You are here

bedtimes

joanie's picture

re Mister and I are both night owls. we usually go to bed round three. the Kid has a summer bedtime of 12.

last night the kid asked if we could all watch a movie. I picked out a long movie, not thinking (lotr) and it was two am and not over...I didn't mind the Kid being up, I like the movie and he was pretty quiet enjoying it with us. afterward I was reading a bit but by the time mister got to bed e was exhausted and just passed out.

this morning he says- I think he needs to get to bed on time. we need more" us" time.

it was really reassuring.

the usual bedtime here goes-
10 pm movie/quiet time/reading etc
12 storytime, sleeptime for the kid
2 or 3 we go to bed

how does bedtime go at your house? I know that 12 is late but it IS summer. (we all sleep til noon, too. and the kid knows how to make coffee)

is this a pretty normal bedtime ritual? after the mister talking to me today I'm not super worried, just curious.

heartnsoule's picture

I am curious what you do for a living that you can sleep until noon? No I think your bed time ritual is very strange to me. Not sure how old the kids are? How ever even have a 18yo in the house No one at my house ever stays up until 2am. For the little ones (5,8,9) summer or school weeknights....bedtime is 8, can watch tv until 830. Weekends usually in bed by 9 and tv until 930..thats it......Kids need sleep and a regular schedule, how do you do that schedule during school?

joanie's picture

he is 8, his school bedtime is 9 pm.

I'm an artist, I run the studio. I go in around three.
the Mister is a retired vet.

ThatGirl's picture

9pm is lights out for SS13 at our house. Fridays and Saturdays are the exception. He might be on summer vacation, but we still work and have to get up between 3:30 and 5am. It might be different if we didn't? Nah, I'd still want him to keep normal hours.

DoingItAgain's picture

Agree with Finey... you are just setting this kid up for a world of failure when he heads back to BMs and school. Even though it's summer, I would try to stay closer to normal bedtime (within an hour or 2)... at least during the week.

In the summer, the 10.5 and almost 12 year old generally don't stay up later than 10 during the week and maybe 11 during the weekend sometimes. During the week they often still have to go to day care and have to get up between 7-8 am so still going to bed by 9 isn't reasonable. Even if they didn't have to get up early, I don't want them in the habit of sleeping until noon. That's a bad habit to get into before they are even a teenager!

3terriers's picture

Bedtime is a dirty word in my house. The only one with a bedtime is me because I need my beauty sleep. Unfortunately SS17 likes to sleep until noon or longer in Summer and on weekends. It drives me nuts but neither DH or BM choose to address so I am the meanie for saying something.

joanie's picture

I am still kinda astounded that people only get an hour of their own after the kids go to bed- I mean the kid here goes to bed like 3 hours before us. and it still feels like we get no us time to unwind. how do you guys manage, if they go to bed at like ten and you go to bed at eleven?

I remember though having a ten bedtime and my dad going to bed ar like eight. my poor parents! he still to this day is a morning person, the only one in my family, all five kids and my mom we all liked nights better.

also thanks everyone for replying, I still want to hear more" what we do at bedtime" stories

twopines's picture

DD15 goes up to bed at 9pm on school nights and 10pm on weekends and summer. On weekends she has to be dressed and ready for action at 9am. During her summer break she has to be up and out the door with us at 7:45am.

Friday and Saturday nights I don't really care when she goes to bed as long as she's properly dressed and ready for the day at 9am the next morning.

joanie's picture

I own a business and run it; I am a night owl so I choose to work afternoons when I go in.

bf is a disabled vet, so not quite unemployed. Wink

we do have the kid outside all day; midnight to elevenish is his sleeptime right now.

it was kinda hard to get him started on that apparently, since he runs wild at bms

GoodbyeNormaJean's picture

My girls 15 months, 4, 8, and 9 are allowed to stay up until 8. If they want to watch a full length movie, they are allowed to lay down at 7:30 and stay up until it ends at 9. They never make it. They're always asleep within the hour. They have to get up at 8 because they live on a farm.

My sons are allowed to stay up til 9. Then they have to go to their room, but they're allowed to stay awake until 10. They are 12 and 13. They also have to get up at 8. Breakfast is at 8:30
and everyone's farm chores start at 9.

Obviously the baby doesn't have farm chores.

Kids need a lot of sleep. The girls only have about 1/2 hour of chores, and the boys work from about 9-11:30. They do their chores and then they maintain some of the neighbors lawns for $$$. Anyway, they're cashed by 9 and I don't usually hear anything from them unless they're hungry.

