Why do British children go to bed so early?

[Builde]

We find ourselves out of sync. with everyone else in that we don't put our children to bed at 7pm; more like 9pm.

We do this because our children are always at their best after tea (they settle down to a good play), if we put our 5 year old to bed at 7pm she would be up at 5am, and it's easier in the morning to have no time at all. (If we have some time, they start to play and we can't drag them off to school/nursery).

It also gives us a chance for a lie-in at weekends and during the week to breakfast in bed before getting the girls up.

Does anyone else follow this civilised routine, or is it just us in the UK?

Ds1 he is almost 4 goes to bed at 6 - 6.30 and gets up at 7.30. I am also early to bed. We do eat dinner early all together. He wants to go to bed then he often says come on its bedtime.

What time does she have to be at nursery? If DS goes at 11pm then he doesn't wake until about 9am.

Fascinating reading.

Currently DD1 (6.5mo) goes to bed round 1930/2000;wakes round 7/730Have followed a bath/feed/bed routine since D1 but bedtime has moved later since weaning.

HOwever, I' ll be going back towork in a couple of weeks. She'll be fulltime nursery.DH & I need to be out the house by 730.Not home till 1830;me sometimes later eg 2130.

Will some how need to adapt.Desperate that she eats at least one meal a day with one of us.

I think that they miss out a lot if they go to bed late when little. Mine had bedtime stories, without fail, every night-not something you want to start doing late in the evening. (They had stories at other times but it wasn't quite the same as snuggling down in bed with a much loved book).

surely it depends on the child? my ds(8) used to go to bed at 6 when he was a baby and sleep all the way through until 7!

he now goes to sleep at 9.30 but is in bed by 8.

ds(16) has never been that eager to go to bed

We had stories and songs in bed at 9 - 9:30, after spending a nice time together after dinner until then. The youngest still like the odd song, plus bedtime prayers.

I recall an older aunt of mine asking me how I could possibly put up with having the children around all day every day until 9 o'clock; her question astonished me, but she was brought up in a household that was different from mine in a great many ways.

DS2 (8 mths) is in bed asleep by 7pm and DS1 (4) goes up to bed tat 7:30 so is usually asleep by 8pm - neither are up in the night and both wake somewhere either side of 7am which works OK for us most days.

Luckily for us DH gets home reasonably early so we can eat together at 6/6:30pm then we like having the evening to ourselves so the thought of children being up until 10pm gives me the woolies .
That said, when we go on holiday DS1 stays up late some nights and will eat out with us but, he has a long siesta & it's definitely not something he can cope with everyday as he doesn't sleep late regardless of bedtime.
LCN
ETA those of you who have late morning risers, great at the weekend but how to do cope with the demands of school/work which presumably require you to be out of the house before 9am?

Only read the first few responses but seriously think I would cry if DD was not in bed by 7pm!!!

She is 2 (just) and I am 28 weeks pregnant. She used to go to bed about 630pm, now its closer to 7pm. Its up to her what time she actually falls to sleep, it varies from immediately to 830/9pm but she gets quiet time with her books and teddies in her bed and is happy with this. She wakes between 7 and 730am.

Maybe when she is older we will keep her up later but at the moment come 7pm I am ready for her to be in bed and even on my work days, I have already had 3 hours with her by that point. I find I can only relax once she is in bed.

Maybe I am a terrible parent ?! But I say whatever works for you.

Oh also I find my DD sleeps until the same time each morning regardless of what time she has fallen to sleep. So put to bed to late she would simply not get "enough" sleep.

Personally I care not a jot when other people eat, bath or put their children to bed, nor do I think it's British to do it one way or a class issue. Let's face it, people used to go to bed when the sun went down cause candles were expensive

But what does wind me up is when late bedtimes = ignoring children and their needs. IMHO children should be in bed at a reasonable hour on a school night so they can concentrate the next day. Parents should know how much sleep their child needs to function properly, and not use excuses about being relaxed or Latin or bohemian or whatever to neglect their child's sleep needs.

Also having some respect for people around you is good - we had a lovely black tie NYE dinner party, several couples came and brought children, all stayed in our house (a tight squeeze!). All children bathed and put to bed by about 9pm (stayed up late for a bit as it was a party night, but they were all getting overexcited and cranky by about 8.30pm).

