To keep my three nephews up all night?

[Upfiner]

I am having my three nephews over for a sleepover. They’re six, just turned two and five months. The eldest has slept over a few times but not the younger two.

Instead of wrestling them into bed I am planning to let them stay up as late as they like. I’ve always done this with the eldest and he loves it and usually falls asleep at about 10:30pm. I’ll obvious have the baby in his crib but I’ve got a huge corner sofa so I’m going to bring the duvets down and we can just have a slumber party downstairs.

I told my friend who has two sons and she thinks that this will impact their whole week and their schooling and routine and probably exam results and future careers.

I’m not going mad am I? This is fine for one fun evening?

Exactly. I don't remember ever having bedtime earlier than 9pm. And even then I was allowed to stay as late as I wanted to as long as I was in bed and reading. That's on a school night. There was never a set bedtime at weekends.
I am not emotionally damaged in the slightest and am actually a pretty productive member of society.

It depends on your child.
Dd1 slept 12 hours at that age. If she went to bed early, she woke later.
Dd2 didn't sleep, but if she had a night when she was extra late to bed it would take more than a week to get her back to getting to sleep before 11pm.
Ds always woke between 6 and 7am. Didn't matter what time he'd gone to bed as long as it was after 7pm. He's an adult now and still does! If he'd had a late night he was just miserable the next day.

So yes if you had children like dd1 you might well think it doesn't matter at all.
If you had children like dd2 you would think for your own sanity she needed to stick to routine.
And if you had children like ds, you would know it wasn't fair on him to do that as he was far more miserable the next day than any fun the night before could make up for.

Sounds fun, can I come 😂

One late night won’t do anyone any harm. They can nap on sunday if they are tired.

I remember being a child and going to my first summer school - even going to 'real school' at the age of 5. I remember being perfectly happy and looking forward to new experiences, but I remember quite a few kids being seriously out of their depth, and VERY unhappy about being away from home (even for the first day of school).

I realise now that I was socialised like the OP's nephews. I loved visiting people overnight and having time with a different adult and being spoiled. It does sound to me as if there are a lot of MN children who don't have these experiences, and are at risk of being the unhappy kids I remember above.

Presumably she's asking here because her friend criticised her for it. You know, like she actually explained to us in her OP 🙄

It's not like she's even being that quirky. Even my grandma sleepovers are along those lines. The only difference being that if the older one (6) hasn't fallen asleep or asked to go to bed by 9:30, I take her up. Because I'm a lot older than OP and I need a rest!

So you said in your pp.

I'm guessing you posted from a party surrounded by all your friends.

It must have got more exciting and your friends more interesting as the evening wore on - I'll never know though, because your later posts were deleted.

I'm sorry, but if someone cant get back to sleeping normally after one late night/ wake up at the same time every day even if they go to bed at late I would be worried about some neurological or psychological issue. Because its not the norm. What if they travel to US or Australia and get jet lagged? Or celebrate NY by staying up all night? Or have a baby? really really concerning.

I think it's a lovely plan, @Upfiner . When I was 6, my parents took my sister to see My Fair Lady at the theatre and left me with my grandmother. Everyone thought she was, in general, as daft as a brush but she really understood children. She knew I'd be very disappointed not to be going with them so as soon as they'd left, she and I got into our nightclothes, made up the sofa bed in the living room and got in. We watched telly all evening - all the things I couldn't watch at home (my mother wouldn't let us watch ITV and there were only 2 channels at the time). We had big bottles of Corona lemonade, crisps (only ready salted existed, then), bars of milk chocolate and a big bowl of green grapes and there was lots of laughter and silliness and quite raucous singing along to the telly. It was as magical to me as a trip to the theatre could ever have been and I still think about it regularly with huge joy, even though I'm 70 and have done lots of exciting things since then.

It comes down to the children.
I have a 6 year old that's a low sleep needs child who fairly often is still awake in the evening at half 9-10 and I doubt she would fall asleep watching TV and if she did she would wake up as we tried to carry her upstairs. She would then be awake for another hour plus before going back to sleep.