BM2 let's SD9 stay up til 3 or later at her house. It's a real pisser to have to reset that crap when she comes
back home.
I guess that's why she doesn't have custody. She's a non-parent.

joanie's picture

some clarification: bm lives off cs and welfare. she basically sleeps all day. he has no bedtime at her house and yes, is often late for school or tired. the only bedtimes he gets are eow and visits with dad.

I work second shift. waking at nine because a kid is romping would be insane...during the school year apparently he has a 9 bedtime here and follows that at home on his own.

re mister is a night owl: the fact that his schedule and mine are similar is good, for me. like I said- I work neons shift and often stay up very late to finish projects at home.

right now the kid is getting around ten eleven hours of sleep. he gets up, starts coffee, and hollers for dad. who then gets up and hangs out with him til I feel like pouring out of bed.

sounds like sting the school year there'd be trouble then for sure. luckily bm doesn't act psycho...she's just kinda dumb. making it harder on herself.

he was surprised to have any bedtime at all for summer, I guess bm doesn't even do anything. and over there he sleeps with her as well...beech

I wonder if I'm the only one here on second or third shift work?

the_stepmonster's picture

Our BM doesn't give the skids a bedtime either and they freak out when they have to be in bed at a certain time at our place. It just doesn't seem healthy to let the kids sleep till noon, plus they have been known to watch things they aren't supposed to if we are not monitoring them. Not to mention the alone time at night without all the noise is nice.

joanie's picture

we do not have cable. and he doesn't know how to hook up anything but his video games so if he does get up early he plays those.

we are slowly gonna bring his bedtime a little earlier. to around ten. it's summer...

when I heard he still sleeps with bm I got so grossed out. so weird...

just to let everyone know, I have been on second shift schedule for decades. I haven't seen eight am in maybe fifteen years.

cnd62107's picture

i actually planned to have this discussion with FH tonight. it's a couple years overdue, but it is definitely time to set up and enforce a bedtime with SD7 when she is with us EOW. up until now i have felt bad with him having limited time with his visitations and with him working a good 30-50% of the time he is allowed with her. so i haven't put up a fight about him letting her stay up late to spend time with her. but now that she is getting older and is in school, it is past time for a consistent schedule to be put in place. and the lack of "us time" has been getting to me as well. it's not normal for a kid her age to be up until 1, 2, 3am...and with her the annoying thing is she will stay up this late and ALSO get up at 8-9am to try to get in as much time as possible with her dad. so she is most definitely not getting sufficient sleep. keep in mind i'm only talking about weekends here. he and i keep night hours on the weekends and SD tries to take advantage of that as much as possible. but i think it is high time for a 10pm bedtime. maybe 10:30. i am not bashing the OP for the schedule she chooses to keep. but i don't think it's necessarily the best interest for the child. and the sleep schedule of the child is not in any way the responsibility of the OP either...that's up to dad. just like it is going to be up to my FH to lay down the law. i think yours should too...it will benefit you as well as the child.

joanie's picture

it's 11:10 here now. kid's getting ready for bed on his own? this might not be so bad after all.

I just don't want to be awoken...I'm the working one in the household and I've spent my whole life adjusting to the stupid noise of morning people Wink

joanie's picture

I was also reading the "cosleeping" thread :jawdrop: people actually do that?!? I thought the kid might be making up sleeping with bm but after reading a few more threads ... ugh! really?

:sick:

roseslady2's picture

This is very much different than ours, but I have a job that I start at 8 or 9 am. SS15 has his football workouts at 630 am by choice. He's a very early to bed kind of kid. Almost always in bed by 10pm. SS10's bedtime during school is 10:30pm, when school's out it's midnight. We generally let him sleep until he wakes or until 30 mins before he has to be at school or karate or whatever else. DH usually goes to bed between 10pm and midnight. He has a random work schedule, but is usually up by 8am. I'm usually in bed before midnight and get up regularly before 730 am. I regularly wake up in the night for an hour or more. So, our house is very different.

joanie's picture

that's earlier than us but actually about the same amount of hours asleep. Smile

similar hours, different schedules

joanie's picture

I was wondering too about the whole story-reading, settle in time, is that pretty standard? he is 8 and can read, but the mister tucks him in, reads for a while, usually takes about a half hour for the kid to settle and be sleepy.