All except one 3 yo, who is the PFB of one of our friends, who was allowed to wander around doing exactly what she wanted all evening, completely disrupting the other kids' teatime by being allowed to eat sugary snacks instead of normal tea, getting all the toys out again when we were getting them all put away so kids would wind down and start going to bed etc. And then wasn't put to bed at any point, just allowed to wander around, completely ignored by her dad, all in the name of flexible/liberal parenting, until she crashed out on the sofa.

So instead of black tie elegance in my lounge with champagne and witty urbane conversation , I had Monsters Inc on the DVD and a 3 yo bouncing on the sofa until 11pm.

Thank god she fell asleep before midnight.

I was really put out. His excuse was that she is half Italian and so that's how they do things. Well fine, but this is a different occasion, she was welcome to watch a DVD upstairs in the bedroom, where her bed was FGS. She wasn't taking part in the dinner party or talking to anyone, so it wasn't a case of raining on her party. It was just rude.

Rant over.

I stopped reading this thread after 100 posts as I haven't got time, but just wanted to say:

Why is something that is perceived as a "British thing" automatically presumed to be the wrong way of going about things? I'm sick & tired of being told that we eat this way - it's wrong; our children start school at that age - it's wrong etc etc. It is what works for us, on the whole, as individuals & as a nation. It's not perfect but no society in any country is. Also, the bedtime thing is a huge generalisation. I don't know know anyone who puts their school-age DCs to bed at 7, unless the child cannot physically last beyond then. FWIW, mine (who are 5 & 8) go anytime between 7.45 & 8.30. DC1 always wakes up very early no matter what time he goes to bed and he needs his sleep. I'm more relaxed in holidays but frankly, I'm too knackered to cope with them after that - I want some headspace, some physical separation. I want to watch adult stuff on tv (not porn I mean post-watershed drama) And I am not ashamed of this. I'm not just a parent I'm a person too; I give give give all bloody afternoon once I've collected them from school & they are very labour-intensive children. Also, I need lots of sleep.

what a fabulous idea,the neck sign, where can I get one? the same shop that sells those silly baby on board signs or even more smug, twins on board? I always want to write underneath something like, poor you or the IVF worked then.
I have live/worked,holiday abroad.I have 4 children I love dearly, I dont necessarily love yours.One flight,business class,one little only child thought he would take over the section,while his mummy and daddy looked on, glowing with pride as he annoyed the hell out of the rest of us,the other passengers just said No, which came as a big surprise to the child and the parents...Its the parents who wont control their chldren who are the problem,,I stand by what I said,i dont want small children spoiling evening out.

My 3 (2,4 and 6) are all in bed by 6.20 whatever night of the week it is and are generally up at 6.30-7ish the next morning. My youngest is 2 and a half and has 2 hours in the afternoon as well. We all eat togeher at 5 as my husband works shifts and it suits us very well.

I know it wouldn't suit everyone, but it suits us and to me that is all that matters.

no, it is your house and your evening, they play by your rules. dont ask them back

Mmm I have found this too - Mum's old 7pm to 7am routine just doesn't apply to me, my family and friends. Obviously there will be a host of reasons for this but the ones that seem to apply in my circle/ or are our theories are:
We are more likely to have had our children when we are mature - so we had years of one to one!
Having children was a positive decision and some of us had problems conceiving so we are just so grateful to have them.
Most of our children went to day nursery and adored that time in the evening with Mum and Dad and we wanted to be with them in the evenings too and were not eager to put them to bed.
Why they seem to need 9 hours of sleep rather than 12 I cannot explain!

One other thing - most of us can be described as morning or evening people and it is problematic when we differ. My husband and I are both morning and so are our children. My sister and her husband are both evening and their eldest is morning and she got really frustrated until she understood that she was different from her Mum and Dad.

i think the fact that so any countries keep their kids having afternoon naps until much older/ adulthood is why.

my babies in Taiwan had 2 hours kip at lunch (4--7 yo) they would often stay up late - though it was noted those hardest to settle at lunch, often were overtired from particularly late 10pm bedtimes.

sleep makes for more sleep - mine can carry on having naps and early bedtimes for as long as they want....how can more sleep be a bad thing?
(asks the pregnant woman)

Mine go to bed between 7 and 8 - usually upstairs at around 7. They wake up between 7 and 8. If they go to bed later they still wake at the same time but are grumpy and miserable. We go to bed late ourselves and the children stay up late if friends are staying or on holiday and other occasions.

