Q for non-English mothers re. sleep routines

[FruitSaladIsNotPudding]

Hello,

I keep hearing that English children are unusual in going to bed at 7pm and that in Spain/France/Italy they stay up much later and eat with the family.

Now, I like the idea of this in theory - we could all eat together if DD could eat at 7pm, and that would be lovely, but how does it work? Do they take a nap late afternoon? As well as a lunchtime one?

At the moment my DD is up at 7am, takes 2 naps of about an hour, dinner at 5pm and bed at 7pm.

My DD is 12mo, if that helps.

marking my place as we're in a similar routine and would love for our DD to stay up later to enjoy an evening meal with us

Hmm, looks like no one actually manages to do this. But they must! I've definitely seen small children in Italy eating in restaurant at normal times.

I'm British, but the DCs were born overseas, so we have never done the very British children's tea at 5pm, bed at 7pm thing - I hate early mornings, for a start, but also don't see the point of having to do everything (lunch, tea etc) so early - it gets in the way of normal life, as far as I'm concerned. So they have always eaten at a more 'normal' time (6.30-7.30pm, later when on holiday) and have never gone to bed before 8pm. We've also always been fairly relaxed about routines, so if they do stay up beyond normal bedtimes it's not a huge issue.

Later bedtimes are only a problem if you need to be up and out of the house early, as obviously they still need the same amount of sleep overall.

I'm anglophone, but live in France. We have dinner together at 6:30/6:45pm, bed at 7:30/7:45pm which is a bit later than in the UK, but still not as late as the rest of the country, as I just can't keep him awake that long. I think the key is a really long afternoon nap (as in 2 to 3 hours), which I've never been able to get DS (17 months) to do. The childminder is always amazed at how little he sleeps in the day.

And I think getting them to bed later from birth helps, as it sets their body clock. For the first 6 months, DS went to bed at 7pm (which I was culturally brainwashed ingrained to do) and it's been hard to move it much later. But the upside is it's easy to go out as he's already in bed for the babysitter!

When I nannied in France the kids would be woken at 7.45am school mornings, 9 month old would have lunch at 12 then nap from 12.30-15.00. The three year old would do the same. They would then go to bed between 20.00-20.30.

Oh and they would have "gouter" snack when they got home from school (17.00) normally a couple of biscuits and a fruit juice or chooclate milk. HTH

Oh yes, forgot about the gouter which messes with an early dinner!

Fruitsalad, we are Italians, but lived in the UK for a long time, so with our children I tried to find a compromise between the Italian and the English ways.

When our children were your dd's age they'd have dinner at 7 on the dot. Bedtime was at 8. Awake at about 8 in the morning. I can't remember if dd was still having a nap in the morning at 12 months, but she used to nap from 2 to 4 in the afternoon, usually.

Oh yes snack at about 4 pm

Thank you everyone. So it seems I just need to move her whole routine later but keep it roughly the same.

Perhaps I will wait until autumn when the clock change will do it for me.

I do think it sounds better. Early dinner is ok for babies, but I know children who eat dinner at 5 throughout their childhoods, and I'm not keen on it.

We keep a 9 month old up until 8/9. It's not something planned but has evolved and it's easy. He has a second nap at 5-6 before dinner at 6.30/ 7. Up about 7.30/ 8 am

We are a Finnish/Bitish family and have a late daily routine but it's really because both DH and I dislike getting up early and haven't had to because we both had a very short commute to work for years.

DD1 is two and gets up around 8, sometimes even later. She has lunch at 1pm, then a nap for about two hours from 2.30-4.30 or thereabouts, dinner between 6 and 7pm (usually around 7) with us, then bed as late as 9-9.30pm, sometimes even 10. Now we realise this is perhaps a bit too late but it seems to work at the moment.

DD2 is 7 months and gets up a bit earlier, around 7.30am, first nap around 10.30-11am, lunch at 1pm, then nap at the same time as DD1 2.30-4.30pm, dinner also 6-7pm, then bed at 8.30pm.