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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To send my 9 year old to bed at 8.30?

60 replies

Mowgli1970 · 07/06/2010 20:59

If she could manage on little sleep, get up on time and be as fresh as a daisy I wouldn't mind sending her later. But if she doesn't get 10 hours sleep, she's moody and tearful. She's moaning all her friends go to bed later than she does. She's not asleep at 8.30, I do allow her to read for 20 minutes or so. AIBU?

OP posts:
MrsHarkness · 07/06/2010 21:06

No thats what time I used to send my little girl to bed at that age, in bed for 8.30 half an hour to read then lights out at 9 - she used to moan at me too though lol!

Irons · 07/06/2010 21:07

Totally reasonable! Children need their sleep to function and do well at school.

Stick with it for as long as you can, it's good for her even if she can't see it now.

cookinmama · 07/06/2010 21:09

Not mean at all, mean is sending your 13year old to bed at 8:30pm to read until 9pm

My attitude is that DS needs the sleep or he doesn't function well and I need the break and go to bed at 10 myself.

TheCappster · 07/06/2010 21:09

No

all her friends are probably lying

they are 9

my 9 year old goes to bed at 8.30 and reads for 20 mins

Pozzled · 07/06/2010 21:10

YANBU. I teach Y4 and so many of my class are clearly not getting enough sleep. If you know that she is moody on less than 10 hours, stick with it.

islandofsodor · 07/06/2010 21:12

YANBU (see my other thread though!!)

Dd is 9 in October and bedtime is 7.30pm. her classmates bedtime ranges between 8pm and 9.00pm.

WillowM2B · 07/06/2010 21:13

Mine go to bed anywhere between 8.30pm and 9.30pm school nights - usually around 9pm (they are 9 and 12) - they never put up much resistance and have been known to take themselves off to bed before "time"

They are still grumpy little buggers of a school morning though!

Yet at weekends/holidays they go to bed well after 10pm usually and are up and about at 6/7am?

PlumBumMum · 07/06/2010 21:13

my 9 year old started crying tonight actually because all her friends go to bed later than her, her bed time is 7.30, BUT as I pointed out to her it is a long time from she was actually in bed at 7.30 so I have upped it to officially 8.30 lights out 9

Dollytwat · 07/06/2010 21:17

my 8 yr old goes up at 8 and is asleep for 8.30. He sometimes stays up til 9 in the holidays, but tbh he's really grumpy and sensitive the next day so I try to avoid it.

He'll get up at the same time whatever time he goes to bed, so I don't gain anything by sending him later!

TheCappster · 07/06/2010 21:21

in the playground though no-one is going to say 'oh I go to bed really early' whether they do or not

CoteDAzur · 07/06/2010 21:21

YABU imho. 4 yr old DD goes to bed at 9 pm.

Don't you eat dinner together as a family?

lazarusb · 07/06/2010 21:27

My 2 (10 & 7) go to bed at 8pm and eldest reads till 8.30pm.
CoteDAzur- we eat as a family between 6.30 and 7pm, giving us all a full hour to shower/ chat/ brush teeth etc...

TrinityTrinityTrinity · 07/06/2010 21:32

my 10 year old goes to bed at 7pm and reads for a little while, no longer than half an hour.

I dont tell her to stop she just does.

halia · 07/06/2010 21:34

cote - what time do you have dinner and what time does your 4 yr old get up?

My 5 yr old needs 11-12 hrs sleep a night, if he went ot bed at 9pm that would mean getting up at 8am-9am, which would be difficult as we need to leave the house at 8.15 to get to school and work!

DS (5) goes to bed at 7pm - lights out by 7.30
weekends he can stay up til 8pm. this will pretty much be the rule until he is 7 or 8 and then we'll go for 7.30/8pm with weekends 8.30pm

pretty much extending by half an hour every couple of years which means at 15 it's about 10pm.

He tells me no-one goes to bed as early as him at school, which is odd as I know I've been out with 3 other parents, all of us relaxing having seen our boys off to bed and asleep before we went out at 7/7.30ish.

LoveMyGirls · 07/06/2010 21:37

My 10yr old goes up at 8.30 and reads or listens to music til 9pm YANBU imo.

midori1999 · 07/06/2010 21:42

My 9 year old goes to bed at 8.30 on school nights. At weekends it is very flexible. He almost always has to be woken in the morning, so I don't feel it is too early at all.

However, my son recently stayed overnight with a friend of the same age and they had to go to bed at 6pm, which I thought was very unreasonable!

MarthaQuest · 07/06/2010 21:43

DS is 8 and a half and on a school night is in bed at 8, lights out by 8.30. he needs his sleep, although he wants to stay up later.

TheNextMrsDepp · 07/06/2010 21:43

Stick with it - she obviously needs the sleep! All kids are different.

DD1 is also 9 and also goes to bed at 8.30 because she needs to.

On the other hand DS1 (10) has always managed on way less sleep so was going to bed later at that age (and is still hanging around at 10pm if he gets the chance).

I have always been like DS1 - a night owl who manages now on around 6 hours a night and I remember the TORTURE of having an early bedtime imposed by my mum - lying in bed wide awake while the neighborhood kids played outside. I could never get to sleep for hours. That's why I don't force DS1 to bed too early.

Horses for courses....

MarthaQuest · 07/06/2010 21:43

6pm is ridiculously early !

LisaD1 · 07/06/2010 21:47

My 10yr old goes to bed between 8pm and 9pm during the week, we allow her to stay up until 9.30/10pm Friday and Saturday.

mumbar · 07/06/2010 21:47

halia - my ds also 5 goes to bed at 7pm school nights. He will usually be asleep at 730pm.

Tonight we were talking etc and I didn't realise the time and he asked to go to bed - it was 7.45 and he was asleep in 5 minutes!!
Does go to show he nneds the sleep!

OP YANBU I am planning to have 7.30/ 8 pm bedtime when he starts the juniors (7yrs)

ElizabethWakefield · 07/06/2010 21:49

My 9 year old DD goes to bed around 8ish and reads for about half an hour. She needs to be almost literally dragged out of bed at 8.30am for school.

She complains that she goes to bed much earlier than everyone else she knows, so i have told her when she can get up in the morning better she can go to bed later, I can't see that happening for a while!

At weekends she can stay up much later if she wants and will often sleep until 12pm the next day if I don't waken her! She really needs her sleep!

CoteDAzur · 07/06/2010 21:50

DH comes home 6:30ish, bathes DD (4) and DS (1), then we sit down for dinner around 19:15-19:30. Dinner lasts about an hour, with DD going through each course at an agonizingly slow pace. DS is in bed by 20:30, and DD goes down at 21:00.

Wake up time is at about 07:30, but we don't set the alarm - that is just when kids wake up. We live minutes away from DD's school, which starts at 08:30.

cariboo · 07/06/2010 21:52

eek! of course not! dd has to start getting ready for bed at 8 and lights out by 8:30 (ds too). These babies need their sleep!

CoteDAzur · 07/06/2010 21:52

For reference, I distinctly remember having dinner at 20:00 (because that is when dad would come from work) and going to bed at 10:00 when I was 9. I would wake up at 07:30.