Advice please: bed times.

[nousername123]

What time do your children go to bed? How old are They? How rigid are you with these rules? Also, do they have dinner around the same time every day and do you have dinner with them? Thanks x

My DS is 1, he goes to bed around 6.45-7 pm every night. He has dinner around 5pm ish and we eat once he has gone to bed. Whilst we do tend to stick to timings we won't let it pull us away from the odd family function etc, DS has gone to bed later if we have been out and about. Doesn't happen that often though.

That seems fair. Just wanted advice really as I'm due to give birth soon and want to bring my baby up right, I'm a bit naive at the whole baby thing though. Just want to do it properly x

DD is 2.5 and she's literally just fallen asleep. We've had a busy day, she no longer naps unless unwell. She'll wake up tomorrow about 7:30am & that'll be it until anywhere from 7pm-8pm in the eve. It's extra late tonight as we haven't got over the excitement and lack of routine after Xmas and all the socialising and events

She WILL NOT go to sleep unless she's tired so we follow her lead and take her up when she is tired. However she usually tells us she's ready for bed about 7:30pm

My twins are 5, we have dinner together at 5pm everyday. Bath is 6pm, then they read their school reading books to me, I read them a story, brush teeth and lights off at 7pm. At the weekend bedtime is 8pm.

My 4 month old is between 7-730pm, I stick to this unless we’re out slightly later eating out with friends etc- she sleeps until around 5am, feed/nappy change and will then sleep on until around 8/9am.

She only has a few daytime naps and they only last half an hour at the most (not wanting to hijack your post but would love to know if this is normal, as someone told me recently she should be napping for longer... I’m not bothered as she sleeps at night)

Sadly all babies do their own thing so even having a set bedtime, it doesn’t mean they will definitely sleep. Try and encourage a routine.. nappy off time, bath etc.

My 10 month old goes to bed between 7 and 8 usually and my 2.5 year old nearer 9 at the moment. She is difficult to get to sleep so we are constantly trying to pull back bad time (unsuccessfully!).

May be different when they are at school but I've never really seen the point in early bedtime so they wake at stupid o clock in the morning.

My dd is nearly 23 months .
Bed between 6:30-7.
No nap .
Dinner around 5-5:30
No we don't eat with her except on occasion

Mine wakes at 7 -9am so early bed doesn't equal early mornings here

Remember your baby may have their own ideas! Don't beat yourself up if you have a baby who won't settle at the time you want. You will get there eventually.

Mine is 18 months. Dinner at 4.30, bath and bed at 6. Sounds early but she wakes at 6 am whatever time she goes down and she happily goes down at 6pm so we just do that. Not super strict though, if she's still bouncing around 5.45 I'll move it to 7 just means she will have an hour less. Usually she's pulling me in to put her pjs on by 6.10 though. We usually eat once she's in bed

My 6 and 8 year old both go to bed at 7.30. They both seem to need a lot of sleep!

Congratulations on your pregnancy!

Follow your babies lead, there is no ‘right way’ to raise a child.

I strongly recommend the ‘suck it and see ‘style of parenting

For reference, when they were babies, they slept when tired, ate when hungry, and were washed when dirty. As they approached 8months, I instigated a routine, of bath, story then bed. Timings are flexible depending on levels of tiredness, but my kids are generally asleep between 7:30 and 8:30. (They are aged 3-8).

Oh, and we eat together as a family, generally around 6pm.

We’re owls.

As a baby DD tended to sleep midnight till noon. At 3 (just before starting full time school) she was going to bed around 10pm. This became 9pm with school (she needed to be up at 8am).

She’s now 7 and bedtime on school days is around 9pm (she’s up at 7:30am). School holidays she can be up till about 10pm.

She’s seen in every new year.

The right thing with a baby is what they need.
So sleep when they show tiredness cues (sadly, often not at night!!) and for a long time it changes EVERY blinking week

e.g. DS is 6 mo, has just dropped from 4-3 naps and so has been going down at 6.30 but then has been waking at 5 something (we can't deal with that!!) so we've tweaked it a bit later and were rewarded with 7:20 this morning

He's just started weaning so we are sometimes now eating dinner dead on 6 so he gets to sit up with us and 'eat' (the dogs enjoy it anyway!) . We do plan/ hope that we'll eat as a family but depends on DH not working too late and how routine changes as per DS.

We also hope that he'll stop waking for a full feed every 2 hours but are under no illusions that anything will change that other than his development. Oh, and sometimes he comes into bed with me (and DH goes to spare room). We never planned for that to happen but it's a case of whatever works to get everyone some sleep and I do my utmost to keep it safe.