childrens bedtimes

We used to take our kids with us to family and friends and put them to bed there ,picking them up wrapped in blankets later. My DS does the same ,but my DD does not - she has a set bedtime that is stuck to rigidly .All DGC are happy and active. So I'm sure it's what suits each individual family. But I love seeing all the generations enjoying a meal together in a restaurant when on holiday abroad and wish it happened more here in the UK .

I quite often agree with you jings but don't on this one

I can't see the problem with a late night if the children are not at school the next day.

I look after my DGC quite a bit especially during school holidays. We love to go out for night walks. We get dressed up warm and head down to the promenade and take in the sea air. We sometimes stop off for a drink or a hot choccy. The children are chit chatting all the time. We also go and kick leaves in the park in the dark. We do the cinema with a cheeky visit to Frankie and Benny's afterwards (expensive but it's their favourite) Such a treat for them. We all fall into bed at around 10 o'clock.

Childrens' bedtimes:

When our younger son turned 13 we moved his bed time back half an hour. Days or weeks later, he stood by the door asking, "Do I* have* to stay up till 9pm?"

Sometime this year, in a radio interview, a Primary school teacher stated one or two of her pupils consistently fell asleep in class

I think it's hard to lay down hard and fast rules about when children should go to bed and how much sleep they need. Vq is right, of course, if children are falling asleep in the daytime, they are being deprived of sleep at night. But some children seem to manage on less sleep than most. With my first DS, I was worried by the fact that he didn't sleep nearly as much as my friend's babies and we spent a lot of time and wasted effort trying to get him to sleep when he was wide awake. With my second DS I accepted it and by the time the DGS arrived I almost expected it. One of the three is a sleeper!

The occasional late night is ok but children need sleep. I taught children who were so tired they would fall asleep in class. Whenever I discussed it with their parents I would hear the same things, "They go to bed when I do", "I just let them watch TV until they fall asleep on the sofa" and my favourite, "They watch TV or play their XBox/Playstation in their rooms until they fall asleep". I suggested that they stop them watching TV etc but was told that the children did it when the parents were asleep. After much discussion about who was in charge in the family I suggested they remove the plugs from the TVs and Game Consoles. This was greeted with total amazement and horror. There was no way they could do that because their children would be upset and cross with them. At that point I gave up and continued to have a quiet corner in my room where exhausted children could nap. This was Year 3 btw.

If a baby or small child doesn't easily fall asleep an evening stroll in the buggy often helps them drop off.

My DGDs are in bed and light off by 7.30pm on school nights. They are three and a half and six. Holidays and weekends are slightly later like 8pm. The four and half year old upstairs is up until 10pm some nights, on school nights about nine . She goes down for a nap about 4pm ! Her mother said otherwise she gets grumpy. She doesn't sleep any later so no wonder she gets grumpy. Children of that age need a regular bedtime routine, she seems to go to bed when she feels like it. After a full day with your children it's nice to have the evening to yourself. It seems to be the norm with a lot of parents these days that the whole family goes to bed at the same time.

I'm not sure but I think in some other European countries the school day starts earlier and finishes earlier and so presumably the children can go home and have a nap. In the UK the school day generally finishes between 3 and 3.30 so if children have gone to bed very late they are likely to be quite tired in the afternoon and to find it more difficult to concentrate.

It seems to me that an earlier school start might be better, although apparently research shows that teenagers in particular benefit from a late school start because they are more alert and focused later in the day. I wonder about this. My friend at school came from Germany and when she lived there she had to start school at, I think, 8 a.m. She also finished much earlier. Educationally, she was far in advance of me and didn't seem to have suffered at all under the early start regime.

Tahith, I agree with you. In Europe it is a completely different culture. Children socialise with the family and grow up closer to their family. The family that eats together, stay together. There are other times to catch up on sleep than at night.

i agree that children should have regular and fairly early bed times. If you look at the sleep requirements for children, they are quite high, but I don't think the odd late night on a special visit/occasion is too much of a problem.

3 of my GC live in Spain and have a Spanish mother and they go to bed very late. To be fair it is incredibly hot in the summer. They phoned yesterday and said it was quite cool only 25+. It is usually 30+ to 40. The only time it is pleasant to be out and walking is early or late. They also eat late too. 8 pm or later. However, I have never understood why the don't change the routine in the winter.

2 GC in England go to bed between 7 -7.30. They are twins but one is an owl, usually not asleep before 9 and the other a lark.

janeainsworth I don't see anything wrong at all with stay at home moms wanting the evening to themselves and hubby's. I know i did as much as I loved my kids . If you work that's entirely different and school holiday rules are different to term time IMHO. But each family should do what is right for them.

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.

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.

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.

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 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!

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...

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.