC have had to be so exhausted!

Ali, I think that was meant to be a dig suggesting your kids aren't getting enough sleep ;) I also prefer the put them to bed when they're tired approach. Works for us.

Some children crash when tired and others go on hyperactive mode. Some are early risers and some are night owls.
Mine still is the type that crashes and falls asleep on the sofa if he doesn't get to bed when he's tired. Others, with exactly the same level of day activity just keep going.
Only one ds here, but a few nephews that I've taken care of in the holidays.
Yes, don't presume to say what other children do or don't or what they need.

Mine ( 3yrs and 5yrs) do: bath, one to one time for stories/cuddle, night-light on....and we are out.

No fuss, no "crashing" about - if they seem unsettled I give them a flashlight and some books for a bit. Water bottle next to each bed.

I think we still qualify as comforting, loving, attached parents. Mine need to get to bed so they can get up early....I wouldn't want them faffing about until 9pm personally. Besides, it's awfully nice to have a bit of time to ourselves as parents too - nothing wrong with that.

Works for us. To each their own OP

No, definitely not weird. The people I know who do sit with their children regret getting into the habit. I'm not saying everyone does! Just the people I know. Although i suppose I could know lots of people who do and I just don't know it because it doesn't come up. Whereas the ones I've discussed it with hate it and that's why they brought it up.

It's midnight right now and my DD (she's 3) is awake in her bed and has been since I put her there a few hours ago. She isn't distressed, she's reading by her nightlight and talking to her doll. And occasionally singing a bit of Hakuna Matata. :o If she's tired during the day, she'll nap. Nothing besides throwing her in a tub of ice water would keep her from it. And if she naps she won't sleep til anytime from 11 pm to 1 a.m. I am definitely not sitting with her that long! I need kid free time. I can't make anyone sleep but I can insist they stay in their rooms with the light off and that's good enough for me.

My boys (8 and 1) have been asleep since 9. They'll probably sleep til 9 in the morning or so and DD won't get up til after 10.

Horses for courses etc (and I particularly appreciate that for many children, their parent's presence is a stimulus which stops them from sleeping.)

However. I still stay with DS (4yo) while he goes to sleep most nights. He's at nursery almost 10 hours a day without me, it's an important bit of reconnecting time for us. After a story (which is way quicker than some on here! 10 mins max and often less. Not sure how long that will be when he's reading 'older' books?) it's about another 10 mins and often less. At about 7.30pm, so loads of evening left for me after.

I don't think I have made him 'reliant' on me by doing this: when he's slept over at my mum's, she lies with him and he settles with no issue in a similar amount of time. (This was also true when bf was a part of the bedtime at home, which was about when he turned 4.)
If he messes about, I leave him as I'm not going to stay with him while he does that. He's briefly upset by this when it happens (rarely) but he does still stay in bed and go to sleep alone no problem.
And some evenings (also quite rare) he'll happily ask me to leave and then go to sleep alone, on his own initiation. That sounds an awful lot like he's learning (learned) to self-settle, without me pushing him to.

I don't think this is the One True Way of bedtime, but I never like the 'rod for your own back' argument. I bf him to sleep til he was 2, because that was fine for us both, and when it was a problem for me I stopped it without issue. No rod. I bf him as part of bedtime until he stopped it himself just short of 4 - no rod. I lie with him while he goes to sleep at 4, but if I've left because I'm cross/busy he can manage, and sometimes he asks me to go - no rod.
You don't have to treat a baby as you would a 10yo. Children do understand change - sometimes they even initiate it.

I think I'm just lucky that he doesn't even think of getting out of bed after bedtime, though. I'm sympathetic when I see 'look how my child has trashed her room after bedtime' posts on fb cos I wouldn't know how to fix it immediately.

I sit with mine (2.9 months) and hold her little hand and sing to her till she falls asleep and I love every second. She is asleep very quickly and it's easier than being back up and down the stairs telling her to go to sleep also i know soon she will be grown up and I will never get it back..

