At what age did you stop enforcing bedtime?

[hatanmaek]

For context, my oldest is 9. She doesn't have an issue going to bed, but I'm wondering if she's getting a little too old for the whole "lights out" ritual at 8 and if it would do her some good to have a little more autonomy in that area, maybe learn the consequences on her own if she decides to stay up later than she should. We also have a 4 year old that definitely needs a set bedtime, so we were thinking about doing a "no tech/quiet time at 8" rule. Just curious to see other parents thoughts and how you've handled this? Or did the habit just kind of fall off more organically?

My eldest is 12.5 years old and still has a set bedtime and so do most of his friends.

This is in Arts and Crafts, OP.

My 13 year old has been going to bed the same time as us (his parents) since he was about 11. We go up about 10 and he goes straight to sleep. His younger brother is 9 and we have him go up at 8 and can’t see that changing anytime soon. Totally different kids with different needs. Do whatever suits your children.

About half way through year 7 for my eldest. We did it on a trial basis so he could go whenever he wants but if he started being hard to get up for school we would reinstate a bedtime. He goes up around 10 now. I do sometimes remind him if it's late but it's not a bedtime as such.

We have a no tablet after 8 rule and we don't do gaming in the week anyway but he is allowed to watch TV in the lounge with his dad.

I think you’ve posted in the wrong area. But my 10 year old has to be in bed by 9 and my almost 14 year old by half 10. I don’t mind so much on weekends and holidays- little one then in bed by 10 and older one by midnight usually (unless sports the next day). If I gave them total control over bedtime, neither of them would go till about 3am

Maybe that’s what she wants to stay up doing?

Depends on the kid. Does she have the ability to self regulate? Would it cause issues if you had to reimpose bedtimes? Could you offer it as a trial?

My 14yo still has a bedtime because I need guaranteed alone time when I’m off the clock, but she doesn’t have a lights out time. She can entertain herself in her room (no tech).

my 12year old still has a bedtime, he had to be in his room for 9 but can read or whatever till 9:30. 9 is very young to not have a bedtime, personally I’d wait until the teenage years but each to their own.

My 12 year old needs to be lights off by 9.30am during the week, Friday and Saturday night we let her choose when to go to sleep with the provisio that it has to be before we do which is generally about 11.30pm

Fair point!😀

If you posted in the wrong topic op, report your own post and ask MNHQ to move it to the right one (maybe Parenting?)

I think it was around year 9 (14 years old) that I stopped saying a specific bedtime and said to my husband they needed to learn to self regulate their sleeping patterns and like you’ve said, the natural consequence of staying up too late is they’re tired the next day.

That said, I allowed them to discuss their own bedtime with me from around 10/11 years old, so we agreed a time together initially as a first step towards that autonomy.

My husband always thought we should be telling them when to go to bed until I pointed out what happens when they get to adulthood never having learned to work it out for themselves? I also made it clear to the kids that if they took the piss on a school night, we’d go back to a specific bedtime. My boys are 20, 18 and 14 now and all great. In fact, since my youngest started self regulating, he now wakes up to an alarm and gets up an hour earlier than he was doing when I was saying it’s bedtime etc! I’m really impressed with how mature he’s been to working out what time to go to sleep so he gets enough sleep (he tends to get into bed around 9/9:30pm and watches an episode of his favourites shows (2 Broke Girls, Young Sheldon, Stranger Things , etc) on tv til 10:30pm then switches off and goes straight to sleep! He sets an alarm for 6:30am (which is way earlier than he needs to be up) and he has 30 mins watching a bit of YouTube on his phone whilst he wakes up properly, then gets himself ready for school etc - he’s always at school around 40 mins before it opens!