What age to stop a bedtime? 12? 13? 16?

[Coldwine75]

Just curious, my 17 yr old would sit up all night watching Youtube / Streamers etc , I told her to get her lights out by 11.30- midnight on her college days weekends no time. I think I 'advised' a bedtime until 18 , what are others doing? I worry as dd gets very tired and hard to get going in the mornings.

I don't think it is unreasonable to want to prevent someone become addictive, which tech can be for many teenagers. So bedtime not perhaps at that age, but a finish time for phones/internet.

You will have to set some form of example yourself and not be sending emails at 1 in the morning, though.

I like my almost 12 year old to be in bed for 9.30pm on school nights but the truth is I can hear her chatting to her friends most nights in her room well beyond that! Sometimes when I’m going to bed at around 11.30pm. She has to be up at 7am but it’s no problem to her at all, she gets up without an alarm and doesn’t even lie in at the weekends.

I remove my 9 year olds iPad at 9.30pm. She can read until 10pm if she wants and then it’s lights out for her. Otherwise she would honestly stay up until 2am and sleep until 12 the next day!!!!! She never ever wakens naturally, I have to wake her everyday.

All kids are different I guess! And parents too.
I’m quite relaxed. We don’t get home until 8pm some evenings due to the kids hobbies.

I actually should have been more specific. My DSs wouldn't be 'punished' for purely staying up till 2am, there would be consequences however if they consistently stayed up too late and struggled getting up for school or were not doing well in their school work/music/sports.

I feel like I've got a good balance with them, they are both busy kids so don't have a great deal of just chilling time, we also sit and watch TV or a film together on the nights we're home till about 930 so after that we are happy to let them go to their rooms and chat to their mates/watch youtube. They are really good at self regulating, I haven't even had to set my 15 year old a curfew as hes never come home later than 930 and always let's me know where he is. Obviously if we have to we have to but so far he's relatively sensible.

Like I say if it wasn't working it would stop and we would have to restrict them more.

Ok but i was under the impression a 2 year old needs 12 hours sleep at night but could be wrong

Over 24 hours, not per night.

@clary same re after school stuff here. They have played cricket since 7/8 which didn't finish till 830 so they have had to adjust to later bedtimes from a young age. My eldest works till late (musician) so has to be able to perform to a high standard till late and then get up early the next day. He must get enough sleep otherwise I dont think he'd be able to do the stuff he does.

I do wonder if many of these kids that are not allowed to self regulated would actually be fine at it if allowed. Like a pp mentioned, there may well be one or two nights where they stay up top late but they'll soon go to sleep earlier if needed.

Mine is in y10 and at boarding school- same as a pp, they do lights out at 9.45. When she is home she stays up later than me if she is watching something but usually not much later, so 10.30/11ish. She recognises that she needs loads of sleep, so is quite good at self regulating.

My DH is 35 and still needs to be reminded to stop faffing and go to sleep.

Mine will have a bedtime until they don't need to be told to have a bedtime!
DS1(15) would stay up all hours If I let him. I generally go and poke him when I go up at 10.30.

We have a "no electronics upstairs" rule anyway, so not even DH and I have phones etc upstairs and we don't have any TVs upstairs either.

For all of our three ages 16-18 (until school leavers): All devices plugged in outside bedroom by 10.30pm on school nights. Can be later on weekends but still plugged in outside bedroom. Ditto for parents.

They can stay up as late as they want.

Haha Carboholic, I think I actually tell DH to turn the bloody TV off and go to sleep more than the kids.

Ours are grown up now but there was always a big rush to be the first up the stairs when I said I was going to bed, as no one wanted to do the locking up routine (which involved putting the dog and cat to bed) etc.

@2bazookas

Mine had a week-night bedtime so long as they were at school.

Getting enough sleep is REALLY important for teenagers; for optimum health, physical and brain development , socialisation and education.

Absolutely agree. DS1 self regulates and will pop down to say goodnight about 1030. DS2 14 is exactly like me- a night owl- and would stay up for hours, so he's warned at 1015/30. They both automatically plug in phones and school ipads in the hall before going up, same at their dad's house.

