To think our 15 year old does NOT need a bedtime.

[NotTonightDeidre]

This is a source of much disagreement in our house.

DH thinks teen should have a strict bedtime.

I do not.

He thinks I'm in the minority and that all the parents of teens around us are enforcing bedtimes on their teenage offspring (even at weekends).

I believe that most will be allowing their teens a lwcel of autonomy - especially at weekends.

Who's right? What do you do if you have teens?

Nope. At 15 they are old enough to self regulate.

I can't believe those who say their teenager has a bedtime of nine.

If you have parented them properly then 15 year olds don't need a bedtime. Going to sleep at a sensible time is a skill you need to teach them.

I voted YABU but reading that post I completely agree with you. You do want times, just not such ridiculously early ones.

I think it depends on the teen. My nephew would stay up all night on devices, and be tired and arsey the following day.

I'd be more inclined to give a "devices off" time.

If you say so. How does it spoil your day teens otten do their own thing ?

Agree not fair waking 4 year old up though or being noisy if awake.

Of course they need a bedtime... mine would be up until 5am if we didn't tell him to switch the games off.

While he does stay up a bit later on weekends its not a free for all, if we let him stay up all night friday/saturday it would fuck up his body clock for the whole week.

After school age no but while they are GCSE age yes, you are their mother.

Unless your one of the parents with an early bird kid that takes themselves by choice to bed at 8pm and is up at 5am (only ever known 1 like that though, bloody weird lol).

Lol.. I had a 9pm bedtime a teen, my friend had 6.30!

I think there should be guidelines, and as long as they're being fairly well adhered to, and there is no fuss or bother created for anyone, then a 15 year old should be left to manage their own bedtime.

IF however there is difficulty getting them out of bed, or they're keeping the house up mooching around, or they're not keeping up with their work, then the guidelines become rules.

It's what I do with mine (although a few years off 15 yet) - as long as everyone is being reasonable, and considerate, and not neglecting things they should be doing then I'm flexible. The moment there's a problem, the hammer comes down (luckily, that is an extremely rare occurrance)

”bedtime” no, but I think a rule about lights out before midnight is reasonable. Otherwise teens might be up all night playing games and completely mess up their sleep cycle.

My kids have had bedtimes and where good sleeper all through.

I had a bedtime all through childhood.

We where raised 'right'.

We are still naturally 'night owls' though, its fuck all to do with parenting in fact in biology we where be designed to be awake evening and night rather than morning (which was the safest time to sleep with fewest active predators).

My 14yo gets till 11pm weeknights. All devices removed from the bedroom.

Midnight-ish at weekends, not really fast and hard on that rule tho. Still all devices removed for the night when they go to bed.

I think 15 years is a bit old for a strict, imposed bedtime. Children should be able to regulate themselves by that age although I would nag them to turn the lights off and perhaps give me the phone if they weren't in bed by the time I was (around 11 p.m.). Ultimately you can't make them sleep though. Even if you take away their phone, they could probably find something else to do. I used to read a book or maybe do last minute homework.

By 15 we allowed oUr 2 to choose their own bedtime on the condition they got up no problems in the mornings for school.

dd knew when she was tired so was normally in bed for 10. Ds needs very little sleep so most nights I was in bed and sleeping before him.

they need I learn to regulate and take some steps to independence and we thought giving them this starting point was a good place.

we did ask that hey were in their bedrooms by 10.00pm to give us an hour to ourselves before we went to bed.

Since when were humans nocturnal? I somehow doubt that caveman slept during daylight and wandered around hunting/gathering at night.

If he can't self regulate then yes, he needs a bedtime. Split the difference between you/your DH's times and crack on.

This! The amount of kids I’ve taught who are up at all hours playing fortnite or on Snapchat. They’re too exhausted to focus properly the next day. Schools nights they absolutely need a bedtime. Teens aren’t exactly known for making sensible decisions. DHs mum never enforced their bedtime (even in primary!) and he is strict with bedtimes for our DC as he’s aware of how much it effects them the next day. If you have teens who are taking themselves off to bed by 10 I’d say it’s fine, but I’d be sending a school age teen to bed by 10 and lights off by 11 if they haven’t already. Teens need more sleep than you think.

Once in college or sixth form I would still be encouraging them to go to bed at a sensible time.

Schooldays yes, weekends a bit later. Teenagers need sleep. There's research about teenage brains - google it.

Your child is not getting enough sleep and struggles to get up for school in the morning. Surely that's all the information you need to realise you need to give your child a bedtime?

They do need up to nine hours. But the parents sending their teenagers to bed at nine must be expecting them to get up at six am.

I was the teenager with the 9pm bedtime (even at16/17!) I missed out on so much and promised myself I would never inflict that on my kids.
I remember someone in my class talking about Red Dwarf and I genuinely had no clue what they were on about, it started at 9pm from what I remember so I had never seen any of it. The embarrassment of everyone in my year realising I had a 9pm bedtime still stings to this day!
My 13 and 16 year old have set their own bedtime from yr7 of high-school. The rule is they need to get enough sleep to function when their alarm goes off at 6am......if they stay up late they suffer the tiredness. We have had no problems with this so far so everyone is happy.

Two teenagers here… strict weekday bedtime of 10pm, no Technology after 9pm, weekends more relaxed. They need sleep to enable them to focus at school.

Tbf mine are doing sports most evenings so are ready for bed by 10pm. Weekends are full of sports also so they tend to be in bed by 11pm.

He already takes melatonin. I would like to watch TV series with him or do a puzzle. We do already cut screens at 8:30, I don't find for myself they interfere with my sleep though. I know it's supposed to but it's not my experience.

He did used to find it really difficult to get up and would sleep through his alarm, so I'm not convinced that changing the alarm will have made that much difference TBH.

You want no bedtime for a 15 yo?
I would have been up until 3am if my parents would have let me have no bedtime.

Teens need rules. And they need their parents to parent them. Meet your dh in the middle and make schoolnights 10pm bedtime. And no electronics obvs

Just because you couldn't regulate yourself at 15, it doesn't mean no other 15-year-old can. There's no harm in seeing if they can be trusted to go to bed at a reasonable hour. You can always impose rules if they don't but by that age many will be quite capable of circumventing strict rules and not sleeping if they don't want to anyway. It's better to come to an agreement in many cases.