AIBU to question bedtime in the UK?

[onemumtwocountries]

I'm a regular but have NCd as some of my latest posts were quite identifying.

I recently travelled to my home country and noticed that babies/kids there go to bed quite a bit later than in the UK. Bedtime between 8.30 and 10.30pm (depending on age) seems to be the norm. In the UK people seem to put kids to bed between 6.30 and 8.30pm (based on my experience, do correct me if I'm wrong).

DH and I have quite a few friends and family in the UK whose kids are up before 6am. They often (rightly) complain this is very early and try various methods to keep them in bed until a more reasonable time (Gro Clock etc).

I'd presume that kids need similar amounts of sleep regardless of which country they grow up in. So I wonder if a shift in the bedtime culture in the UK would make for children who sleep until a more reasonable time? Or am I missing the point entirely?

Going to bed a little later would also allow the DCs to see the working parent for a bit longer in the evening (assuming standard working hours), although I appreciate this would eat into adult time in the evening.

My DS is only tiny so we don't have a bedtime routine yet, but I'm keen to know your thoughts before I embark on one!

Thank you.

UK tends to have 2 working parents who will often have commutes, and 9am starts that are non-negotiable. My Spanish/Portuguese/Indian/Italian colleagues never start bang on 9am (in the office by 11am most days) and often have several stah adults in the household to take care of child.

My DP used to work from 12pm - 7pm and I was on maternity leave so we did later bedtimes with DD who was then around 2. (Newborn DS wasn't in a routine yet). DD would go to bed some time between 8-10 pm and wake up between 8-9 usually. It meant we all got a lie in and time as a family both before and after DP went to work.

Now though DP works a 9-5 job meaning the household is up earlier so we do bedtime around 7ish. DD will start attending nursery in the mornings (she does afternoons currently) after Easter and then school full-time in September so we'll need to be ready and leaving the house by 8:30 with her so a late bedtime wouldn't work so well for our family anymore. But I do agree that a shift to a later bedtime can, after a few late night/ early mornings as their body clock adjust to the routine, help tackle early mornings.

It is fine until they go to school.

Didn't change much for my children (who both started full time a few weeks before they turned 4). Maybe an hour or so. They were/are never late for school and as they get older are naturally waking in plenty of time. They only need to eat breakfast, dress, brush teeth, use the loo and wash faces etc.

Don't forget though in the Med there is evening/late night life that we don't seem to have in UK, where most shops shut around 6. I am in the Med at the moment, lots of babies in buggies in tavernas/tapas bars at 12 midnight. That would be socially very unacceptable in UK.

My inlaws are in a Med country, they hardly seem to sleep at all. They stay up until 2am and are up again at the crack of dawn. A child sleeping at 7pm would be a nap!

Mine were all crap sleepers anyway, so only in Dream Land would mine have been asleep at 7.

I read somewhere that DCs who go to bed later don't do so well in school

That's down to the timing of school. I've been an owl since birth so getting up at 6am to catch the school bus at 7:15am was hell for me. Didn't hold me back though.

Schools that start later have been shown to suit teenagers' brain's better.

I would rather instill an "early bed early rise" mentality for when they have to be getting themselves up for work / uni / whatever.

But the world doesn't operate like that anymore. My OU lectures are at 8pm. OH is sometimes on call overnight. My sister works a combination of day and night shifts.

I agree with OP, I find uk bedtimes very early and I'm as British as they come!

I think it's linked to Brits having the longest commutes in Europe and often living far from where they grew up so having to use paid childcare and that provision not being very widespread so needing lots of travelling in the morning.

Peoples stories on here of having to get DCs out of the house before 8am horrify me!

Maybe in other cultures DCs don't need to wake til after 8am?

I have a short commute so don't leave the house til 8.30. Often the youngest in still asleep.

My DCs didn't need more than 10 hours a night so the 'routine' was 10pm-8am sleeping time.

As a single mum I'd have been quite lonely sitting in on my own from 7pm every night!

I've never been an early riser and like my 9am lie ins at the weekend.

It's also convenient that on holiday the DCs can be up late and don't get grumpy.

I'd move house rather than have such a commute that I'd need the kind of routine described on this thread.

This is from a book friend's 3 year old brought home from school in France. Apparently appropriate dinner time for that age is 19.30, so of course bed time is some time after that. My 3-year olds bed time routine starts at 9.

