Teen bedtime battles AIBU?

[Wowsersreally]

Wise mumsnetters. Give me your thoughts.

My sun-thurs rule is phone downstairs by 9:30 to facilitate being in bed for 10

Every night my 15 year old pushes this which results in my nagging and her being rude and lippy and us both going to bed in a grump.

She gets up at 5.45 as she doesn’t like rushing and leaves for school at 7 . She’s quite anxious and I think needs a proper rest. She’s otherwise hardworking and responsible. She has always been high maintenance but does thrive on autonomy.

Who’s being unreasonable, what works in your homes?

YABU: let it drop, cut her some slack, she’s mature enough to decide her own hours.

YANBU: stick to your guns and be the parent. 15 year olds need boundaries - and sleep!

I'd really recommend reading/listening to "why we sleep" by Matthew Walker - it's not a surprise she takes ages to drop off as it's probably too early for her. Not that that means she shouldn't stop using her phone at that time (though clearly I haven't heeded that advice). But she does also need at least 8 hours sleep. Is there anything you could do to facilitate more getting ready the night before so she could get up at say 6:30? I.e. showering at night, breakfast to eat on the bus/train, bag packed the night before etc?

Walker would say that asking a teen to get up at 5:45 is equivalent to asking an adult to get up at 3:45, and similarly bed at 10, 8pm, so anything that can be done to facilitate getting up later (and therefore going to bed later not being a problem) would be a good thing.

🤣🤣 I’d definitely get a “whaaaatttt????!!”

Same here! And fwiw my poor 17 yo is now happily practicing guitar in his bedroom. Just gave me a hug and said good night when I asked him to go up to bed.

*Mine are close in age and the older 2 (15 and 16) share a room, so for ease we've kept bedtimes the same time for all of them. Which means DD (13) has always had a later bedtime than DS1 did at the same age and DS1 still has a bedtime. Never had any push back on this though, so it's not a problem yet.

I've never taken their phones off them, as they use them for alarms. But if they were staying up late and struggling to wake up then I'd be suggesting they leave them downstairs.

We tend to start bedtime at 9:30 weeknights and all done teeth, in pyjamas and lights out by 10:30. It takes a while as they all like a bedtime chat and a hug! I am usually sat on my bed reading during this time and they all pile on and chat away (it's my favourite time of day!). Weekends around 30 mins later*

Your 16 year old goes to bed at 11.00 at the weekend? We’ve had 4 teens. None of them have gone to bed at 11 at weekends! They either went out or stayed up gaming.

I have a 15 and 16 year old. They haven’t had set bedtimes since they were little. If they stay up late and they’re tired the next day, tough . In reality though they’re both usually asleep by 11pm in the week, the 16 year old usually by 10pm.

My 13 year old goes to bed at 10pm on school nights and not allowed phone. Weekends there is no bedtime but he usually goes to bed when my husband and I do.

My 16 year old goes to bed when he wants and is allowed phone - I guess around 15 is when it changed. I think he stays up too late but he does get up and off to school on time each day so can't complain! Two nights a week he has activities which don't even finish until 10pm anyway.

I’m the same usually go to be around 2am. If I fall asleep earlier I’m awake at 4/5am.

My 16 year old does go out but is always home by 9. If she’s at a friends house it’s 11pm. There’s nowhere for teens to go where we live so none of her friends go anywhere really. It’s sad as when we were younger there was loads of under 18 club nights etc

Ironically, I wouldn't come to mumsnet for parenting advice.

