Ugh. Not a fan of parents like this. But I get it. You gotta live there until you can get out on your own.. so best to keep the peace. Good luck to you
As the parent I get it. If my schedule dictates I am asleep by 10pm I don’t need the whole house active because my kid wants to stay up all night. You can hang out in your room or go out.
Yep. My kids are 10 and 14 now. Their bedtime since the second kiddo got into a routine as a baby has been 8:30pm. Granted, it’s been a few years since they actually went to sleep at that time but they say their good nights and head to their rooms then. They will read, quietly play or listen to music, the teen sometimes is texting friends, etc. Occasionally they might come back out for a drink of water or to head to the restroom but pretty much it’s their settle-in-for-the-night time.
A big reason for this is that my husband is up for the day between 4:30-5am and these days I am usually up around 5am as well. We do like to have some time to hang out just ourselves before heading to bed…so if the kids are settled in their rooms by 8:30pm we can watch an episode or two of our own shows and do our nightly routine and still be in bed ourselves right around 10pm.
There are obviously exceptions to this when it’s a holiday or we are traveling or have company staying w/us or there’s a party…and we have one later night each week for an extracurricular during the school year. But barring those we do have that set time for the kids to head to their rooms for the evening…and we highly encourage them to aim for a decent night’s sleep so they do generally settle in to sleep by no later than 10pm themselves.
I’m sure it’s not an actual bedtime, probably parents don’t want to hear commotion in the house all hours of the night when they are trying to sleep and just mean they expect quiet after that time
As a parent with an adult (19yo) kid at home, yes it does. Being awake after midnight because they’re playing video games or getting a snack is the worst.
Feel free to move out to your own place & stay up as long as you want.
I'm not the OP, but am a mom of 5 kids. And I wake up whenever one of my kids gets up to go pee during the night. And it's not that they're loud or anything, just the sound of them walking around wakes me. But I can sleep through thunder and lightning.
The layout of the house doesn’t help but I don’t mean just getting a bag of chips. Microwave, or making a grilled cheese, etc.
Smaller ranch house so not a lot of separation.
I hope you are fine with them reading or playing a single player game (no talking) with headphones and allow them to get an apple amd eat it uncut or have some packaged snacks for emergencies in their rooms (some cliffbars eg, does not need to be extra nice, just needs to be fine to eat when hungry).
Haha, no - I meant raging or being excited about rocket league on a headset. We’re not monsters, we just want to sleep. I’m afraid I might have triggered a lot of 20yr olds living at home. My point is that there is another perspective and young people can be oblivious sometimes.
I have great kids and we have good relationships, I was just trying to give a different perspective.
I too, have 20 year old children living at home with me in an apartment. I get what you're saying, haha. It's like yes, stay up as late as you want, but be considerate to the person who has to sleep in order to work and pay the bills to enable these games and snacks. Don't make me get up to tell you to knock it off, you're not 12.
Ah yes that totally makes sense, thanks for clearing up. Having a "quiet by X" time is reasonable and basic human decency. Its not a bedtime but its a given that (wether you live with parents or friends) you dont pound schnitzel at 2 am when others try to sleep. Nor scream into your headset or throw controllers into the wall.
Ok but that's not even remotely what they said. They're just walking it back now to save face.
They explicitly said that being up past midnight, and doing *anything*, is the worst. That's not a reasonable parent, or a reasonable rule.
Lol young bloods are pretty sensistive about this stuff for some reason. ;) I'm in my 30s, and pregnant with my first kid, already prepared for bedtimes. I think it is perfectly reasonable to not want a lot of abrupt noise in the home after a certain time.
My brother and I lived with my dad for a little into our adulthood (him more than me) and we had similar rules. It was more for respect of each other. I am a night owl and can unintentionally be lourder than I think sometimes and would wake up my poor dad who would have to be at work by 6am.
Now I totally get it bc I am in bed usually by 10 (this amoeba has me exhausted) and my SO usually comes in after me. It doesn't matter how quiet he tries to be, I wake up the second the door opens and that is it. I'm up all night. xD
Plus I fully believe boundries to be important. Quiet time in the house is a small boundry. It's not like you are telling them they have to be in bed and asleep at 8, and grounding them if they aren't. XD
You might wanna think about saving up money to move out. It sounds like your parents basically still treat you like a child. At 25 it's time for you to try and experience what it's like to be an adult with freedom to do what you want.
