How old before you stop 'putting your dds to bed'

[GatoNaranja]

My two are nine and nearly eleven, and bedtimes usually consist of me and dh 'asking' them to go to bed, usually resulting in quite vocal 'demanding' as they get distracted from one thing to another.

Are we lazy parents or should we still be accompanying them up the stairs and watching over them?

To clarify, we do usually do go upstairs and kiss them goodnight, plus keep a stringent eye on 'lights out' time. But we do leave them to shower, clean teeth, get into pyjamas etc.

Also I meant dcs not dds...

14, 12, 8. Eldest can be left to get on with it (tho he still likes us to turn out his light most nights). Dcs2&3 need 'reminding'. One of us usually pops upstairs from time to time - to prise one out of/into the shower/to ask "teeth?"/etc. We read them a bed time story, if they want, and do lights-out.

I've got 2 DS's 10 and 8.

Stopped putting them to bed last year. Now expect them to shower (older one gets out a clean towel from linen cupboard for himself and his bro), pyjamas on, teeth brushed, pop downstairs for a kiss goodnight then into bed to read for 20 mins all on their own steam.

Took a while to get the routine down from 60 mins (not an exaggeration) to much more streamline now. Any extra time they take to get ready is taken from reading time, to the extent that they will sometimes go without.

That's the ideal scenario anyway. In real life we still get the "I can't find my favourite onesie" and "I've just remembered I have a firm for you to fill in for school" plus the eternal complaint of "he (his DB) is annoying/ distracting me".

For the most part, those ages are fine to be self sufficient about getting to bed.

Thanks - I'm feeling a lot better now (takes another slug of merlot)

I chivvy my two (11 and 9) along, I am usually upstairs with them, we do reading, spellings, clean clothes away etc but I wouldn't say I had actually put them to bed, as in tuck them in and kiss goodnight in their room for several years. I just make sure they go into their room by whatever time, then if I hear voices after say half an hour I might stick my head in and tell them to go to sleep, but that is rare, normally once they've gone in I don't check on them again. They read for a while, chat a bit, maybe play a bit then put their light off and go to sleep.

If I am particularly busy though or they've stayed up later at a weekend, or haven't got any spellings etc to do then I send them up by themselves, they are very good at putting themselves to bed generally.

We still put our two to bed, they're 7 and 10 yr old boys.

They want us up there chatting while they have a wash, brush their teeth, etc. and I'm so concious that in a few years they probably won't even want to talk to us! While we don't mind doing it, they can carry on asking