How do you get them to bed?!

[Wipingsides]

Starting to get major pushback from DC on going to bed. DS11 & DD13.. always been pretty strict with school night bedtimes but they're both taking longer & longer to settle down for evening. DD likes to follow a routine where we watch tv together after her brother goes up around 8.30... she's still faffing upstairs now (9.20) & her bedtime 'should' be 9.15.. she just keeps saying 'ok I'm coming' when I repeatedly nag her & tbh I've given up now.. do we even bother enforcing bedtimes at this age?! If we demand it and threaten consequences it turns into such a drama it's just not worth it at this time of night as prolongs things & ends with her getting in a state. I feel I don't have much leverage. At this rate I'll be going to bed before her.
Then the boy has started doing the same.. goes up fine & find him sat in his pants playing in his room when I thought he'd gone to bed

How do you enforce bedtimes as they get older & when do you give up?!

I have the same problem here with DS 11. I have had to get strict about bedtime only because he's a nightmare to get up in a morning. If he was getting up fine for school then it wouldn't be an issue. He's had loads of chances to come up to bed on time but hasn't, so now I've got his phone Monday-Friday and he's only allowed it at the weekend. Harsh? Probably, but nothing else was working. In a year or two I hope he'll be able to get himself up in a morning and I'll leave it up to him when he comes to bed.

Yes definitely have bedtimes, but they may be a little early for them. My son goes to bed 9.30pm school nights and 10pm weekends. Around a year ago it was Harlan hour earlier.
He stays in his room a lot gaming so i have to remember to tell him it’s bed time.

Just to add- maybe say you’ll give them a later bedtime but only if they go on time.

Sunday-Thursday no devices after 9pm we all go up together about 9.45 (13 and 16) 13 year old straight to sleep 16 year old reads til 10.15.
Friday and Saturday all upstairs at 10.45 straight to sleep no devices from 10pm

Ours are younger than yours but we just gave a "be in your bedroom" time. They dont have screens in their rooms at night, so they can choose to sleep, read, draw, play quietly. I dont go back and check they are asleep or tell them to be asleep by X time. All that's important to me is they are in pjs in their room with no screens by a certain time.

I think it depends on child and routine. My daughter is 12 but 2 days a week she gets up at 5 for a training session and the others 6.30. She’s usually ready to go to bed at about 8 and generally asleep by 8.30. When she asked to train before school the deal was that she had to be in bed at 8 or it wouldn’t work.

Dd14 Yr 10 has devices downstairs at 9.30 and then ideally calming , reading and resting before sleep - no set time but doesn't go downstairs again really. Up at 6am and really struggles, I wake her.
Do 12 Yr 7 is an early bird so goes to bed early. It's generally 8.30.

The more of an issue you make bedtime the more of an issue it becomes! I genuinely cannot remember enforcing bedtime when mine were teens and I do not recall any problems. They just went to their rooms in the evenings to chill and then they generally were asleep between 10-1030.

I suppose part of the question is why you want them in bed at that time?

You mention you can't relax and unwind properly until they are up in bed, but realistically as they get older their bedtime will get closer to yours.

You need to make sure you are doing the best thing for them and not just sticking to a routine that doesn't work for them so that you can relax when they're in bed.

You can always send them up at a certain time and say they can stay awake until X time. That way they're out of your hair but aren't being forced to sleep earlier than their body wants to.

It does get to a point where you’re in bed before them!

I think you can be honest with them and say you want to have some time to yourself and to watch and adult programme and expect them to be in their rooms by 9.30ish but it’s up to them when they go to sleep. By 13 we didn’t set bedtimes and if they’re up all night they have to pay the consequences (exhausted at school etc)!

We never had bedtimes post 11 , pre 11 we had a ‘in your room by a certain time ‘ rule

Just laughing to myself about this because another aspect of this is they get to 17 plus and then they start coming in at 10/11ish and making themselves toast and coming and sitting with you in the living room and telling you all about their nights out…. And then they go off to university and you miss all that.