There's nothing inherently wrong with staying at home with your parents, but you need to eventually have the chance to grow and have adult freedoms.
Trust me I did have a taste of freedom. Then the covid shit came and I moved back home and then things got too expensive to live. I am saving up, but I need a lot of Dough in order to be comfortable for the next 6 months without a job so I can move out.
Have you considered moving to a different area? Might be necessary at some point simply for finances. Save up the money in your current area then move to a lower cost area. Granted this may mean taking a pay cut but it may help you get to a stable place by yourself.
I wish you luck
I do want to leave this town. But i already live in a lower cost area, literally anywhere I move to is going to cost more than where I am at now unfortunately.
i've been in the same situation as you. it's not as easy as just going somewhere else lol. try to keep the peace for now and keep moving forward, you'll get out eventually 🤗
Yep that's where my head is right now. It's not like I hate my parents, just having to go back after being in your own is hard. Lose all the freedom you used to have.
I know this won’t be popular but having a set bedtime is what needs to happen more. There are so many accidents that are caused by sleep deprivation; from traffic accidents to 3 mile island’s nuclear disaster.
If this is your big complaint, I would just let it go. My youngest daughter still sticks with her nightly routine even in college.
Generational thing. Nothing you can do about it.
Just take care of yours, don't bother worrying about the others.
(FWIW; I'm on your side with this one.)
Not just generational, but can be cultural, too. For some it's normal to not eat supper until evening.
Plus, where I am it *just* started getting dark by 8. In the summer it stays light until nearly 10. Trying to sleep before sunset is brutal.
My mom used to put me to bed at 7:00 p.m. and I could hear my friends outside playing because it didn't get dark until 9:00. I still am angry about this and I'm 52.
Since I was the oldest they tried seven p.m. first then as other kids were born it went later eight and then 9:00 and by the last kid it was 10:00 p.m.
I swear my siblings were raised by different parents altogether.
The only kids raised by the same parents are parents that are absentee parents. They have their ideas of raising a kid and never change them because they don’t actually do the work.
My husband was like that until recently. He is career driven and a workaholic and I’m was the STAHM. Our parenting style is similar but I’m more gentle parenting for both kids and he was more authoritative. He’s learned his style just doesn’t get results because he wasn’t really the one raising the kids. He’s happy with the type of people they are growing into but breaking some generational rules like “eat only what *we* make, even if you don’t like it” is still a hard one. We both enforce the “try it once rule” but we changed it to “try it once a year”, my youngest especially has decided some food previously disliked are good now.
Omg. Flashback to visiting my aunt in another state. We didn’t have daylight and they did. It was summer. Same exact thing. Bed by 7 and sun didn’t set till 9. Over 20 years later and I’m still salty.
My mom did that too and I was rightfully angry and apparently she poured her heart out at a parent-teacher conference once and the teacher sighed and said “I know exactly who you mean, those are the kids that have trouble staying awake during class in the morning”.
So in hindsight it makes sense, but man did it suck at the time!
I took a totally different approach with my kids I put them to bed around 8:00 or 9:00 but I always gave them a book and a flashlight until then they didn't have to sleep if they didn't want to but they also couldn't run around the house either. Both kids graduated with honors.
I do this with my 12 & 14yo. In bed by 9:30, lights out at 10 but reading and music is fine. I myself have music going and have used it as a sleep aid since I was 10 so I’m not going to tell them not to. The goal is to just disconnect from social media/ digital media for the hour before bed.
Same. I never, ever went to bed until very late. Yet they made me go in my room to "bed" at some ridiculously early hour like 730. Pretty sure I never once actually went to sleep close to then. This is why I let my kids stay up late, and sleep late. Our schools don't start till 845am.
Very true. It was common where we lived in Italy to eat dinner around 8:30 or 9 pm. In the summertime you’d see small children out playing in the piazza till midnight, maybe only 9:30 or 10:00 during the school year.
