Why do parents give themselves so much hassle.....I'm talking ' bedtimes'..

[mozhe]

.....my neighbour has been up and down our stairs,( they are staying chez mozhe as new windows being put in...),for the best part of 4 hours !!! Trying to settle her 4 DCs,( aged 5 months- 9yrs ).She says it's like this every night.....
The mozhe DCs go to bed when they are tired...it varies a bit from night to night but generally about 10.30/11pm...the whole tribe is asleep within 5 mins !!They have all been allowed to develop their own preferences/habits as to where/when/how they fall asleep...surely this is commonsense ?

another vote for each to their own, crazy as it may seem. i live in spain and it is perfectly normal for children to have quiet time during siesta, when they may or may not sleep, and then eat and consequently go to sleep later. it´s not weird at all. over here people think it´s nuts that people in uk eat tea at 6pm, normal tea time here is nearer 10pm (for adults at least).

It's one of those issues that depends on the child and your circumstances. Ds1 is 7 and has a regular bedtime routine. Dd is 15mths and generally goes to sleep between 8.30 and 9pm. Ds2 (4yrs) is a completely different story. He needs medication to make him feel sleepy but it doesn't always work. He is then awake until around 11.30pm - midnight. It's also a question of finding the right balance. When he's tired ds2 gets hyper, but if he has too much sleep his behaviour is awful.

Given a choice I would love to have them all asleep by 9pm but atm it's just not possible.

havent read the whole threadjust the op.my nearly 4 yr old ds goes to bed at 7pm,and soes straight to sleep,my 18 month old dd2 goes at 7.15 and goes straight to sleep,and my 8 and 9 yr old go at 8 and read or whatever till they fall asleep(lights out by 9!).3 month old is put down in her moses basket at 8pm and taken upstairs when shes asleep,usually about 8.30.

i need strict bedtime routines otherwise i wouldnt have any time to myself whatsoever.the lo's sleep at different times during the day so the only time they are all quiet is night time.

i dont think young children should be up till 10.30/11 at night.there is a 9pm watershed on the telly for a reason!

rantmum - thank you. Your DS must be somewhat similar in age to my daughter (2.7). I think it's interesting to have these discussions and to understand where other parents' priorities lie - they can be quite different from ones own.

My partner gets in from work between 7.30 and 8 pm. We all three have dinner together at about 8.15 (and all five of us when my stepsons are here). This is an absolute priority for us - we want to have dinner as a family every day as we firmly believe that it creates great family bonds and has a huge civilising effect on the children. My daughter has had dinner with me since she was born, BTW.

After dinner (my partner and I clear up together, while the boys do teeth brushing/showering/pyjamas and my daughter bumbles around with them if they are here and with us or on her own otherwise) and then we chat, read, do puzzles/read stories/play games all together. The boys are both in bed and asleep by 9.30/10 pm and then my partner and my daughter have a bath together while I lie in bed and read (in theory), and then we all go to bed around 10.30 or 11pm. We really like having the evenings together - that's a big deal for us.

How can it be right for a small child to go to bed at 10:30/11???
I just don't get it.

gracej - I could say the same about a small child going to bed at 7.30... and missing out on all that family time.

It depends on the child and the family circumstances.

What a stupid proposition.

It's well known that children need more sleep than adults. Therefore, if they don't go to bed before them, they will not be getting enough sleep.

This has serious consequences in terms of their concentration, mood, behaviour and health.

Most of the time when my children are really badly behaved, it's because I haven't made sure they went to bed on time.

And as for suggesting that parents don't have the right to have some time to themselves in the evening - FGS, set up martyrsnet and be done with it.

Of course people differ....my point was that it seemed such a struggle,( especially after a long day at work....),and I wondered if other folk took on such battles at the end of the day too.

It's relatively peaceful in the mozhe household at that time of the day...

She said it was no different at her house....my children were mostly out that evening,( DSsx3 were at cinema with DH, and DTs and nanny were shopping,then swimming....I usually do this sort of thing with them but she had arranged to go with another nanny and her charges..)

The DSs are all at maternelle,( french eqivalent of nursery school ),but not fulltime...the 2 younger ones do nap there, and DS1 has a sleep when he gets in...They are not tired during the day.

At weekends we ALL have a nap, can be 6pm before we surface

Anna ! we have something in common afte all...

oh you live in France?
I'm getting this thread now.
French children have a siesta and stay up later than English ones.

I agree with DaddyJ. It's good to hear other view points. I think the children of working mothers stay up a it later because you want to see the children but once they're at school they need a certain number of hours sleep a night and I think (not that i have a husband at the momen) that it can be better for adult relationships to have time each night when the children are out of the way - better because you can have adult conversations without small children butting in all the time and better because it's easier to have sex if you've had time alone and then go to bed alone.

My children have always preferred it when they have a set routine so they know what happens at what time. You have to change it from time to time as things change but once a child can't nap in the day then their only chance of sleep is at night. I think my 8 year olds get about 9 hours.

But in my house it's not a struggle.

They go to bed. End of.

