To ask what time your 12 year old goes to bed

[Ipackedmysandwichesforlunch]

Dh and I are divided on this so I'd welcome some other opinions.

D's is 12. He goes up to bed at 8.15 and we read with him til 8.30. Lights off at 9.15. It all feels very early to me compares to his peers.

Ds is autistic and has anxiety and while he doesn't need constant oversight he is very demanding of our time and attention. Because of this Dh is very anti changing this as we have very limited uninterrupted time together apart from our evening 8.30-10. I agree that really we need this time together as things can be quite challenging. But it feels unfair on our son that we are treating him as younger than he really is - he already lacks quite a lot of independence compared to his peers.

I'd love any thoughts/advice. (Please be kind as I'm trying to balance everyone's needs).

It’s hard isn’t it. There are clearly kids who genuinely don’t need as much sleep as others and thrive. But sleep deprivation is acknowledged by teachers, health officials etc as being endemic and often linked to screens/gaming which keeps them up longer. It’s obv up to parents to gauge their own child’s needs but if my teacher mates are anything to go by there are many parents failing to recognise the signs.

I wish sleep were discussed like food by experts (doctors, health visitors etc) - in an everyone’s different way - so we can all try to get it right for our own child without feeling we need to apply an exact formula that may not apply (like those bloody mls of milk that my small babies NEVER consumed!). I don’t ever remember being asked about sleep by health people. And in the age of far too many devices affecting it, maybe it should be further up the agenda?

My kids Phones go off at 7/8 respectively, an hour before bed. By then they’ve often used up their screen time and phones are unuseable. They have no screens in rooms at night - communal box for tech. I think this is hugely relevant - the pull of a book or listening to music is not nearly As strong as Snapchat so they settle down much earlier.

I must confess I am dreading loosing our evenings @SoShallINever . It's one of the few things that helps me stay calm with him in the day.

Half these 12 year olds go to bed later than me! 🤣

It is inevitable that you lose it at some point. The question is how do you adapt things then to meet everyone's needs as best you can?

We have an autistic 14 year old and at 12 he was probably going up similarly early, but then we found he would not sleep for hours. Now, we have a 2nd TV. He needs to be showered, teeth cleaned, bag packed and then he can watch TV until 9.30. Sometimes he chooses to do that with us, sometimes he watches something different himself and we put our choice of TV on, do the crossword or whatever. We get a bit of "us" time - not every night, but several times a week - without pushing him out. Finding TV or activities you can all get something out of together is an important part of the transition, I think. Watching Friends or Ghosts is much closer to "you time" than enduring Peppa Pig.

Bedtime stories have gone but we make a big point of eating together instead. We also have a 16 year old in the mix, so frankly we end up going to bed quite late these days.

Our youngest Dd is 12 and goes up at 9pm to get ready. She takes forever and so isn't normally in bed before 10 and often later 😫

We also have older teens, so already lost any alone time in the evenings 🤦‍♀️

At that age, asleep by 9.30/9.45pm but they did need to get up early by 6.40am latest to get public transport. I think it depends on what time they have to get up!

In our house, they were always doing homework until gone 8pm as the grammar schools just set that much right from Year 7 so it was always up to 2 hours a night because they wanted to keep their Sundays homework free. They also had sports and music practice so not much free time at all, poor sods. On the plus side, they fell into bed exhausted most evenings. Had they gone to the local comp that finishes at 3.30pm and sets much less homework they would have probably had more energy and slept later and got up later. So surely a lot depends on what and how much they are doing.

I wish sleep were discussed like food by experts (doctors, health visitors etc) - in an everyone’s different way - so we can all try to get it right for our own child without feeling we need to apply an exact formula that may not apply (like those bloody mls of milk that my small babies NEVER consumed!). I don’t ever remember being asked about sleep by health people. And in the age of far too many devices affecting it, maybe it should be further up the agenda?

Sleep was discussed at all of my children's yearly check ups at the children's clinic (not UK), and at the more indepth check ups at school. Had to fill out questionnaires before the appointments which included questions about what time they go to bed, what time they get up, how long it takes them to fall asleep, sleep routines and screen time in the evenings and any difficulties. Definitely taken seriously where I am.