But YANBU

This is ridiculous. She's 15 not 5. Are her grades good? Is she complaining of lack of sleep or anything like that? If the answer is that her grades are good and that she's not complaining of problems from lack of sleep and or showing signs of sleep deprivation than you're being unreasonable. Frankly, I think it's unreasonable to have your kid(s) turn in their phone to you. You don't have to turn your phone in; you don't have to be off of it by a certain time, and if you can't sleep I'm sure you'd be doing SOMETHING on your phone, watching TV, or something to entertain your brain. My kids (a girl and a boy) don't have phones because I can't afford them; but they have tablets and I don't control their screen time. I never have. You're assuming your teen CAN'T self-regulate but what I think it is, is that you're not happy with HOW she's self-regulates. You deem that her time on the phone is too much, without taking into consideration how she feels about it or what she thinks about it. What leads you to believe that she's not getting enough sleep?? Because she's cranky in the morning sometimes?? Who isn't? You expect her to turn in her phone at 9:30 knowing she's an insomniac?? So, she's just to lay in bed bored and restless; until she hopefully eventually falls asleep?? AND you expect her to be in a good mood in the morning too; after however many nights of restlessness due to insomnia and you're overly strict rules?? As a fellow insomniac let me assure you, that's a sure fire way to drive your teen insane. I can also almost guarantee that if you don't loosen the reins with your kid(s) and soon they will end up cutting you out of their lives and going no contact with you when old enough to do so. I don't speak to my parents because they were like you but WAY worse and WAY more abusive. I'm going to assume you don't want that to happen with your kid(s); loosen up. Trust me.

I felt like if we as parents have a hard time with self control with our phones, our kids for sure will need help.

One time when our daughter was pleading her case I said, how about we all leave our phones out in the living room? Oh man, I was thinking crap why did that come out of my mouth!? Luckily she was too crabby and said no, and I thought oh phew because we'd have to follow thru on that and I might lay down early but it takes me 3-4 hours to fall asleep. Lol. So I never offered that option again.

But she told me all the time her friends were on all night long and that their parents thought they were sleeping and would msg her and then get mad sometimes when she didn't reply.

And now as a college student she actually is far better than me about setting her phone aside and going to bed at a reasonable time. It was one of the very few things that I really couldn't lead by example, altho I offered to. But I also knew she needed sleep and it was up to us to put up some guardrails given sleep is so key for everything.

I'm usually in the camp of stick to your guns.

However I also have a now 18yo. I realised quite a while ago that if you set other boundaries like 'getting up and out on time' they set themselves bedtime boundaries naturally. So a few nights of not sleeping enough because she has her phone should mean she realises why you've said it!

I'd just suggest phone on silent and guide her but allow her the autonomy to figure it out for herself.

Parenting is not a one size fits all or even most. Different kids need different rules/boundaries. Please stop telling this mom she's being too strict or unreasonable just because you don't do this with your kids. It's clearly in her best interest, and when it comes to teenagers and social media, sometimes they need to be saved from themselves, which is exactly what she's doing.

When my kids were that age they were often in bed (by their own choice) by 10pm. They were never gamers and rarely had anywhere to be that late at night.

Not all teens stay up half the night and then sleep until noon.

Far too controlling for a 15year old.
she needs to be able to learn some personal responsibility instead of having mum control everything

I've put YABU as I can't really relate to this.
There was no such thing as bedtime in my house and I was used to staying up til midnight long before I left primary school. By the time I started secondary school aged 12, I stayed up until 2 or 3 am most nights and got up for school on time, just about!

We used to feel hard done by in our family, as we weren't allowed to play out until 10.30 pm in the light nights just before school broke up for the summer like most of the other kids were, and some of those other kids were as young as 3.

Completely normal for the area in the late 1980s.

Key word "almost"

Do you have children?

?

I've been in the pool for half an hour by 7am. Too much living to be done to sleep all morning.

That's great for you @JaninaDuszejko but the social events I want to participate in tend to take place in the evening as does my Zumba and dance classes, a lot of social interaction tends to be in the evening. Interesting the early morning events tend to be more line pursuits.

She is not an adult. She's a minor.

Not to mention she seems to be developing a habit of waiting till the last minute to do the texting/ social media thing because she's doing other stuff.

If those messages are so important she should allot time to get them done earlier. That way she can wind down for the night as her mom wants/request/directs

How do you do this on the phones? (Not yet got to do having phone but want to be prepared!!)

My 15 year old DS has always been great at night - room is tidied, he's showered, phone on charge and lights out by 10. Goes to sleep very quickly. DS12 is a whole different story. Tonight he was still awake and trying to get his phone back to play chess (he would stay up all night, given a chance). The only thing I don't do is get into an argument at that time - it doesn't help them sleep and is counter productive. But I will turn off the Wi-Fi if I have to.

@MissGroves if you go for an Android phone, there's an app called Family Link where you can manage your child's screen time, see their location etc.

For iPhones you add the child to your "family" on your own phone so their account is linked to yours, and you can set screen time etc there.