Moms of 1st graders: when is bedtime?

[kaysmommie]

DD is in first grade and is supposed to be in bed at 8:00. She never falls asleep until at least 8:30 and she has to be up at 6:45 to get ready fro school. It's hard to get these kids in bed when it is light out until 9 PM. We even close the blinds. DD does watch American Idol and sometimes falls asleep watching it on the couch.

 

[Crazy4Disney72]

Do those of you with earlier bedtimes keep them up during the summer as well?

Yes, because for 2/3 of the summer we have swim team practice at 7:30 in the morning, so we have to be up and out even earlier than we do for school. In August, we don't have to be up early for anything but I find with my kids it's best to stay fairly consistent whenever we can.

 

[PolyAddict]

Bedtime is 9pm

Wake up is 6:45

The weekends are pretty much whenever.

 

[shelleyz]

My boys are 6 and 8 and bedtime starts at 8. After brushing teeth and reading its about 8:30 when they fall asleep. On weekends and vacation weeks they get to stay up later usually about 10.00. My 6 year old is usually sleeping on the couch by then. I have to wake my 8 year old up at 7:15, very rarely does he get up on his own on a school day. My 6 year old gets up on his own around 7:30. He's in afternoon kindergarten so I don't wake him up. He gets up on his own. I do let them stay up late for American Idol on Tuesdays.

 

[clownchk]

I have 3 kiddos with my first grader being the oldest.

They get to watch an hour of TV when I make dinner then TV off. After dinner, we usually will do soemthing as a family (IN the nice weather we will ride bikes/ walk around the block and sometimes even tot he ice cream store).

THen its jammies time with baths 1 -2 times a week. Bed time is "around" 7 PM, but I do let them stay up on occasion to watch a special show (Wednesdays is church and we do not get home until 8:30 so they may be up uintil 9) SO maybe 2 nights a week they will be up this late.

I make no adjustments for the weekend since it makes for a cranky Sunday night/ MOnday morning.

my YOungest (almost 2)still gets a 2 hour nap in the afternoon, and they are all usually up by 7 AM.

 

[deedeetoo]

One thing that puzzles me. Many of you have kids that are 7+ years old that have bedtimes in the 7:00 - 8:00 timeframe.

When do your kids do their homework?

My oldest (age 8) is in third grade and averages about 2 hours of homework per night (the school says its only supposed to take 40 minutes but almost all the parents I talk to say it takes them closer to 2 hours also.). I pick her up from her after school care at about 5:30. Sometimes they do some homework there, but not always and never all of it. So we get home about 5:45, after getting in the house and a little unwinding, I cook dinner and we eat about 6:30 - 7:00 depending on what we are having. There is no way she could be going to bed as early as 7. Even though I try to get her to do homework while I am making dinner she does want to talk about her day, interact with her little brother etc. Often she doesn't finish her homework until 8:30. There is no way I could make her go to bed earlier.

I just don't know how so many of you can do an earlier bedtime.

 

[beattyfamily]

One thing that puzzles me. Many of you have kids that are 7+ years old that have bedtimes in the 7:00 - 8:00 timeframe.

When do your kids do their homework?

My oldest (age 8) is in third grade and averages about 2 hours of homework per night (the school says its only supposed to take 40 minutes but almost all the parents I talk to say it takes them closer to 2 hours also.). I pick her up from her after school care at about 5:30. Sometimes they do some homework there, but not always and never all of it. So we get home about 5:45, after getting in the house and a little unwinding, I cook dinner and we eat about 6:30 - 7:00 depending on what we are having. There is no way she could be going to bed as early as 7. Even though I try to get her to do homework while I am making dinner she does want to talk about her day, interact with her little brother etc. Often she doesn't finish her homework until 8:30. There is no way I could make her go to bed earlier.

I just don't know how so many of you can do an earlier bedtime.

My girls get home at 3:30p.

They unpack, unwind, have a snack and then they do their homework. They are usually done by dinner, which is usually around 6:00p. Sometimes though my 10 year old is doing homework till bedtime, at 8:00p.

 

[VictoriaT]

My DS6 and his brother are in bed at 8:00 and we read together until 8:30, LIGHTS OUT. My DD9 who has ADHD has a struggle to get to sleep. We give her Melatonin at 8:30, and she reads until she falls asleep or nine pm, whichever happens first (lights out). I must be a mean mom, because I do not let them watch any American idol or anything like that. They Love Discovery Channel, so we usually tape that, and they can watch it when they get home from school during their decompression time. They get up between 6:15 and 7:00, it depends if I am working that day or not. It is a struggle every night, but I at keast have a schedule, and we try to stick to it.

