8 year olds bedtime

[Bobty123]

So me and my ex are separated and she has never Wanted us to sit down together to come up with a rule set for both houses to follow, that’s for another post I want to make but one main thing is the children’s bedtime.

We have twin 8yo boys and I have them every weekend fri-sun + 1 day in the week.

When with me we have the set routine of bath at 8, half an hour of tv/read a book after that and then down for sleep about 9/9.15. To me this is reasonable especially considering I have them over weekend so no need to be up for school.

With her however, I’m not sure what time she puts them down when they do have school but since the lockdown and no school she has let them stay up to whatever time they want.

This really annoys me as I feel no matter whether the kids are in school or not they should still be kept to a routine. Ok I understand every now and then does no harm to stay up late maybe watching a film, going for late night walk maybe, but she’s just letting them stay up playing ipad / Xbox / watching YouTube while she is sat in other room on computer watching her tv.

I get messages regularly from my kids when they send me funny videos or messages and I’m getting them come through at 11PM / 12 / 1 AM.

She argues back with the fact that they’re still getting enough sleep as they’ll wake up later, again had messages from my kids saying ‘just woke up’ at around 11AM / midday.

Am I in the wrong for being annoyed about this? Or is she right with the fact that they will still be getting enough sleep? So therefore doesn’t matter what time they go bed if they have nothing to get up for?

Thanks

I dont think you can dictate what she does with them in her time. They will learn there are different rules for different houses

I don’t think it’s a case of dictating what she does at her house but you can’t tell me allowing 8 year old to stay up to 1 in the morning very regularly is ok ?

If they don't have anything to get up for then does it matter? It would be different if they were at school in the morning. You just have different parenting methods. It wouldn't be what I would do but you will just get frustrated and annoyed if you try to tell her what to do and she will just say no and you cant force her to do anything.

Too late by far. My 6 nearly seven year old goes upstairs at 6 ish and is asleep by 7. I can't see this moving more than an hour by 8. What she does on her time you can't do much about though. I would just reinforce different rules at yours.

My eight year old is in bed by 8.00 and can read till 8.30 then its lights out.

I think it's very important that children should go to bed quite early. and have a proper routine, but it must be difficult when children are shared as such, and your partner has different, or no rules on this. But it will surely lead to some difficulties, when children are allowed to be still up very late, as they will think its normal. and it won't be good for them at all. Routines are good for children, although some people may not care about this.

It would aggravate me.

Yes of course your timing is good. Yes she's wrong and it's lazy parenting.

Single parenting is hard, she might be lazier than you would like but the kids aren't in school and she isn't harming them (in the short term at least).

Her house her rules tbh, if you were still together then you would've had more of aa say or even better you could've done it yourself, but you're not together anymore so you can't.