Guests and children’s bedtime

[Whatthefluffing]

If you’re at a friends house, you both have children of a similar age and it gets to the children’s bedtime, what’s the etiquette please?.

Im still wound up from an incident with friends last weekend, not sure if I or they were in the wrong.

They should have left when you went upstairs, the goodnights downstairs should have been the goodbyes. They were rude to hang around, unless it was agreed that they'd be staying much later and would be there once you'd got back downstairs.
Next time show them to the door instead of leaving them to sit there when you go up.

I'd of said it was nice catching up but time for them to go as child needs to go to bed!

I really don’t understand how this is rude. Presumably they’re your friends, like you, love your children and thought it was a nice thing to pop up and say good night

all this “it’s so rude!!!!” stuff is premium MN, I don’t know anyone in real life that would get mad about it

I put my kids to bed and then come back downstairs again normally.

If I want them to leave I'd be clear about it - ie "thanks for coming over, let's meet up again soon" etc and see them out just before bedtime.

I wouldn't expect children of the same age to necessarily have bedtimes of the same time. In my NCT group bedtimes range from 1830 to 2130.

Just seen update that you are single parent. Why didn’t you say bye and show them out before you went upstairs? Is your child older primary and they thought it would take a few minutes (rather than helping with dressing, teeth and stories) and then you would do your goodbyes or continue the evening

I guess I’m overthinking. Thanks all

They knew the evening would
not continue, it was late, their children were in their pyjamas and they had to drive home. Child is at the age where they still need help as do theirs so they would
of known.

Massive over reaction by you. If i was round at a friends house, i wouldn't have presumed i hwd to leave when child went to bed? Thats quite an early tike for the evening to finish, but also if i haf friends round with their kids i wouldn't be putting my child to bed early anyway

You left guests downstairs unattended while you went to do bedtime? I imagine they were having a hastily whispered conversation on what they were supposed to do and settled on popping up to say goodbye?!

So you went upstairs without saying goodbye? I would feel so weird if you said goodnight then went upstairs , I wouldn't know if I was to leave or not. If someone is in your house you make it clear they're leaving, you don't just say night and go upstairs.

It was getting late at this point, maybe I should
of just put them to bed later.

It’s just another example of parents expecting the world to spin on their child’s axis and sod everything and everyone else. It’s everywhere.

I think for the sake of one night then I’d probably have let my children stay up, as long as it wasn’t a school night.
If they needed their bed then I’d have thanked my friends for coming over and that we will need to arrange another night soon. Id have made it pretty clear that it was time to go.
It’s annoying they went upstairs to the bedroom but probably didn’t do it to annoy you. You could have just asked them politely to head home.

Sounds like your friends are more relaxed about bedtime, and were expecting you to come back down. When you didn’t, they took the hint and left.

You should have wrapped things up with your friends and seen them out the door before putting your child to bed. It’s not an etiquette issue, but a hosting one.

What they did sounds irritating but I wouldn’t get into a stress about it

Why didn't you see them out? The strange part of this story is that you left them all downstairs and went to get your child ready for bed. Faced with this odd situation, it's for the best that they went up to say goodbye to you. It beats them sitting around alone for ages until you come back down or leaving without saying goodbye to you and leaving you with an unlocked front door from a certain point.

I bet what happened was the kids wanted to say goodnight, then the mum thought it would be nice to say goodnight too then she told the dad go and say goodnight to little Balonz we've all done it.

They probably didn't know what they should do, next time say "ok I'll take Balonz up to bed now, shall we see you on Tuesday?" Or "I'm taking Balonz to bed, please stay quiet so they don't get distracted, but make yourself at home"

They overstayed their welcome. This was probably inadvertent/unintentional - maybe you didn't make it clear enough to them that it was time to vamoose.

I have a friend who, when she visits, comes first thing in the morning and is still there at 6pm. Much as I like her, this is too much for me. So I now arrange something for early afternoon and say "we'd love to see you Sunday, but we'll have to wind up around 2pm as we have this activity. Hope that's ok?"

Next time, just be a bit clearer. "We'd love to have you over, but [child name] really needs her sleep at the moment so we'll have to call it a night at 8pm."

Well if you are staying I would suggest everyone unclench, accept no one is going to bed on time. If its just time for bed, probably the same to a certain extent. Accept its probably going to be later than normal before the one party leaves

Definitely not something I’d be stewing on about. ..

I think you were unreasonable to put your child to bed when they were there.

You should have just brought the evening to an end by saying something like, I hope you don’t mind, us saying goodnight now, as it time for “childs name” bed time.

Thanks very much for coming and see you soon.

Then stand up, ask if they have everything, or need toilet visits, and help them get their shoes and coats.

It isn’t rude, and as long as you don’t do this oddly, such as mid meal or in a rude way, it’s perfectly acceptable.

Yeah I couldn’t get worked up about this.

Depending on the age of my child, I’d just let them stay up later. If it was a toddler, I’d tell the friends that I had to do bedtime, and I’d be back in x minutes to continue chatting.

If you didn’t actually show them out, they probably didn’t know what to do and might have thought it was rude to just leave.

Why on earth would you not completely see them out of the door before you went up to do bedtime? They came to say bye one by one as it would have felt rude to just see themselves out and also rude to come up as a family all together.

They were obviously trying not to be rude, by saying bye. You've a primary aged child, so at least 4? It's not like you were trying to get a 6 month old baby down!

I don't think either of you were being U, it's more of a case of different hosting/guest styles. Next time say something like "ok, dc needs bed now so I'll see you out, it was lovely having you we've had a brilliant time! Say goodnight dc!" Allow the kids time to say bye, wave them off at the door and then go and do bedtime.

I wouldn't be wound up by this.

I'd be wound up if they didn't take the hint to leave and were expecting to stay on once my child was in bed.

Ok. Next time I shall be clear to say my child is going to bed and we’ll see you next time but they were going home.