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?

NotSoRampantRabbit - my dh gets home quite late too, so I also have 2 suppers

I don't think it is necessarily just a British thing, more an individual parents choice to decide what time their dc's go to bed. Surely you know from trial and error just how much sleep your child needs?

My 5 dc's range from 8yrs to 3months and the older 4 all goto bed at 7.30pm as this is right for them. They all wake between 7-8am. I have tried giving ds 8 a later bedtime but he is SO grumpy and miserable the next day that it is obvious he needs more sleep, same as if we are out somewhere and come home late all the dc's are a nightmare the following day.

3m dd goes down anywhere between 9.30pm and midnight, wakes for a feed sometime in the night then sleeps until 7.30-8am. I'm hoping as she gets older her bedtime will also fall into routine with the others.

I think it stems from a rather warped British Victorian (upper class Empire-building)attitude to children - that you hand over their care to nannies and boarding schools and that you don't expect children to be part of the adult social life. So, even now the more middle class expect children to be out of the way to allow mummy and daddy their 'grown up time.'

Still in this country posher restaurants frown on children and if you are invited to a party or dinner it is expected that you will be leaving the dcs at home with a baby sitter.

Dh isn't British and his family think its just plain weird and quite cruel that our dcs have a 'bed time' when they are sent to bed even if they say they aren't sleepy. Their children usually stay up with the adults until they drop off on a sofa or in somebody's lap when they'll be carried to bed. It seems so much gentler and less fraught than the bedtime shananigans we go through.

However, their school system is only a half day -you go either in the morning or the afternoon, so most dcs do get a late lie in or an afternoon nap.

Having said all that though, a set bedtime works better for us and our dcs andf dh and I enjoy our precious hour or two after the dcs are in bed. Each to their own, eh?

I don't know - when DS was quite a small baby he just seemed to set his own bedtime. We did try to put him to bed later but it just didn't work, honest! So we reap the benefit of a nice relaxed adult-only evening, and are happy (ish) to get up with him at 6. But it's how he HE set it, not us!

Perhaps climate does make a difference?

And we do like children - we just spend time with him earlier in the day, rather than the evening!

Well, like everything else it depends on the child surely?

Ds is usually in bed by 8.30pm and I don't think he's been asleep by 7 in his life (he's 3). I do occasionally feel like a Bad Mother because of it. There's something about that 7-7 mantra that has got into my head as the only way to be...

Anyway, I work and it would be crazy to rush to get ds into bed early just to fit in with what I think everyone else does (and happy to see that this thread shows that everyone doesnt). Even with a later bedtime you can hear him chatting, singing and playing with his soft toys till gone 9 or later. He usually sleeps for 10-12 hours and luckily we have a short journey to nursery and my work is also close by. We'll have to revisit things for school but if he needs to go to bed earlier that's what we'll do.

My mum had us in bed by 6.30pm at that age but she says she'd often find me still awake at 10pm. The early bedtime was all about "adult time" and she had me all ready to go down for when my dad came home from work. He'd put me to bed and then they'd have their dinner.

Whatever works for you and your children.

My friend's wee boy, by contrast is a mess if he's put to bed later than 6.30pm. But my friend rarely stays up later than 9pm and gets really grumpy if she does - so maybe it's partly in the genes and ds is a night owl like me.

Or maybe we've trained them to give us the lies ins (me) or the early start to the day (her)we want .

Tanya Byron in the Times stated the sleep times that children require. Ignoring, new babies, (who are random! and sleep a lot during the day) 2 year olds need about 12 hours, 6 years olds about 10 hours. Then it continues to decrease until teenager hood; a teenager needs more sleep than a 7 year old.

I'm not 100% sure that all Spanish children stay up that late - we lived in Spain til dd was 2, and very often we were out with dd asleep in her pushchair, while our friends' children ran around for a while then were quietly taken off to granny's house to go to bed.

Its a bit of a mix, I would say, in some ways I think Britain is more small child friendly, in that if you go to the doctors or a lot of public places there will be toys, books etc to amuse them, whereas at the medical centre, social security office etc in Spain there was nothing, and loads of bored children clinging to their parents or running around with nothing to do. But then of course OTOH people are much more tolerant of, for example, a toddler throwing a tantrum in a restaurant, and far more likely to coo over your baby.

Bedtimes here - my experience is that when children don't have school, nursery, childminder etc the next day (under 5s particularly) they tend to stay up later - dd certainly never went to bed before 9, but then as soon as school starts it becomes too hard to get them up if they don't get to bed earlier.

Because even if they're not tired, I am!