 

[laughinplace199]

My kids are 7 (2nd grade) & 5 (kindegarten). They both go to bed at 7:30 and get up at 6:30. They are in pj's by 7:00 and we read for 30 min. before they go to bed.

Last summer we tried letting them stay up later. DD7 was fine with that because she'd sleep later in the morning. DS5 never sleeps past 6:30, no matter how late he is up the night before. Therefore, after a few nights of staying up until 8:00 or so, he was a mess. We'll probably give the 8:00 bedtime a try again this summer and see what happens.

 

[Crazy4Disney72]

One thing that puzzles me. Many of you have kids that are 7+ years old that have bedtimes in the 7:00 - 8:00 timeframe.

When do your kids do their homework?

My kids are home from school by 3:50. They have a snack and get started on their homework right away and are usually done by 5 or sometimes even before, 5:30 at the absolute latest and that is unusual. We usually eat dinner about 5:30 or 6:00 and then they are starting showers by 6:30 so they can watch Hannah Montana at 7:00 and then be in bed to read at 7:30 with lights out about 8:00.

 

[U2_rocks!]

One thing that puzzles me. Many of you have kids that are 7+ years old that have bedtimes in the 7:00 - 8:00 timeframe.

When do your kids do their homework?

My oldest (age 8) is in third grade and averages about 2 hours of homework per night (the school says its only supposed to take 40 minutes but almost all the parents I talk to say it takes them closer to 2 hours also.). I pick her up from her after school care at about 5:30. Sometimes they do some homework there, but not always and never all of it. So we get home about 5:45, after getting in the house and a little unwinding, I cook dinner and we eat about 6:30 - 7:00 depending on what we are having. There is no way she could be going to bed as early as 7. Even though I try to get her to do homework while I am making dinner she does want to talk about her day, interact with her little brother etc. Often she doesn't finish her homework until 8:30. There is no way I could make her go to bed earlier.

I just don't know how so many of you can do an earlier bedtime.

My kids are 7, 5 and 4. They all go to bed between 7 and 7.30 on school nights, and get up around 6 a.m. (sometimes even earlier!). On weekends and holidays they can stay up a little later.

None have homework, except that the 2 older ones bring home a reading book once a week, but they have 5 days to read it. This term there's a spelling contest in each class, so they'll have to learn words for that. Homework won't start until September for my 7 year old, so we'll have to see how that goes. He has his own room, so it will be easy to put him on a slightly different schedule. In fact, for a while last term we were creating 15 minutes of homework for him a couple of nights a week to help improve his focus and concentration, as suggested by his teacher, who noticed that he had a short attention span (like me!). We may need to do that again this term to help teach him to concentrate on tasks for a little longer each time.

It helps that it's always dark before 7 p.m. here. When we were recently in Orlando their whole sleeping pattern shifted forward an hour because of the longer days.

 

[deedeetoo]

So it seems that the early to bed families are those where Mom is not working outside the home (at least in the afternoon).

That makes sense. If I was home in the afternoon, my kids would get off the bus at about 3:30 and I guess we could have homework done by dinner and then an early night. But I work until 5:00 so its not possible for us.

 

[solferino]

One thing that puzzles me. Many of you have kids that are 7+ years old that have bedtimes in the 7:00 - 8:00 timeframe.

When do your kids do their homework?

My kids are home from school by 3:50. They have a snack and get started on their homework right away and are usually done by 5 or sometimes even before, 5:30 at the absolute latest and that is unusual. We usually eat dinner about 5:30 or 6:00 and then they are starting showers by 6:30 so they can watch Hannah Montana at 7:00 and then be in bed to read at 7:30 with lights out about 8:00.

I run an afterschool program and DD does her homework there with her peers. Other parents who have their kids in my program also want their kids doing it then. Thankfully, the kids don't get a ton of homework either. It comes in a packet on Monday and is turned in on Friday mornings, so they can mete it out during the week as they want. The program runs for 2 hours and most kids are done with what they need to do each day in no more than a half-hour. Then we goof off for the rest of the afternoon.