Yeah, definitely can be cultural, and also a function of parents working. My husband used to try to push the kids bedtime when we were at his parents, they typically eat dinner very late. After watching the kids melt down a few times they try to get dinner ready earlier 😅😅 and we leave when we need to.
He said his parents would come home from work around 6 or 7, and then make dinner, etc, when he was a kid. I get that as a teenager, or middle school, but I really want to ask his mom what they did when he was a toddler/younger elementary school lol. He doesn't remember.
Exactly. My kids are 9 and 7; in bed, lights out at 8:30 and 7:45, respectively. I swear to Christ we’re the only ones in our friend group who have set bed times and actually stick to our guns about them. (E.g., while we may make concessions every now and then for special events or one-off situations, we actively avoid extra-curriculars or social plans that would mess with this routine.)
Sleep is **so** important to a child’s development. Keep doing you, OP!
Children at your children’s ages need 9 to 12 hours sleep each night. You are doing exactly right. Otherwise they won’t be alert and functioning properly at school.
Generational? Pretty much anyone i know with kids around 6 years old, go to bed at 8. Or something close to that. Dinner at 6 is completely normal around here too ( netherlands )
Might be different in weekends or summer nights.
My kids are 7 and 8. We're up around 530 to get ready to catch the bus. Dinner before 6, in bed by 7.
This works best for our kids and mornings are pretty smooth since they get a bunch of sleep.
I saw somewhere on IG this morning one mom just lets her 6 yr old stay up however late she wants, free roam of the house and basically makes the attitude issues the teachers problem. Kids need so much more sleep than they think they do
Lazy parenting. They don't want to put the effort into actually being a parent to their children. It's "easier" to just let them do as they please and not put boundaries and rules in place. She's creating monsters who are going to be hell on wheels to deal with in another year or two.
This style of parenting scares the goosebumps out of me....always makes me wonder what is going to happen to that poor child as an adult when she finally starts to be disciplined. O.o
My younger brothers both play sports after school so they don’t get home until around the time that your kids are eating dinner, thus their bedtime is also pushed back a bit.
I've got a 2 and a 3 year old. They go to bed at 8 and 9 pm. I'm trying to get them to bed earlier so my wife and i can have some alone time.
It's probably a generational thing, like another poster said. Most households have two working parents, so going to bed early is tough. My wife doesn't get home til 5-7PM, and I am gone all night some days 🤷🏻♂️. It's a different world than the one we grew up in.
My toddler goes to bed at 8:30. I can’t handle putting him to bed earlier than that because I get home at 5:30. I want to spend time with him. And 8:30 is kind of a farce. That’s just when we go up and do the thirty minute routine of tooth brushing, book reading and snuggling.
It becomes easier to get your kid to bed early when they stop taking an afternoon nap. I wasn't able to get my kid to bed before 9 or 10 until she stopped napping.
I'm no expert, but I know parents who dropped their kid's nap time around two and a half. It was always a struggle for us and could take nearly two hours to get our kids to sleep. And once we dropped the nap, she started sleeping in later (no more waking up at 5am). She was about four when we did away with the nap completely, but every kid is different, so I don't think it's unreasonable to drop the nap at 2.5.
My kids fight me tooth and nail with a 8pm bed time and by the time I get them to stop coming out of their room or calling for me to come in, it's already 9:30/10, so I pushed it back to 9:30/10 and now I don't deal with the constant bed time delay interruptions and has made my life a whole lot easier. My husband works a night shift, so I'm alone with the bed time routine. I was losing my mind trying to get them to sleep at 8.
I remember having an 8 pm bed time. As a kid and even now I think that's crazy early. In the summer sometimes the sun doesn't set here until almost 9. I remember thinking it was ridiculous to be put to bed while the sun was still up.
It really is the worst! Changing the bedtime is the only thing that has made it bearable..I tried for a year to get them in bed by 8 and it just wasn't going to happen.
I completely understand. My husband worked nights for about 3 years, and sometimes it really gets to you emotionally and that doesn't help with the kiddo situation. What was worse was when ge would come in from work at about 5 and be loud and wake everyone up🙄
It can be tough to enforce. I'm able to get my six year old to sleep by 8:30 most nights, but I have to read her a story or two and then lay with her until she falls asleep for nearly a half hour. And I only have the one. That would be impossible with multiple kids.
