How to negotiate a different bedtime with a 10 year old and 13 year old without creating ww3?

[Notbeinfunnehbut]

So , yeah
I’ll be the first to admit this that this should have been sorted sooner ,
so my sons share a room and as a result my they both are going to sleep at a similar time I.e to late for DS 2 and it means DS1 gets no downtime to watch things more grown up away from ds2 , I know he needs a break from him and especially as he’s getting older he finds it suffocating sometimes,

the thing is ds2 is on the spectrum and has PDA traits , that can make his behaviour very challenging and difficult, he would not take it well.
But at the same time it’s not ok if he thinks he can rule the roost and accept him and his brother are different ages and DS1 is a young adult and gets different privileges

Anyone with any advice will be much appreciated x

I have a 12 year old and an 8 year old and have had similar arguments. It still occasionally devolves into tears from the 8 year old when they think they're missing out but I make a big deal of showing how 12 year old has more difficult chores to do (and has to do them more regularly) as a result of being older = more freedom = more responsibility.

Works the other way round too when 12 year old complains about chores and I point out the extra benefits and freedoms they get conpared to the 8 year old.

I appreciate the PDA makes this hugely difficult but would complete consistency help once he sees this is just the way it is now?

Ah that's hard, ideally you have been doing this from ages 4 and 7.
I fear the ASD/PDA is going to be the defining thing here? Can you change things very very gradually, just start with DS2 into bed slightly earlier. Then maybe DS1 'needs to finish homework' and gradually lengthen the time?
No chance of splitting the room in 2 I guess.

btw 13 is not young adult, I'd avoid thinking that. Young adult is more like 16/17.

Is there any way at all they can have separate rooms? Its going to be a challenge facing into puberty etc with a shared room. Your older boy will need privacy and some peace & quiet really.

I think you can set a different bedtime, as in reading in bed, while your teenager stays downstairs longer and gets some space. However, with sharing a room I wouldn't expect the younger child to actually sleep any earlier. Someone going to bed an hour later is likely to be disruptive even if they are quiet, unless the younger child is a heavy sleeper and already fast asleep.

I agree with the others that the pda might be the defining issue here, not the ages.

my two are 12 and 15, they share a room. The agent they’ve come to is the the younger has access to the room (and xbox) during the afternoon / early evening when the older is either at school or out. Then after dinner the older gets the room / Xbox to himself.

We all go to bed at the same time tbh, have done for years. the older one is allowed to fiddle on his phone for a bit longer but tbh he’s usually ready to sleep earlier than the youngest, so it all works out.

There needs to be some differentiation, even if lights out isn't necessarily different times. Could your older child be downstairs for longer, but the younger has to be ready for bed and can have quiet play in his room until it's time for lights out?

One thing that annoyed me as an older sibling was seeing how easily my younger siblings were allow to drift to my bedtime and have the privileges I had due to being older. At the time it created a strong sense of unfairness.

I think we were lucky as we had a 5 year age gap so we were 'forced' to keep the differentiation. Not only on bedtimes, but pocket money, what films they could watch etc.

the defining moment actually came from my DM when a programme my DS1 would probably enjoy about history but too old for DS2 , and It struck me that he had no time to away from DS2 to watch it,which isn’t fair really,

he needs that space

Not at the moment sadly

This seems like my angle possibly

Hmm, with the tv / programme thing, can’t your DS1 watch it on his own? On a device rather than the family tv?

I know it doesn’t solve the staying up later issue.

honestly, at those ages i wouldn't differentiate, assuming they're both in secondary. Sibling rivalry is tough enough without parents creating additional conflicts over such trivial things like bedtime or tv shows.