Unless she has been unwell she has never fallen asleep on the sofa. At 2 there were nights when out bedtime came before hers but she was so incredibly tired and her brain was screaming for sleep so she was a nightmare. She is very sensitive to light and the late evening TV would have a knock on effect for her sleep patterns for several days.

My second is only 12 months but so far is a completely different kettle of fish and if he continues down the same path he is on at the moment. I think he would take it in his stride. .

You have to remember when taking to others about parenting and that is you can only parent the children you have and not those that others have or that are in the books. If your nephews are good sleepers and not too Goldilocks-y about where and how they sleep it sounds like a good evening!

There were ten in the bed
And the little one said........

I had my grandkids saturday night ,I won’t say what shit we ate and what time they went to bed ,but we had fun and they loved it.My daughter and partner had a night off (shock ,horror).
OP you sound great have fun and enjoy,ignore the fun sponges on here.

Just be aware that all kids are different - so while the eldest copes well with a flexible schedule and simply sleeps in later, it won’t necessarily translate that will be the case for the other two.

I do this with my two grandsons, 5 & 6. We push the sofas together and sleep in the living room - mainly because they are terribly twisty sleepers, and have fallen out of my quite high bed in the past. They bloody love it!

‘All night ‘had me imagining you slapping them around and pinching them, not letting them conk out naturally

The OP sounds like a pretty laid back sensible person, I'm sure she's quite capable of adjusting her plan if needed.

My parents used to get me up in the night to go outside and look at comets, or constellations, or lunar eclipses, or any kind of sky 'event'. One night dad took me out to sea all night in a boat, night fishing. We took sandwiches and flasks of tea, it was amazing fun. Some of my happiest childhood memories are because my parents (especially Dad ) weren't rigidly governed by the clock and routines.

The uptightness of some folk is astonishing to me, 'I became a total drop out and had to be taken into care because my auntie let me stay up late, eat pizza and watch Toy Story' said no kid ever.

Well the baby doesn’t really have a schedule. He’ll do as he pleases and bollocks to the rest of us.

The two year old will not want to be put to bed whilst his brothers stay up and I don’t blame him. He can stay up and fall asleep downstairs. If he’s tired the next day that is a problem for his parents.

My 2.5 year old daughter would LOVE this. Hope the kids (and you!) all have a great time!

😂 If they fall asleep I definitely won’t be pinching them awake.

Gosh, so many miserable folks on this thread. Hope u all have a great time op, including ur sis and dh.

That’s lovely. My parents got me out of bed once when we were in Florida to watch the 4th July fireworks. It was so exciting.

Isn't this what Aunty/Uncle/Grandparent sleepovers look like??

Honestly, if you’re doing the favour of babysitting, you get to do it however you like. I’d be incredibly grateful that you were up for looking after 3 very young kids at a time, and happy for you to do what makes it easiest for you.

Mine are horrible with no sleep. A great trick for a special fun night is to put the clock forward and few hours and pretend it’s midnight… say to them we are all going to sleep at midnight… in reality it’s 9. 30 pm. They will love it and no one has to deal with cranky kids in the morning and all the next day.

That would only work for the six year old but he’s no bother anyway. The two year old is too little to understand midnight.

The parents are okay with the plan, and they know how it is likely to go. So yes, do it.

All kids are different. I had one who was up at 6am regardless of how late they'd been up the previous night and would be horrifically crabby for several days after a late night. I did everything in my power to keep that one on a reasonable sleep schedule. Obviously I wouldn't have agreed to Auntie's late night plan for that one.

My other child would fall asleep readily whenever tired and would simply sleep longer the following morning, waking when they'd had enough rest, fresh as a daisy. I would have been thrilled to send that one to an indulgent auntie for a late night.

I expect the responses you are getting are based on people's experiences with their own children. But we don't know your nephews. Their parents do.