They’re only little for a short time. (Can you tell I’m missing my dd who’s at university?!)

Do you all still say goodnight to your teens? I don't tend to know whether DS1 has actually gone to bed or not unless he's talking to someone on the phone. I feel it would be nice to say goodnight but we seem to have got out of the habit.

I can't relax / unwind properly til I know they're up & in bed.

I think this is what needs to be worked on. Why can't you relax? What's the problem with the kids being awake/not in bed?

Mine are older now so definitely don't have a bed time. My approach was that the 'house' goes off at midnight, so no staying up later than that. DS was a night mare sleeper, often staying awake all night or is not having 2/3 hours so we needed to enforce the downtime overnight. I didn't take their phones though. He is 18 now and only just settled into a reasonable sleep routine. DD is older and she has always been a fan of an early night - she is also an early riser which in the later teen years I found more difficult than her being around in the evening. I also have 12 year old, again not the best sleeper so usually I'm switching her off at midnight but unlike her brother she will go to sleep then. I spent years fighting the sleep times only to realise it made so much stress and not much difference so we take a really relaxed approach now.

Turn off the wifi and turn the volume down on the tv if you're still watching it downstairs

DD13 doesn't have a bedtime but is typically up in her room most evenings post dinner unless we are doing something together.

She has become more sensible this year whereas last year she was a nightmare in the mornings.
Typically when I go up to bed at 10 I will say goodnight and she is usually in bed reading or watching Netflix.
Her homework is always done and she tends to shower and wash her hair before bed to save time in the mornings.
She hasn't had a set bedtime since starting secondary school and has learned to self regulate.

@BertieBotts

Do you all still say goodnight to your teens? I don't tend to know whether DS1 has actually gone to bed or not unless he's talking to someone on the phone. I feel it would be nice to say goodnight but we seem to have got out of the habit.

I always do, yes. Eldest is out of the teens and I still put my head round her door to 'check' before I go to bed. She is asleep before I go to bed about 80% of the time

DTs, 15, go to bed 11/11.30. Same when they were 14.
At 14 it was about 10.30, but they are self regulating. We haven't imposed any rules for a long time.

They get up, do their best at school, do homework etc.

At 13 it was about 10.30...

Pretty much self regulating after 11, I always say goodnight while they're still awake. As long as they're getting up at the right time in the morning then that's fine.

I found the novelty of staying up late soon wears off when they realise how tired they are the next day, and they're (mostly) quite good at regulating themselves now.

@Mosky

You are fighting a losing battle to impose a 9.15 bedtime on a 13 year old. Is this for your benefit or hers? What I did when it became a total battle. Got them to agree to a no messing about, going nicely at 10pm school nights and in return I agreed to no limits on Friday/ Saturday. If they didn't comply or made a fuss on school nights all agreements were off. It worked a treat. Yes they stayed up until all hours on weekends at first, but the relief of no battles the rest of the week was so worthwhile. Gave up all rules by 15 /16.

This.

Or I would say "your in bed at 9.15 but you can read/watch TV etc until 10 or something. I think 9.15 is quite early for that age (but I am a night owl). Good luck op xx

I think by the time they got to secondary we didn’t impose bedtime, but they had to be up at 6.30ish so it was naturally about 10.

Bedtimes in our house (teen years) work like this
10: 9pm
11: 9:30pm
12: 10pm
13y: 10:30pm
14y: 11pm
15y: 11:30pm
16y: when dd15 reaches this point I think I'll give up. If she's responsible enough at 16 to have sex, smoke cigarettes and die for her country then she's responsible enough to pick when she goes to bed and I won't have a problem with whenever she decides to go to bed.

A lot of parents seem to have a thing about their children going to bed after them... when people go to bed should be based on how tired they are. Go to bed when you feel tired. Same applies for your children, except they have a bedtime, which is like their limit - like, if you're still not tired now, tough, you have to go to bed anyway. If in any way it works out that you end up going to bed before your child, so what, as long as they're not up past their bedtime. Just means you're more tired than them.