Oh, I should have added re my mum lying with him til he goes to sleep if he's at her house - she likes this and doesn't consider it a hardship (including him sharing her bed). In fact, we both spent the weekend at hers recently and she asked/offered to do DS' bedtime and sleep in his bed instead of me. Lovely for all three of us.
She bed shared with me til I was 9mo, then put me in a cot and did CIO.

Yes Nel :) I nursed my younger two to sleep as well. DC2 coslept for a year and DC3 for 10 months and they sleep alone now. (DC1 only nursed for a few months and I was too scared to cosleep with him.)

Swings and roundabouts isn't it. You don't take your kids to bed until 9. I put mine to bed at 7. Eldest sometimes sings and chatter so himself for 20 mins but he's usually asleep by half 7/8 with no further intervention from me. If I stayed with him he'd not go to sleep at all.

You're being smug about how quickly your kids go to sleep because you sit with them but you let them stay up so all us parents who put our kids to bed 2 hours earlier and let them play/ read happily until they sleep can be smug right back at you because we get to crack open the wine sooner than you.

In the interests of full disclosure, I'm actually not feeling smug at all as, although my eldest went to sleep like an angel, my youngest took flipping ages to settle and then woke at 5. Not because I'm doing anything wrong though. None of us are if we choose what works for us.

Alificent my mother and sister and whole family and many of my friends have stayed with their children as they drop off until they start doing it them selves naturally. My mother was rather surprised by all the sleep training stuff we've encountered when having our first. My niece is 12; I'm not sure what stuff my sister encountered but they didn't have a tv so we're probably ignorant of super nanny etc.

I perused a lot of baby/ child books (some went in the bin) one of the best was "what every parent should know" by Margaret Sutherland (I think?) and is quite scientific about children's development etc. I remember reading "most children feel safer falling asleep with their parents there".

My son is 3.5 and still bf a little bit. But he's starting to nod off as I pop in and out doing jobs. Sometimes if he's clearly not tired I'll let him play for a while quietly in his room. But to let me know when he's ready.

I work and have lots on but it seems normal to me, plus very reassuring. He'll often pipe up about something important or that's bothering him at that point.

Cooking I think that's a personal experience. I was bf to 3 and my mum always stayed with me.

I've never had any issues sleeping, falling asleep etc. (Till I watched bloody ghost busters and spent a few years crammed against the wall from around 8-12) Lived on my own. Now have a husband.

The whole 'self sooth' thing was something invented by the sleep industry. It was a term coined in a scientific study on infant signalling at night as an opposite to when they didn't signal. It was picked up as something that should be taught when in reality it was something the researchers just observed.

Op I don't care how you do it but I'm still really curious to know what happens when you go out in am evening and whether the babysitter sits with them.

I've done both. I'm happy to sit or lie with ds. When that meant he'd wake up several times a night and he'd need me to sleep I'd encourage him to sleep on his own to start with.
Later on, if he asked me to stay with him and he still slept the whole night , I was happy to stay there. If he ended up in my bed in the middle of the night it was fine too. Just as long as I didn't have to wake up.
This is a boy I left with dad when I travelled for work, and I've left with family with no problems.
He's happy and well adjusted even after going through divorce and dv.
I can confidently and smugly say that no one method is ideal for all, nor for the same child all the time. We do what works for our children and adjust accordingly.

I've 3dc and they settle best in different ways. There isn't a one method.

Although my Uncle's method was the simplest. He wasn't usually him for bedtime. But one tine he would so he said to my aunt"would you like me to put the dc to bed?"
Rather pleased she said she would. My cousins (aged 8, 7 & 3) were playing nicely upstairs. So he walked to the bottom of the stairs and in his best Sergeant major's voice yelled "get to bed"
He then returned to his chair and said "I've done it!"

DS aged 5 goes to sleep at around 10pm. Last night it was 11.15.

DP and I haven't watched a film together I'm living memory. Friends kids go to bed at 7. It is what it is.

Morris what time does he get up??

We sit with ours (3 and 1) because we always have and if we didn't they wouldn't stay lying down. They both fall asleep fairly quickly at the moment but given the chance they'd be up on their feet!

I've always thought we've clearly gone wrong somewhere but I'm not sure at what point we made the fatal error