And it's interesting people mention working parents as a reason to have an early bed time. I've always thought the opposite - the reason the bed time is so early in the UK is that the UK has a relatively large number of SAHPs, who have the whole day to spend time with DC. I work full time and even with my very short commute, I would barely see the DC if I put them to bed at 7.

DD has always gone to bed at between 9 and 10pm. She's six now, Y2, I'd say she sleeps 10pm to 7am. Happy to get up in the morning and almost never tired during waking hours.

Once she's asleep you could turn on the light and hold a party in her room, and she wouldn't wake. (When she was a baby DW and MIL shared a room with her, once she was asleep they would turn on the light, radio, chat loudly to each other.)

And as babies and toddlers a long nap was better for us as we worked from home. So at say 1 year old they would sleep 11pm -9am, then nap 1-4pm, and maybe another nap early evening. Meant Dh or I could work from home a few hours before they woke, they again a few hours when they napped, Meaning we didn't have to work late into the night. Plus they were happy to be out in evenings in restaurants or parks or shows

I live in France. Most kids here go to bed late, 10ish, but they sleep at lunchtime when they go home from school, or as soon as they are back from school.

Kids in Greece (I am Greek) stay up late routinely but often sleep in the afternoon. It is very common to see kids sleeping in restaurants, cars, or other people's houses while their parents socialise.

Forgot to add, my young DCs go to bed at 8 and get up at 7 - we are considered very odd!

I also think it's to do with many UK adults either choosing to go to bed very early themselves, or having to go to bed early, as they have to leave for work early. How often do we see threads when adults are in bed or want to go to bed at 9 p.m? My child free time when DS was young was 10/11 p.m.- 1 a.m. I suppose if you go to bed by 10, 7/8 p.m. for kids in bed is the same amount of time.

This thread is definitely making me feel better!

My kids have always had late bedtimes, and I daren't mention it to anyone as it's simply horrifying around here if your kids aren't in bed by 7pm.

We enjoy our evenings with the kids, and it allows us freedom to go out, and holidays are brilliant as we're not restricted to getting kids to bed.

Having said that, we're both self employed, and DC3 is a baby, and DC2 is home educated, so we can be more flexible.

However, our kids never seem to be tired! They seem to go all day long and if we didn't say 'bedtime' think they'd carrying on playing all night!

My Spanish/Portuguese/Indian/Italian colleagues never start bang on 9am (in the office by 11am most days)

I'm in Italy and would love to start at 11am! I usually start at 8.30. My son starts at secondary school at 8am and my younger children are at primary school and start at 8.24am (not a typo!)

Dd hasn't really had a bedtime, I spent the first few months trying to do the 7-7 thing, not because I had to be up early or anything, but because that's what all the mums who had everything together we're doing. (I know it was a stupid reason but I felt like a total failure at the time and copying the good mums made total sense in my pnd head at the time)

It was stressful as dd just wasn't tired. She'd be awake in her cot for hours and I felt awful leaving her there so I'd end up sitting in there too. She wasn't screaming or distressed etc but just not tired. She'd wake at 4/5 regardless so again I or dh would be up. Plus starting the bedtime routine at 6 meant that when dh came home he couldn't get her excited and that we didn't have our dinner til later.

We just thought fuck it. We will put her to bed when she is tired. Best thing we ever did. Dd would go to bed at about 9/10, I'd start hugs and stories when she showed signs of becoming tired, she woke at 4 for a few weeks but it's shifted to about 7 am and stayed there. She rarely woke during the night.
She's 11 now and hasn't had a bedtime in that I say to her "get to bed" she's sot of set it herself and from the age she could do so herself she takes herself up at 8.30 on the dot to unwind by reading or watching bit of tv and wakes at 7.30. Weekends she may stay up til 10 or 11 but usually she's still taking herself up at 9 as she knows she's tired. She knows how she feels the next day if she hasn't had her usual amount of sleep.

She's always been in top sets and often top of the top set for everything from reception (I hate writing that because I don't want to sound smug or bragging), but her later bedtime isn't linked to lower school performance, I appreciate it might for others and that they do what works for them. Not that I'm saying she does well at school due to her bedtime either, she works hard and puts schoolwork first and has become brilliant at self organising her time, opposite of me at the age :)

I posted on a thread about differing adult guest bedtimes and has said I've found that when visiting family or holiday in with other families etc, it's the bedtimes of the children that cause problems.

