Are you a routine parent?

[Angeldelight50]

I am a routine parent through and through. Nap times, bed times, meal times. It can be restrictive but I find it works for us.

On the flip side of this, I have friends who are absolutely no routine parents. Out for late dinners with toddlers, 2 year olds up past 11pm, no morning routines.

I find it so interesting as spending even a weekend/holiday like this has me floored! Although I am sure the non routine parents find me absolutely boring.

My question is, how do non routine kids adapt to formal settings like nursery/school? I know kids are adaptable so perhaps they take like a fish to water, I’m just curious!

V much a routine parent here!

They don’t.

They go to school tired, can’t concentrate and learn slower pace.

Slumped in their desks they get agitated and narkey!

It really isn’t a good idea to keep them up late and not go to bed.

I put mine to bed at 7 because I needed some peace and space.

Somewhere between the two extremes you’ve mentioned really.

Didn’t have a very routine baby to be honest - I sort of loosely followed the ‘wake windows’ idea but she would only ever contact nap or in a moving car/ pram anyway, so I tried to make sure that one of those options was available at roughly the right time. Bedtime routine was more doing the same things each night than it having to be bang on a set time.

She wasn’t one that would go feral if she happened to be up late for a special occasion or skipped a nap really. Mealtimes I did keep more consistent, hunger is more guaranteed to lead to chaos than tiredness with her!

After she dropped naps during the day I could sometimes engineer one with a well timed car journey if I needed her to be able to stay up a bit later that evening, or on holiday last year for example she’d stay up quite late in the evening but have a long sleep in the afternoon to be able to do that.

Shes actually a lot less flexible now she’s older and I think having started school nursery has made a difference too. She won’t nap in the day or in the car really any more even if she’s shattered, and she has always been awake early so she really needs bedtime to be around 6.30, 7 latest whatever else is going on.

School nights I have always followed a rigid routine with set bedtimes. Holidays , weekends always , meals out I just go with the flow.

I am absolutely a routine parent, it works for both me and my child who is ND so that may make a difference.
Even just one day/night of disruption of the routine causes chaos. Got this coming up in a few days: a wedding overnight a few hours away absolute dread
I cannot understand parents who want their kids up past late, my friends' kids go to bed around 10-11pm and I just think, no wonder she has NO time for herself!

We were non routine , it’s always worked for us . Pre secondary they had a time that they had to be upstairs by but that was it .

Never had a routine. We’re all night owls. DD slept midnight till noon until she was about 2.5. She started school nursery full time at 3.5 and didn’t go to sleep till 10:30 the night before. Within a week bedtime was naturally 8:30-9pm and stayed that way until she was about 7 when it got a bit later. She didn’t need to be up till 8:15am on school days so she was getting plenty of sleep. She could no sooner sleep at 7pm than I could.

She’s an extremely bright 13 year old that has never struggled to get up for school or had any issues with learning. She was doing lower GCSE level maths stuff in Year 6. We were both diagnosed with ADHD last year. It’s common for ND people to be owls.

There is such bullshit about it being better to be a lark. I’m currently writing a 3500 word OU assignment and I never get less than 90%.

Mostly routine when I’m in charge but some weird quirk in my personality makes me a bit passive when dh is home, so weekends and holidays go to pot.

I’m a routine parent, a bit more flexible at weekends. It works for my children. My sister isn’t her children are all over the place and always late, forgotten something etc.

They adapt just fine. They know that there’s a routine at school/nursery and it just isn’t as rigid on the weekends. Of course on weeknights they’ll sleep at around the same time every night so they get enough sleep before nursery/school. During holidays we are more flexible and let them sleep in or have longer naps during the day to compensate for a later night. If they’re tired they sleep, if they’re hungry they eat.

I found a strict routine too restrictive with mine. I just got upset and stressed when DS1 wouldn't nap when he was supposed to, or particularly for as long as he was supposed to (he was 30 minutes, on the dot, for months on end, regardless of how many books said it should be an hour or more!) He kind of set himself a bedtime around 7pm, when I noticed he would consistently settle for his longest sleep of the night, so I built an evening routine around that. He was BF so just fed whenever, and I never settled into a strict mealtime regime once we started weaning.

DS2 was different, unsurprisingly, and better at taking longer naps in the day, but didn't settle down in the evening so well. Plus of course with him I also had to work around taking DS1 to nursery etc.

I'm not saying we were out at all hours etc, but certainly the world didn't end if they weren't having e.g. Lunch at 11:45 followed by precisely 74 minutes nap. They have adjusted fine to a school routine.

The only thing we tweaked was eating. Like me, DD hates food in the morning. They would give them fruit, milk and toast at morning break and then take them for lunch at 11:45am. DD simply wasn’t hungry after the toast so never ate her (compulsory) school lunch. I used to take a packed lunch to pick up and she would have it after school.

She still eats the majority of her lunch after school.

My eldest was the opposite of a routine baby.