They're always in bed well before 7pm. I have tried putting them to bed later but they're still up at 6.30am every day.

When they're older they can eat with us. We have breakfast together every day but evening meals together will come too, all in good time.

I don't want to do everything with my dcs all the time. I relish the evening break at the moment.

You have to balance bedtime with waking time and like shona says it depends on the child and how much sleep they need.

I do wonder that it may be a British thing though and restaurants etc are just not geared up to kids in the evenings (and some not even at daytime) In italy you see loads of kids of all ages eating out and having a great time.

My dd usually in bed 8ish but that is just recently before it was nearer 9 and i know loads of toddlers with just as late bedtimes.

The idea of the early bedtime sets up unrealistic expectations for many parents nowadays and in my house it caused a lot of friction with DD's dad who moaned and moaned that she was still wide awake at 9.

I too used to be sent to bed at 6.30 but we read or played games till much later
in the evening.

DH often works long hours and it means we don't get to eat together every night. However, DS is only 3 and if he doesn't get 12 hours he is a complete pain, whingeing and whining and tantrums at the drop of a hat. I'd love to keep him up later so we could share a family meal more often, but it's just not worth it. We'll just wait until he's older and needs less sleep.

I'm not British, but live in the UK. I have always wondered why people put their children to bed so early too. Mine have always gone to bed later than all their friends.

Some people have got very hung up on the routine thing. You see these hysterical (always middle class) mothers getting almost tearful about bathtime and story and bedtime and practically pass out if the timetable goes awry. I have had the gross misfortune to encounter several of these women, and since I don't know that many people it therefore surely follows that there must be thousands of them all over the country forcing the kids' heads onto the bed at 7pm.

A couple of examples: dh invited a colleague and his family to Sunday lunch. Later on at 4pm I put out tea and cakes etc. The wife actually leapt up and took them off the table, saying her dcs have a hot meal for tea. So I make beans on toast. Then she stated that it was time for their bath. Finally we could wave them off (their dcs in pyjamas) with the wife squeaking to her dh that they had to be home for bed at 7pm.

Another pair of prats put their dcs (age 6 and TEN!!!!) into their pyjamas and dressing gowns at bil's 50th birthday party in a village hall in front of 100 people. My ds (also 10) said he had never seen anything so horrifically embarrassing.

DD is 14 months and is asleep by 7, she sleeps 12 hours and given that DH and I need to be out of the house by 8.25 (!) if she was up any later her morning routine would be horribly rushed, as it is we wake her at 7 and the morning is quite a nice relaxed time. Given also that DH can get home from work anywhere between 7 and 8.30 there's no point keeping her up deliberately to see him as the later it gets the more fractious she becomes.

It's interesting to see that the British not liking tired children is a seen as a cultural thing and that other cultures might be more accepting of it. I don't like having a tired dd because she's cross with the world, more likely to have accidents, hard to play with etc, not because other people would frown at me. Why is seen as ok to keep them up til so late in other countries if they're getting tired and unhappy? Is the parents' right to go out to dinner more important than the child's right not to be exhausted and unhappy?

(NB obviously if the kid is ok that's fine, but I've been to too many parties where the kids start to go completely mad after 9pm and it's no fun for anyone)

I think it comes down to how much sleep an individual child needs and when they take it. many european countries do the whole siesta nap thing so a late bedtime is perfectly ok and not making the kids tired and unhappy as they have slept in the afternoon.

if dd has a nap in the day, there is no way she will be in bed asleep before 8.30 sometimes 9 as she is too awake and if I persaude her to go earlier she will be awake at 530.

its ok for kids who sleep 12 hours in one go but many don;t. Dd will only go 10 or 11 at the very most.

My two are in bed at 7 and 8 mainly to keep me sane, but also they are very bad tempered the next day if they stay up late too often.

I've noticed that it's mostly my friends who have one child who let them stay up late, perhaps the more children you have the more organised you need to be and the more you need a glass of wine on your own!

Both of mine are in bed by 7.30 - 8pm, by this time i need some time on my own or with dh, i don't mind them staying up later if its the summer and no school the next day. Both of them wake up at around 6.30 - 7am. When the weathers cold, wet and it gets dark early i like to relax for a while (without children) before i go to bed (which is early).

Mine go to bed at 7pm, because I need some time to myself! They are up all hours of the night anyway, their best hours of sleep seem to be between 7-12am.

Getorf - you have my sympathies for past suffering with a child who was cheerful at 6am. I can't cope with cheerful people at that stage of the morning. Ideally, I'm still asleep then!

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