kids bed time

[skip323]

We are on the early side. DD 8 is in bed by 8 (secretly playing until 9 though) and dd10 is in bed with lights out at 8:30 (I just moved her up from 8 this year). They have to get up early though....I have to be at work at 7am and do their hair before I take off so they get up at 6am. DH gets them on the bus at 8am....I would love to let them sleep later but I am truly not leaving the hair styling up to the hubs 'cause it would look like this:

 

[Tiggs14]

We have a 4 and a 5 year old. They go to bed between 6:30 and 7pm and are up at 6am to begin their day. I work full-time and they are in school so getting up early is a must.

I've tried keeping them up later in hopes that they would sleep in a bit later but it doesn't work. They just get up grouchy at 6am.

 

[marycaym]

DD 10 = between 8p and 830p - light off at 830p (however she usually has the light off at 8p, she has travel soccer practice 2x a week and basketball practice 2x a week and is one tired cookie most nights)
DD 12 = 9p and light off at 930p

Mon thru Fri we get up at 6am and are out of the house at 7am, my youngest is a bear if she does not get enought sleep, even on the weekends she herself knows when she needs to go to bed.

 

[james'mommy]

DS7 goes to bed at 9. If I tried any earlier he wouldn't get to see much of DH. I let him stay up later on weekend. Most nights he takes a notebook and pen to bed so he can draw until he is tired.

 

[Claire&TheBoys]

I'm probably the only person whose younger child has a later bed-time than the older one, LOL. We aim for 8:30 for our 7-yr-old (but it sometimes pushes to 9:00) and he gets up around 7:00 to leave for school at 7:30. Our 3-yr-old usually stays up until 9:00 or so and gets up by 6:30. But he also takes a 2.5-3-hr nap in the late afternoon (2:15 pm until close to 5:00 most days). Neither of my kids have ever slept 11-12 hours at a stretch, even as babies.

I like our schedule. My husband gets home about 5:30 and we eat dinner by 6:00 and then we have time to have Family Movie Night or go have dessert with my parents or run to the mall or Target or just hang out together. The kids are not even done at church on Wednesdays until 7:00 or 8:30 if my husband can't pick them up while I stay for choir.

 

[allyphoe]

DD6 starts getting ready for bed at 7, and is in bed between 7:30 and 8 most nights (she's a dawdler). But she's often awake until 8:30 or even 9, because she tries to keep herself awake.

She gets up at 7:30 on school mornings, and 11 hours is not always enough sleep for her.

 

[happymommy]

When my kids were very young, it was by 7:00 pm. Now, my son was up very early (about 6 am or so) at age 2, but he has ADHD, and doesn't need as much sleep. DD could sleep 12 to 14 hours (yes, with a diaper change and quick feed) but she requires more sleep.

When we moved to our new house, and DD was in second grade, she still was going to bed at 7:00. She just got tired, and really wanted her sleep. DS was a bit later, but definitely before 9:00pm. He would stay up till midnight if you let him, but then it would be a disaster to get up and ready for school.

My husband is rarely home before 8:00pm, so yes, when they were babies (or DD was, DS was 2) he sometimes came home after they were bathed and in bed. I had to nurse my DD while bathing my DS! It all worked out.
Many nights he would bring home dinner for the two of us. Of course, I was usually tired from nursing and caring for the kids, so I don't stay up late anyway.

I have a DBIL whose kids had no official "bed time". It was chaos in their house. When our eldest kids (their daughter and my son) were about 18 months, they insisted we go out to eat at 7:30pm. Okay, so we went (grr... it was almost time for my son to sleep). Their daughter was asleep in her stroller, and I commented she was already asleep for the night. They said no, she was just taking her nap. Um. It's 7:30pm? Aren't most one year olds asleep at that time? Nope, she stayed up till at least midnight. Yikes!

Even though my DH was home sometimes after they were asleep, we all needed consistency. I needed a short time of quiet and time to clean up from dinner.

I wouldn't keep my kids up late to see my husband.

 

[Keri]

yeah, fortunately my DH comes home around 5, but there have been periods of time where the kids went to bed at 6. Did it stink? Sure. But there were not any options. They were early risers and needed their sleep. If they got overtired, they slept even less and woke more during the night. I can't imagine my kids if they only got 8 or 9 hours of sleep!!! Ugh. However, if the kids sleep in and it works for your family to keep them up a little later, I am just kind of jealous of the sleeping in! Though, I couldn't do that anymore anyway, with school.

 

[bdiddy]

Just because we don't put our kids to bed at 7 and my DH likes to see the kids for several hours at night doesn't mean we "keep them up" just for that.

My daughter's school doesn't start until almost 9 o'clock. She doesn't have to get up until 7:30 or 7:45 at the latest and her school is literally 6 blocks from us and takes about 1 min to drive there. She is getting 10.5-11 hrs of sleep a night. My 3 yr old doesn't have anywhere to be and he'll sleep until 7:30 - 8:00 also getting 10.5 -11 hours of sleep AND sometimes he still naps.

They are 100% getting the amount of sleep they need for their age range. We all win - DH gets a good couple hours in at night with them, the kids get the sleep they need and mommy doesn't have to get up at the crack of dawn!

 

[lbuzz52]

i think anytime is fine, as long as it works for your family. I get home from work at 630. so by 7, dinner isn't even ready yet. My dd4 and ds9 months stay up until 10pm. my husband gets home at 930 and he gets to see them just long enough to get them in bed that way. but they dont have to get up until at least 8am. but they seem to do fine with it.
now, if i got home earlier, or if i was a stay at home mom i'd have them in bed much earlier. i know on the weekends i'm tearing my hair out by 8 pm

 

[bunny]

I think all of this is a function of whether you are at home with your kids during the day or not. My husband and I both work. We usually are not wrapping up dinner until 7. We shoot for 9:30 to 10:00 PM bedtimes for our kids. We like to play outside or take walks together in the summer. In the winter we play board games, read or just watch TV together. I can't even imagine putting the kids to bed when it was still light outside. My kids get up every day by 7.

 

[TheCampbells]

DS (4)- 7:30
DS(11)- 8:30
DD (15)-9:30

weekends, the 11 and 15 get to stay up later

 

[Dannielle_1]

DS (almost 4) has a general time range of 8:00-9:00, but usually closer to the 9:00 side. It just depends on how things are going that day. Sometimes he'll fall right asleep, sometimes it's 30-45 minutes. Last night, DS didn't fall asleep till almost 10:00. Normally, DS wakes up around 8:00, this morning it was almost 9 (made-up for the late night last night). I'm a SAHM so he can usually sleep till he wants and same for me .

DS generally doesn't nap, but will occasionally get a nap in the car (our "commute" into town is 25-35 minutes). But if we are home all day, 99% of the time it will not happen. But if he does sleep during the day at all, that will push back the bedtime as well. He's pretty much an 11 - 12 hours a day kid.

We like our very general "schedule." It allows a good 2-3 hours for DH to be around before DS heads to bed, plus it allows me to sleep-in in the mornings - I am NOT a morning person. Also, it allows for flexibility when we go out in the evenings with DS.


I'm dreading the day that school starts and am tied to someone elses early schedule everyday.

 

[kohlby]

DS(6)- 9:00 in bed, asleep by 9:30
DD(3)- 7:30 in bed, asleep by 7:45 hopefully
DS(9 months)- varies, no official bedtime.

The bedtimes stay the same for weekends. We homeschool so they wake-up whenever. Wake-up is usually around 7am for both