DD (8 and in 2nd grade) is in bed at 8:00, reading until 8:30. No matter what time she goes to bed, she consistently wakes on her own between 6:30 and 7. We don't deviate from the bedtime much, even during the summer. Just last week we were out for a special event and she got to bed at 9 and she was a mess the next day. It's amazing how much of a difference that hour made.

 

[U2_rocks!]

So it seems that the early to bed families are those where Mom is not working outside the home (at least in the afternoon).

That makes sense. If I was home in the afternoon, my kids would get off the bus at about 3:30 and I guess we could have homework done by dinner and then an early night. But I work until 5:00 so its not possible for us.

My job may go through some changes over the next few months, and come September I'm not sure if I will be able to leave work between 2.30 and 3 p.m. like I currently do. If I have to end up working later, the kids will need to be in aftercare, or I will need to pay a private shuttle to bring them home, and make sure we have a housekeeper at home with them. Neither of those scenarios are conducive to homework, as they are both pretty unstructured. That would likely mean later dinner, bedtime, everything.

I hope it doesn't happen - jobs like mine where I get paid well to work a short day are pretty rare! If things changed here, I doubt I'd find something similar in a hurry. I really, really don't want to go back to working full-time - my current hours suit our home life perfectly! Due to traffic, we have to leave the house before 7 a.m., so later bedtimes really aren't a good option for my kids on a regular basis.

 

[Beth E. (NJ)]

my girls are in 3rd grade and 6th grade. They both go to bed at 9:30pm. Last year they went to bed between 8:30 and 9.

Sometimes the younger one may go to bed earlier. She will let me know if she is tired and when she is tired she doesn't have a problem going to bed early.

I've tried doing two different bedtimes, but their rooms are right next to each other and the younger 1 would still be awake when I brought her sister up so it didn't really matter.

On weekends they might stay up until 10. During the summer the older one was at sleepaway camp for 6 weeks so they controlled her bedtime. The younger one's sleep time depended on what we had going on that day.

 

[Mainebound]

my girls are in 3rd grade and 6th grade.

I've tried doing two different bedtimes, but their rooms are right next to each other and the younger 1 would still be awake when I brought her sister up so it didn't really matter.

I feel like that woudlhappen with us, too. there's just no way DS5 is going to be asleep when DS7 is up and having fun!

We're keeping the 8:00 bedtime for now. We decided that we would allow DS7 to stay up until 8:30 when 2nd grade starts if and only if he is in his bed, reading a book. That way DS5 won't know big bro is still up.

Thanks again everyone for all the great replies. Looks like I am not so out of the "bedtime loop" after all!

 

[kinntj]

I
Lately my 10 year old has been giving me a hard time about her bedtime. She's always telling me how her friends go to bed at 9:00p or 9:30p. How they get to watch American Idol and Lost!

.

I'm shocked that 10 year olds are watching LOST. That has so much violence on it. It's pretty scary too...or is it just me that gets scared watching that show? I think it would be o.k. to let them watch American Idol once a week as long as they went to bed earlier on the other nights.

 

[girlsx4]

My 1st grader is 6. She goes to bed around 8:30 every night. She wakes up at 7:20 every morning. On weekends she definitely sleeps in. Sometimes when we have basketball games or something else going on she will go to bed later, but any later than 9:00 is not good. She wakes up in a foul mood!

 

[beattyfamily]

I'm shocked that 10 year olds are watching LOST. That has so much violence on it. It's pretty scary too...or is it just me that gets scared watching that show? I think it would be o.k. to let them watch American Idol once a week as long as they went to bed earlier on the other nights.

I know!! She told me that one friend had a Lost finale party!

 

[TSMRunnels]

Research has shown that kids that age need 10-12 hours of sleep. If they do not receive this amount on average then they can start displaying symptoms of ADHD. I wonder how many medicated kids out there just need to have a stricter bedtime. My 10 year old goest to bed at 8p.m, wakes at 6:30-7:00am. She wants a later bedtime but I pulled up the research online and told her when she was 12 we would discuss the change. Of course, when there is a sleepover she gets to stay up way late - funny thing is she still gets up at the same time. Most kids wake around the same time no matter if they go to sleep on schedule or later - they just end up with a shortage of sleep time. Here is one website that is easy for your child to understand - http://www.sleepforkids.org/html/you.html
Take Care,
Tam
tam
Good luck.
tam