This thread has really had me thinking the last couple of days.

My 14 month old DS doesn't get tired or fall asleep until very, very late - usually around 11pm - and wakes up in the morning at 8.30/9am. He is breastfed and only falls asleep while feeding (or in the pram during the day). He wakes up a couple of times in the night and needs to be fed back to sleep. He was a good sleeper until he was about 4 months old, though even then with the same late bedtime, but it all went downhill as he got older.

I do worry about whether he is getting enough sleep, but he doesn't act overtired during the day. Me, on the other hand...

Three nights ago he fell asleep at midnight, but woke only once all night, at 5.45am, and then slept another 4 hours. I felt like a new woman.

The last two nights he has fallen asleep at 9pm, but woken every hour of the sodding night. I know which I can cope with and which I can't!! But I still feel guilty knowing he isn't in bed when he should be...

Only read through a few posts, whats with the competition to see who's kids go to bed the latest??? Personally, the more sleep they get the better, kid's in bed 7.30- sleeps the clock round! Why keep them up?? they need 11-12 hours sleep at 4 years old and will naturally wake when it becomes light regardless of when put to bed.. any later and they will be sleep deprived. Kids on the continent have siesta, that's to do with hot weather so thy can have a later bed time...

i think it is at least partly a british thing. an i rememeber beeing surprised as aupair when i realised the kids i looked after and threir friends went to bed earlier and got up later then generally children in my country /CZ/ would. i was shocked to learn that lots of parents eat separately from their children to have adult time and send the children to bed to have adult time. some of the posts mentioned hot climeate countries or said its because of getting dark earlier. in my country the weather is roughly the same and days are about the same length as in britain and still i can see a difference in lifestyle in this respect. i found that british parents kind of wait on head and foot of theri children whereas in other countries teh care is more hands-off as someone called it earlier on the thread. obviously its never true for all the people in the country but the way children are raised in the uk, which includes their bedtimes, has definitely something british about it.

When DD (3 and a half) had a nap, she was often up until 9 or 10 easily with no grumpiness. Now that she doesn't have one, she does get really cross and irrational by about 8 so she needs to be in bed by 7.30 latest. This suits us just fine as she then wakes around 7.30 in plenty of time for everyone in the family to get to where they need to be on time. As my DH doesn't get home in the evenings to see her, it's great that she has a good hour and a half at least with him in the mornings when she's rested and cheerful.

I guess if we lived in a really hot country, a siesta would make perfect sense. As we don't, it is a good thing for her to do all her sleeping at night. When she was a baby, she just fitted in with me and slept 11-11 which was absolutely lovely. But that would interfere a bit with my work days so probably not v practical at the moment. Shame. I loved lying in until 11 and waking up to a lovely cheery bundle of happy baby.

My children have always gone to bed early. By the time they are out of babyhood they are in bed by 7. This may vary by a half an hour or so. When they are 8 they would still be going to bed between 7.30 - 8.

IME kids are not very nice to be around in the evening. They are tired and grumpy. Well mine are anyway.

I dont let them stay up late at weekends as they tend to wake up at the same time so just get tired earlier and grumpy earlier.

I think I probably got into the habit of early night time routines because I had to go back to work when DC1 was 6mths old. Our days were long and started very early. My sister has always been a SAHM and they live an outdoorsy life by the coast and her approach is very different from mine.

Its what suits each family that matters.

If only they'd sleep for 14 hours (in my dreams) ..ours got to bed at 9.30-10am and wake at 8am..does that make us bad parents?

LUrkNoMore I think an 11pm bedtime is fine TBH - whatever gives them the best sleep. As long as you have adapted this routine by the time he goes to school what's the problem. Surely better for him to go to bed later and get a long stretch of sleep than for him to go to bed earlier and get broken sleep.

all4u Sorry if you have mentioned it already but what time do your DC go to bed?

DD (3) asleep by 7 - will sleep 13 hours if you let her - possibly more.

DS (19 months) sleep monster, will thrive on four hours and spend the rest of the night wailing for people to play with him

DH (night owl) would stay up till 2am on his computer and then get up at 9 if he could (ha! Fat chance)

Me (ancient) generally asleep by 10:30 wake up before the birds do.

So we are completely bolloxed either way.

But blackout blinds have helped a lot.