I struggled a bit to adapt to school, to get used to getting up for a certain time, getting organised and getting clothes out the night before etc.

my daughter however did fantastically and never had any issues at all adapting. She’s a very bright, happy child who has always done well at school. She goes to bed at a normal time for her age now and is very good at getting herself to sleep. She’s very organised, gets up early in the morning and sorts herself out for the day before anyone else wakes up.

My other two children had more routine. I think more routine is better for the adults well-being but I haven’t seen a difference in how well the child does/adapts to school.

I think my eldest got so much more parental input, time chatting with adults and learning from having a later bedtime, but the younger ones benefit from more predictability.

I don’t really do routines except for before bed on a school night.
I didn’t want to be stuck in my house needing to have a toddler in bed for a nap. I once met someone who could only meet at about 9am as her kid would need a nap at about 11. And then or course they’d have lunch and then most baby activities were over. Her kid never went to all the fun day trips we had as they were at home napping!
I also always like knowing we can go to a party or wedding etc and my kids will adapt. Sleep in the buggy or have a late night. No stress and flexible. I agree with another poster that food timings was more important! :)
Now they’re older it’s similar but I just make sure they get a good amount of sleep before school. But they’re not phased if they go on a trip away with school or a friends etc and miss some sleep.

I was definitely a routine parent when mine were little.
I went back to work when they were 4 months old and absolutely needed a routine so they would have a proper bedtime.
It meant they got enough sleep, and I had the evening to keep my head vaguely above water.

This sounds like us - we also didn't want to be restricted by nap times, but now DC are a little bigger they know they need to be in bed by a certain time on a school night, but are also very adaptable if we do have events on the weekends, etc., so it's always worked well for us. Absolutely no judgement from us either way, what worked for us won't necessarily work for others but it does get my back up when other people expect your lives to revolve around their routines - we have a big family and lots us of have small children but one family member in particular thinks every event, plan, get together, etc., should be planned around the routines of their DC which I just find irritating and entitled.

Kind of but also no. Things get done in the same way but probably not the same time, we are often late for stuff and the kids don't go to school/nursery (one of them did nursery, late most days), they go to bed very late. Buuut neurodivergent family, despite best attempts it's hard to prevent it randomly taking 2 hours to get ready because clothing doesn't feel right or getting them to bed on time goes out the window because they're not eating dinner in a reasonable time because they get distracted or something about the food is challenging (despite being the same as usual to most people). They go to bed very late because one of them is very low sleep needs and the other makes up for it with massive naps.

If we go out of our normal though it gets sooooo much worse. I tried to take them for a walk today and it was a disaster because they're still off kilter from a day visiting family 2 days ago and all the freaking Easter chocolate.

By the time school rolls around, there probably will be an earlier bed time in place

we don’t have a strict routine here

nap is whenever she is tired. If we are away from home I keep her up so she can have a proper nap in her room. Pram naps are only for days out.

then bedtime is 5 hours after whenever that ends

DD always eats dinner with us unless we are having a date night at home. We like her hanging out with us in the evenings.

We eat out and travel a lot so she has just slotted in

My elder child was also the opposite of a “routine baby” and it suited her very well. Her sister then naturally fell into her pattern and was also fine. Both of them are incredibly adaptable and always have been and they had no issues at all with school. They could cope with feeling a bit hungry/tired perfectly well; it wasn’t the end of the world if they didn’t get their lunch at a specific time for some reason. School naturally forces its own routine anyway - and they get used to that soon enough.

We have no routine at all. It is no problem for us as we can be spontaneous and live in the moment.

Dd went to bed at 8pm tonight, night before, it was 10pm. We eat when we are hungry, not at set times.

This agrees with my ADHD! Tried routines in the past and it was just too stressful.

Abit of mix. Predominately routine, especially
in the mornings otherwise we wouldn’t get out the door. Evenings are fairly routined aswell as it helps create a predicable structure. However, I can still do some later meals with friends and kids and they adapt. Holidays etc they’ve been fine with the change of pace. Although both my kids struggle to stay up later than 9pm. But I do keep some sort of routine to help manage schooling, homework, my work etc.
It works for us, but if it didn’t, I wouldn’t try to enforce a structure that didn’t suit my family.

I'm in between but sway more towards no routine. DD is 12 months.

We do dinner/bath/bed at roughly the same time each night, but don't stress if the bath gets missed or bedtime is a bit later than normal occasionally.

Daytimes we go on wake windows rather than a set routine and breakfast/lunch/milk fit around that. I'm not adverse to a routine, but wake up time can vary massively (despite our best efforts) so it just doesn't work for us.

I do feel a bit sad for friends with very ridged routines when they miss out on great baby classes or fun outings because they have to be home at a certain time for naps, but as long as they're happy it doesn't really matter what I think.

Routine all the way here! DC, DH and I are all happier for it.

Same as you, all about a routine here. It suits us all incredibly well.

Fridays, weekends and holidays im chill. School night theres a routine. He's 12 now but age 0-4 was a free-for-all 😅