Dd behaves perfectly and doesn't interrupt adults when they are talking, she provides better conversation than most of the pissed adults to be honest and will take herself to bed when they become "repetitive". Most of the adults don't mind her staying around until 9/10, my mum loves it as when hosting she doesn't actually sit down until 8 so she gets some time with dd.

But sometimes the family with kids going to bed at 6.30/7 say it's not fair as their similar aged DS wont sleep, and apparently it's because dd isn't going to bed also. Ok, can see her point, so we tried to suggest all sorts of things, dd agreeing to go up at 8 if her cousins coukd stay up an hour later,, nope not good enough, finally dd said she would go up at 6.30 and just read her books, oh no, it's lights of and lying there, reading a book will keep her DC awake. Their routine works for them, (kind of but that's another thread) but it's unfair to expect others the all follow it to the letter, if she was hosting, absolutely, dd would follow their rules but not at someone worse house. I ended up saying that as neice is a smart girl she will understand when she tells her the reason my dd is still up is because her Mum and Dad have different rules because it's what works for them. Just like they can't jump on the sofa at grabs like they can at home.

We are in France on holiday and noticed last night a French family come down to dinner just before 9 with girls of about 5 and 6 (we had almost finished our long dinner and were nearly dropping off to sleep (adults/teenagers). We clearly don't have the stamina of the French!

Our first baby didn't sleep much at all (she still doesn't) and she was up most evenings when we were both back at work full time, constantly breastfeeding and through the night - so no discernible bed time. when baby 2 came though we wanted a clearer bed time and first child was getting one by then and as we have always had to get up around 6am for work routines (I had to get 5 children ready so I could drive them all out by 7.15am for a period for example to catch school coathces at 7.30am... if you work back from 7.15am leaving the house which plenty working couples have then you need a fairly early start.

Those who don't work from choice, a rich husband/wife, benefits or who work different hours might well choose later bed times for children.
Also plenty of us want at least one hour clear of the noise of toddlers even if it's just spent tidying the living room floor and eating a slice of toast.

Also it's bollocks that everyone stays up late in France and gets up late. Where I lived all bars and restaurants were shut by 9.30pm in the week, only at the weekend were they open later. And some of my university lectures started at 8am, a full hour before any I had in England. Loads of people were at work by then too.

Doesn't matter what time our DS(5) is put to bed still up at 4 so I would rather he got the maximum amount of sleep (his bedtime is around 6:30) he can by putting him to bed really at least he can get through most days at school this way.

I live in a south American country and children go to bed so late here! I don't understand it - there are no siestas, and kids have to get up really early as school starts around 7pm. They must all be knackered!

OOps, that should read 7am..

KatharinaRosalie, wrt your point about SAHMs - my mum (who put us all to bed around 6.30pm) was one and admitted that the reason she decided on such an early bedtime was to have some time to herself. She and dad were dead set against tv and into very hands-on, artsy craftsy indoors /playing outdoors parenting, which meant she had no break from the three of us all day.

I think the single most important aspect of kids bedtimes is to not lecture other people and tell them what they should do.

My kids go to bed early. They wake at 6am, regardless of what time they go to bed. And I'm sick of people telling me that if I put them to bed later (they go at 7.30-8, at ages 7 and 11) they would sleep later. They wouldn't.

I have to get up at 6 for work, so these hours suit me. I just wish people would accept that different things work for different people.

And as for the poster who said "UK bedtimes are wrong" - words fail me!

My DS aged 7 was a terrible sleeper, either would just lay there at 11 pm still not able to sleep or would wake at 4 am and it was starting to affect school
Started having him stay up until 9/10 keeping the 7.15 rise and is now sleeping so much better, concentration is improved and goes down so much easier. I do believe there is far too emphasis much put into the early night in this country . Yes some children need more sleep but not all children are created the same or need the same amount of rest. As for the 'I like my child in bed early so i can have me time' not sure what to say regarding that kind of attitude

I would rather instill an "early bed early rise" mentality for when they have to be getting themselves up for work / uni / whatever.

From my experience of dealing with my DCs, it's autonomy - letting them manage their own time and follow their own body cues as children - that helps when they get a job or have a heavy homework load and sport and job to juggle as teens, and to manage the class and workload and job at university.