childrens bedtimes

Not necessarily agree with you Ethel

When my GC were babies, and I'd invite their parents over for dinner, they'd put the little ones down to sleep in my house. When it was time to go home, they'd put them, still fast asleep, into the double buggy and push them home, about a mile away.

They were then transferred to their own cot/bed still asleep.

I did the same when mine were babies.

I don't think it matters once in a while, or even on a regular basis really.
I think early bedtimes were more for the parents' benefit than the children's. People put the children to bed at 6.30 or 7.00 and then wondered why the children woke up at 5.30am, but wanted the evenings to themselves.
In other countries quite young children going out for dinner in the evening is considered normal.
Now that in very many families both parents work, they need time in the evenings together with the children.

If it's just an occasional outing then I don't see the harm. If they have several children they probably don't get many opportunities to go out.
If they were out every other night then it would be a different matter.

It's summer and the schools are out. Perhaps they're on holidays?

Do you love in a holiday resort Ethel

I do hope so!

I don't agree with keeping children up late, they can be awfully crabby the next morning. Once in a while for a family celebration is okay but do it on a regular basis and you get a letter from the teacher saying that Johnny/Jane is tired in class and would benefit from an earlier bedtime.

If it's once in while it's not a problem. It is a Saturday.

We used to take ours 25miles to my in laws. To come home we got them ready for bed and drove them home, take them out of the car in their pyjamas, and transfer them straight into bed. It would not be good to keep them up late every night.

Our babies and young children would come with us to visit family or friends in the evening. They'd either all be put to bed together or fall asleep in our arms. Bundle them up in blankets and straight home to their own beds. When on holiday abroad or in this country if the weather was ok, they'd come out with us in the evening, fall asleep in our arms or in their pushchairs and then be popped into bed when we got back.

During the school week we had regular bed times and routines that went with that. Our children and others in our friendship/family group just fitted in with the routines or the flexibility at special times.

I agree with ethel completely. Children should have regular bedtimes. That is one thing I don't like in european cities - seeing young children being trawled around in buggies when they should be tucked up in bed.

A Sunday outing to visit Granny and Grandad is, of course, exempt. But they should be got into pj's at Granny's house and tumbled straight into bed at the other end. Not too late either.

If a child is an early waker it will make no difference to his waking up time, whatever time you put him to bed. A later bedtime just means a more tired child later in the morning.

I have to disagree with some of you , my youngest grandson lives abroad and is often out with his parents at evening outings or social gatherings and all their friends and family members do the same, they socialise as a family as do many of our European cousins.
They take his buggy along and he can nap if he wants but mostly he joins in with all the other children whether they are in a restaurant/event or someones home they have a great time and they all know how to behave in a restaurant and are welcomed by the staff, of course Mum and Dad have an occasional 'date' without a child in tow but as a general rule the family socialise together. It never seemed to bother him that he'd had a late night and was awake as his normal early time the next day.

Some children, like some adults, seem to need less sleep than others. One of my GDs, as a toddler, would take herself to her bedroom but potter around until she fell asleep - occasionally on the floor! She hasn't changed; almost a teenager, she goes to sleep quite late, growls at everyone in the morning, but is bright, lively, enthusiastic, does very well at school and I suspect her sleep pattern won't change much as she grows up. By contrast, her brother could sleep anywhere, any time, but is also very bright.

I've tried letting my GC stay up later weekends in the hopes of a lie in next day. On the odd occasion they've gone to bed at 9.30-10.00 pm. They're still wide awake at 6.30 am. Which is mire than can be said for nannie

I currently have my GC staying with me. Unfortunately, they are having to share rooms! This is not an ideal situation as they keep each other awake. The boys also have varying degrees of autism, and the change in surroundings and beds etc. is unsettling.
This isn't answering the OP. When we went out with our children when they were small, we were usually visiting relatives. We took their pyjamas and got them ready for bed before leaving. They always went to sleep in the car, and we transferred them to bed on returning home.

My mother used to put us all to bed at 7pm, which was fine until we moved to a tall new house with thinner walls and our bedroom widows faced West. We got all the evening sun, and baked in our rooms, wearing our flannel pyjamas no matter the temperature. One evening I opened the window after a bit of a struggle, and three of us sat outside on the sill, with lovely cool legs, singing away. A nice neighbour waved to us from the valley below, and we happily waved back.

Half an hour later she must have puffed her way up the road to our house, because we were unceremoniously hauled back in and thumped!

I was eventually allowed to explain that it was simply too hot, and she grudgingly had to allow us to stay up later, as my father was back by then and he tended to be slightly less strict.

As I never forgot that awful feeling of stifling heat and being sent to bed in blazing sunshine, I was less strict in the summer term time with my own children, 7pm still being the norm during the winter for as long as I could get away with it. But in the summer holidays - anything went. The children stay up later abroad and eat later because it's just too hot in the middle of the day - when they often have a nap. Then when they come home it takes a while to return to the usual routine.

jingl, doesn't it occur to you that in "some European cities" it may be the normal thing for everyone to have a siesta in the heat of the day and stay up later at night? It seems a bit rude to criticise people whose way of life you possibly don't fully understand, just because their ideas of bedtimes don't agree with what you think.

We have 3 sets of DGC who have very different bedtimes and they all seem to survive without being overtired.

Sorry, "some European cities" was a misquote (too lazy to refer back to your post). Should have said 'some "european cities"'

Don't most young children (of buggy age) have a nap in the day anyway, whatever country they live in, Wheniwasyourage?

I agree that it's a different way of life in some European cities, but I, too, always feel little ones should be in bed at 10 o'clock at night, not parked in pushchairs while their parents socialise. Just call me old-fashioned...

I don't generally think it's a good idea to keep children up too late but I also think there are times when a bit of flexibility does no harm. I think it's OK for children to nod off on the sofa occasionally or in a pushchair while out. And I don't agree with a lot of tiptoeing around so as not to disturb the children - I think when children have had a routine that relaxes them and which helps them to gradually wind down, they will sleep through all but the loudest noise levels.

I was always put to bed really early and remember listening enviously to my friends playing outside while I was in bed. When my granddad came to stay and the ice cream van came along, he would sneak an ice cream upstairs to me in bed. I thought it was great - my mum wasn't so impressed!

We regularly went to friends' houses for evening visits, and to a singing group. We used to take the children and they would doss down somewhere in sleeping bags, then we would bundle them up and take them home. I am sure it did them no harm - and it did us lots of good to be out socializing or singing.

I agree that regular schedules can be good - but, heavens, rules need to be broken sometimes - those are the moments that my children remember: being woken up and taken from bed to see shooting stars, or to see Santa who had unexpectedly turned up in our street on a Lions Club float, or bat hunting, or seeing a visiting hedgehog.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that the odd evening at a relative's house in pyjamas or being woken up to see snow falling is to be condemned, but there are families (in this country) who seem to just wait until the children fall asleep before putting them to bed, even if it's very late in the evening.

Goodness knows how some of them manage to stay awake at school the next day.

GS1 who is 8 goes to bed at about 8pm and wakes at about 7am ready for school. His 2 year old brother tends not to sleep until 9 or 10 in the evening but sleeps later in the morning. I have pointed out to DD that if he went to bed at what might be termed a decent hour she would barely see him from Monday to Friday as she frequently doesn't get home before 6pm at the earliest and leaves for work after breakfast.

Im glad I don't live in a holiday resort anya, the noise is bad enough where I live. I think that kids should learn routine from being small and with that comes respect. I f adults want to socialise so much tehn they shouldn't have had kids in the first place.