Young kids out late

[Mamabear04]

To be honest I'm just wondering how it's possible for young kids under 5 to stay out late. Every time I go out to a restaurant or even just on the bus I think to myself, "how do OP do it?" I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old and don't think they could handle being out past 6.30pm, I think they would just have a meltdown out of tiredness. Is it a cultural thing? Am I missing something?

Lunch at 1130 sounds so depressing. I don't understand how people can bear the nursery lifestyle.

My 2 year old goes to bed at 10:30/11pm and wakes up at 9ish, which suits me fine.

We get lots of family time after work, and can do nice things in the evenings that most of his little friends would be asleep/too tired for.

It’ll change when he starts school, but for now I wouldn’t consider doing things any other way

My child used to go to bed around 9.15 as a 2/3 year old, which was the same time as his older sibling. They used to play around together in the evening and have fun so I thought it was nice. But he only went to nursery in the afternoon so I can see why it might not work for some people.

So going out in the evening wasn't a problem. although we only did it occasionally.

It could be cultural, we live in France and my 5 and 3 year old can easily stay out till 9/10pm. Not every night but on holiday or the odd weekend or special event in the week.

Our childminder does lunch at 11:30. It sounds ridiculous. We have it much later at home on the weekend and our 4 year old doesn't perish. We have breakfast later too

My almost 2yo bedtime is 7pm but we do bath and wind down from 6. So we very, very rarely do dinner out. But it also means that my sleep trained baby will be put in her room at 7 and put herself off to sleep. We have our free time from 7pm so I would rather have that than a dinner out.

Actually, I've come to the conclusion that it's all these bloody early meals that drive all these super early bed times and wake ups. The entire rythm of the day is brought forward when you're insisting on breakfast at 6:30, snack at 9:30, unch at 11, snack at 14:30 and dinner at 17:00. I mean, no wonder children wake up early if they've had nothing to eat for 14 hours.

I always suspect that all those people who say their children are awake no matter what, might see a change if they actually put effort into shifting the entire routine, and not just bedtime.

My 2.5 year old goes to bed about 8.30 most nights. We work and he has older siblings who do sports most nights. We couldn’t get him to bed any earlier.
Once a week it’s about 10. Not ideal but he copes really well.
He sleeps til 7 most days (so normally 10.5 hours night sleep) and has a 1.5 hour nap. I think he generally gets enough sleep.
To add, when my older kids were toddlers they went to bed at 7! No way was I keeping them up any later (but I also had no reason to).

During regular time (school, etc) mine also goes to bed early - by 8. We are on holiday now and has been going to bed 10:30 with no issues. I find during the winter he sleeps longer and goes to bed much earlier than in the summer

We generally have the younger ones in bed for 7.30/8 (5,3 &1). We also have two slightly older kids who are almost 8 and 10- they go to bed about 8.30.

We do deviate from it though- birthday meals out, cinema trips etc, when we are holiday etc.

Some DC are naturally night owls. Mine have always stayed up for New Years Eve til midnight since toddlers. They just sleep in the next day.

Some people are just on a different schedule. I know a mum who has a 5 year old and toddler, they go to bed 9:30-10pm every night and need waking up every morning. Not for me!

Dd1 had to have a strict routine or she’d be a nightmare. Dtds were totally flexible. Depends on the dc ime.

My DS is 2 and is usually in bed by 7:30, but he’s fine staying up late on the odd occasion, without a meltdown. When he’ll be having a late nap I try giving him a late or longer nap than usual. He wouldn’t be able to handle that for more than a couple nights though.

"Big emotions"? What does that mean (not being snarky I genuinely don't understand!) sounds like some sort of code for tantrums

I forgot the smiley face sorry as it was meant to be lighthearted! And you can't edit on the app annoyingly.

This depends on the kids! Dd2 can happily stay up late, keep bouncing away and sleep in until late morning. Dd1 has an internal clock, always up at 6.30/7am latest and is grumpy and unhappy if bedtime goes too far past 8.30pm. Despite being older she’s always naturally gone to sleep earlier! She needs more rest sleep too, always had long naps as a baby etc.

If we know we’re going to be out later say 8.30-9ish we let 18 month old have a late danger nap and then take some pj’s and a bottle out with us - get him changed before we leave the venue and give him his bottle and then straight into bed after falling asleep on the car ride home.

Mines 7 and goes to bed at 7:45 normally, she can however stay up late and not be affected. We'll occasionally go out for dinner and keep her up until around 9pm.
She does Brownies weekly which finishes at 8 and it's around 8:30 before she's in bed.
On holiday we stay up to watch the entertainment so she goes to bed around 11pm.

Mine are very little (DS 18 months and DTs 2 months next week) and definitely need to be in bed by 7.

DD would always go straight to sleep at home, but would be absolutely fine hours past her bedtime if we were out for a wedding or something similar. She'd have a little drop in mood for about 15min about half an hour after she should have been in bed, and then she'd find a fresh wind from somewhere and power through for hours.

The next day would have to be a house day though, she'd just want to curl up on the sofa with a film.

I'm with you, OP. I think it depends on the napping situation and whether there is a nursery routine for little kids. Some kids don't nap in the day past babyhood, or can't because they are in daycare. Your average 3 YO should get 10-13 hours of sleep a day for development purposes; so if they don't nap, they need this to be at night. Maybe folk who have more laid back routines in the day with a parent at home/nap times etc. can be more flexible with bedtimes. It certainly wouldn't work for us on a regular basis. On Holidays is ok though.

My 4 year old has never gone to bed at 6.30pm unless ill.
Usually he goes around 8.30pm and still wide awake by 6.30am.

So it’s very easy to go out for dinner. We dont go really late to start with but a 6.30pm dinner out means we are back by 8.30- 9pm depending on location of restaurant, so not that different from usual. He’s fine stay up an extra hour occasionally.

It’s very hot where we live today. Approximately 34 degrees. Ds doesn’t nap anymore but it’s too hot to do much mid afternoon so just paddling pool in shade or activities inside. We often then go back out around 6-8pm for park, walk, ice cream, swim when it’s cooler.

My DD has lunch in reception at this time.

Her nursery and CM used to do lunch from noon.