DS3, age 9, is asleep for 9.

I see the effects of lack of sleep constantly (secondary teacher) and it's just awful. Most of the time it's gaming/ Tik tok. It's harming them so badly.

I phased it in from 13. A bedtime on school nights and free reign at weekends subject to the proviso that if abused I would reinstate a bedtime at weekends. There were a few silly late nights at first but it went well and I lifted all bedtimes by about 15. By then they pretty much stuck to the same pattern.

Mine are 15 ( nearly 16) and 17 they don't have bedtimes I do sometimes ask them to come of consols though if noisey as keeps us awake.
They both generally go to bed at sensible time in the week , when they have school and college as they know they would struggle to get up otherwise.
Weekends varies sometimes they stay up late other nights in bed early , but stopped bedtimes at 15 ish
I may sometimes say remember you have xyz in the morning

My 16 year olds has ADHD which means a lack of impulse control.

She has had to put her electronics outside her room at 11pm on school days and midnight at weekends.

Her exams finish next week, so she'll be able to have her phone in her room, on the proviso that she goes to sleep at a reasonable time. If she's tired, her ADHD is so much more marked the next day, and she takes it out on us.

She also has to be mindful that others in the house will be sleeping/trying to sleep. She's not known for her self-control or quiet voice!

Once mine had done their GCSE exams I let them stay up until what they think is an acceptable time, but they must not disturb others in bed who have work/school.
But I encouraged mine to get little jobs straight away, so they went to bed anyway for work/college.

daughter age 11; 9.30 on schooldays, flexible at friday and saturday nights upto 10.30 very occasionally 11. not all children need the same amount of sleep

My 13 year old goes to bed at 10, no screens in the bedroom - he's out like a light pretty soon afterwards and always wakes up refreshed at 6.30 in the morning. If they were staying up on YouTube etc I'd just switch off the router when I went to bed (but then I do go to bed quite late - usually 11.30 or so).

I have can't control older dd any more and never could control bedtime once they got into reading.
Thankfully she's self regulating at the moment! You can give a bedtime but one can't force them to sleep, unless sen are involved I wouldn't tell a 17 year old to go to bed.

Does bed time mean a set time that the child has to follow every night? Or a suggestion that it's time to go to bed?

I personally don't think set bedtime is necessary. They can change day to day depending on situation. I would say that up to 12ish there should be parents telling when to go to bed. Then the level of suggestion would change upto the kid being 18. Stronger suggestion to 13 yo than to a 16 yo etc.

mine are 13, 16 and 18.

18 hasn't had bedtime since sixth for started. Before that I used to nudge him into bed when we went up, but he often kept reading /watching youtube later. Now he sometimes goes to bed at 4am. But the deal is he has to be up and in school.

16, in term time I do nudge her into bed at 10:30, and she goes to bed, nothing in holidays.

13, has absolutely no self regulation, that is personality rather than age. PHone downstairs is more important to me than if she is asleep. So term time phone down at 9, which is like pulling teeth to enforce. Holidays phone down at 10. After phone comes down she can read until she wants to. Inpratcice it varies hugely, some days asleep straightaway, other days reads late

@Coldwine75

My dd would flip out if I took her phone , i never would , seems wrong to me.....

Have to disagree there. You’re the parent and sometimes phones need to be taken. In my job we are also taught that a child ‘flipping out’ over a phone being removed can be a red flag.

My youngest is 14 and doesn't have a bedtime anymore. He goes to sleep at midnight/1am on Friday/Saturday nights and 10:30pm on other nights. He wakes for school without prompting no problem and wakes by 9:30 on weekends which is fine by me.

Plus OP your DD is 17. Nearly adult. I won’t be taking DD’s phone away at that age as hopefully I’ve taught her to put it down when she needs to by then.

With theses sort of things I try and remember that at 18 they need to go off to uni and be able to self regulate, and make wise choices.
So it is a process of allowing them to do this in stages.

I can't imagine a bedtime for a 17 year old