TBH there's no way I'd let it be a struggle. At the end of the day, I need that couple of hours child-free time to rest and recuperate. I need them to be in bed and they know there's no point arguing etc. because I start threatening draconian sanctions like taking off TV time tomorrow or taking away toys until Thursday or something. And if I threaten something they know I'll follow through. So no struggle.

I have the occasional lapse where I weaken and let them stay up, but I simply could not cope with it every night. If other parents can, good luck to them. But I don't want to. I want to write/ watch TV/ phone my mates/ arse about on Mumsnet in peace.

My daughter nearly always naps in the middle of day, so she gets an extra 20 mn - 2 hours (depending on her mood) above and beyond the night (same length as mine generally, she sometimes sleeps a bit longer in the morning).

She's not a big sleeper, and she is always very cheerful and energetic and has fantastic concentration and doesn't whine or display any other symptom of lack of sleep. It really is dependent on the child's own constitution, the one it was born with, and parents ought, IMO, to look at the individual child's needs, not some external rules on childrearing, when deciding with the child what a suitable bedtime might be.

VS, I'm the same but it doesn't work if you're expecting them to sleep longer than they need. People puit them to sleep at 6 and wonder why they're up at 4 or 5 every morning. We've certainly had periods when they go up by X time and then they can stay awake up there but aren't to come down. That helps too as they get bigger.

There's a cultural issue here - some parents want their children around all the time and some want a break. I've always been in the wanting some breaks from them camp.

I think talking about pre school children and school age children is completely different. School age kids don't have the option of napping in the middle of the day.

I remember last year seeing a child come out of school screaming and crying and as soon as his mum picked him up he feel asleep on her shoulder - literally instantly. Poor little boy was so knackered. That's what comes of all day schooling for tiny 4 year olds.

My DD still comes home exhausted at the end of the school day and she's five.

I enjoy the "bedtime hour". I spend some time concentrating on ds one to one, we talk about everything under the sun, we enjoy a story and cuddles. Then it is lights out. If I see him downstairs after that without major illness/disaster he goes straight into timeout then back to bed.

This means that I get to spend some time each evening with dh ( or mumsnet more often).

My god Xenia I agree with you!

But tbh even if I keep my kids up late, the blighter still wake up at seven. And that's with blackout curtains. Instead of having a lie in and leaving me with a nice free morning, they wake up and start having tantrums.

Blighters that should say

VSS - none of our children wake up and have tantrums - how odd . In fact, they are all desperate to get into bed with one another and have cuddles - the boys push their two single beds together to make a huge double so their little sister can get in the middle

no struggle during our bedtime routine- i get home from work, dt's are sitting waiting for dinner, me dh and dd join them, then bath at 6.15 ish, story and bed, lights out strictly at 7, no messing, no noise-they KNOW! then they also know that they do not make a sound before the timer light comes on at 7am!
peace and quiet and me time!

Oh yes, it's very odd that children have tantrums.

Extraordinary in fact.

Unheard of.

But mine are freaks, you see.

In fact, they're the subject of extensive scientific research at the moment, as they are such an unusual phenomenon. Scientists come and visit us on a regular basis and measure their skull sizes and produce reports on their unusual behaviour.

FFS

VSS - but how can you justify saying that children should go to bed early to a routine and then complain yourself that your children wake up early and have tantrums and also berate those of us who let the children reach a decision about bedtimes and go to bed relaxed and wake up relaxed????

Oh read my posts properly

I said that if they have tantrums, it's generally because they haven't had enough sleep.

And I haven't berated you for not having a routine. I've berated you for doing a shocked face about the idea that some of us don't see having time to ourselves as a shocking notion.

Each to her own, as I said on your other thread OP.

Mohze you state that you enjoy having your dc stay up later as you work full time so evenings are when you get to spend time with them.

Are you the same Mohze who started a thread about "WHY DO WOMEN GO BACK TO WORK PART TIME ? " and stated that you would never do that ?

I'm confused. Do you work full time or part time or does the answer just depend on which group of individuals you are wishing to pick a fight with at any point in time ?

Don't feed the full-time troll.

Sounds to me as if her children are playing up because they're in a strange place and don't like going to bed when yours are still up. If she reguarly has the same prob then she needs to be firmer rather than an inherent problem with having a set bedtimes. Or maybe a bit of tinkering with thei routine. Can't imagine a 9 year old would want to go to bed same time as the younger ones.

We have a set bedtime and routine and have no problems. I say bedtime and routine but it is a fairly flexible one. On the whole though I go with what works for the parents and children.

My nearly 6 year would try and stay up late as possible. He doesn't switch off easily and would stay up and get more and more overtired and badly behaved. He has to get up for school, so no chance of a lie in or afternoon nap. I get him in bed for 8 and whilst he often doesn't go to sleep until 9 to 10ish, at least he's chilling out and resting. Day after day of not going to bed until 11 and he'd be turning into a wild ill humoured beastie

When he was a toddler he used to have a 5 hour daytime sleep! Then not go to bed until 9pm. It worked for us as he was happy in the evening and quite frankly I loved those hours of free time during the day It still wasn't a free for all tho.

His toddler brother loves his bed and happily goes to bed at 7 and gets up at 8am.

Letting your children set their own bedtimes may work for you but wouldn't call it common sense.