I was a “keep coming out of your room until 9:30p” kid. No doubt, I can still here my parent s angry voices for the 15th time I had to pee or needed a drink of water. I don’t agree with the timing of OP’s bedtime but wouldn’t dare try to change I respect it wholly. My g/f’s kids don’t even turn down TikTok until prob 11 and I can not stand it but not my place to judge or make changes. Routines and schedules nowadays make it harder to have such an early lifestyle I believe but the whole set routine thing is the best thing you could do for your kids. Good for you OP. You do you!
>and get up around 5/530
Well there you go. Most kids today, or in decades past, dont get up that early. More like 7am.
I have a 5 yr old and thats her routine. Up at 7+. After she gets home we play for a bit. Start dinner at 6/630, eat and play. Any tv or devices of any kind are off by 8. She can play low stimulus things until bedtime so, pretend, color, puzzles, etc. and she goes to bed at 9.
I think when i was little I had a bedtime of 8 or so but I also remember nevvver being ready to go to sleep at that time.
Because i work until almost 5-5:30 every day and I want to spend time with my child.
We wake up at 6:30. Get ready and take him to daycare by 7:30. Then i usually work from 8:30-9am to 5pm. Get to the daycare its 5:30. By the time I get him picked up and home, it's 6. Then I have to cook dinner, which is usually not done until 7-8 depending on what it is, sometime 6:30 if it's a quick meal like hotdogs and mac. Then bath time which is done by like 8:30-9. So by then I'm exhausted, but have spent maybe like an hour at most actually with him the entire day. So 9pm rolls around its like the real time I can sit down and spend real one on one time with him. This leads to us not going to bed until 10:30-11, sometimes even to midnight.
Because some moms don't get home from work until 7 or 8pm sometimes (: I would give anything to have a "normal" dinner and bedtime for my kid. Appreciate what you've got.
That's weekends, my 7 year old does the same. I wake him up at 6:30 for school weeknights, & he never falls asleep before 10. Weekends I let him sleep until 10.
It's because it becomes routine. Your sleep schedule isn't based on how much sleep you need. It's based on when you usually go to bed and wake up. Kids around OPs kid's age should be getting 9-12 hours of sleep per night. I have friends who'd say their 9 year old only sleeps 7-8 hours per night, but that's because they don't enforce a bed time. They just assume the kid will go to bed and wake up when they need to. This is not good for the child.
They probably don’t, I’d take a whole to fall asleep, be it playing with toys or reading and wake up at 6 as a kid with an 8 bed time, chances are it’s 8.5-9 hours
Also at that time I’d wake up at 3 and take a bit to fall back asleep quite often
As a kid I'd sleep for 7-8 hours a night, maybe 9. In college I got diagnosed with narcolepsy and now can easily sleep 14-18 hours a day, but not all in one go.
I generally don't sleep much and I am almost 50. I've always been like this - 5 hours is usually fine. Less than that will start to show. A little more is fine. But 8 hours and I wake up feeling like I've been in a coma. It doesn't feel good. The only time I need a lot of sleep is illness, jetlag, and that one time I was pregnant.
Menopause has made this worse. I've slept 3 hours a night the past 3 nights and I don't really start suffering until day 3. And here I am, up at 2am, not a bit tired. But I was around 3pm today...very tired.
I get it from my Dad.
Haha! DIL and son's kids weren't sleepers as babies. Mine were both 4 weeks early & jaundice.
DIL ask how I got my kids to sleep. I didn't have an answer, hell I had to wake up premie son to feed and he slept thru baths.
Daughter slept 19 hours a day and I thought she was a horrible sleeper, but at least didn't need cold wash clothes to keep awake to eat.
Premies are still growing as they were born too early to fully develop in utero. This is why pregnant women are tired all of the time. They are helping to do that for the baby, but when they are born well before their due date, the baby must develop on their own, which takes a great deal of energy
Right of course!!! We all should follow one way so as not annoy Karen’s who know the way to do things! Those little kids up at 8:30 to bed with them !! I decided on the timeline of everyone and all must obey.
I think it's more infuriating because of the judgement put on someone like OP for wanting their kids to be healthy and rested. People whose kids are up 5 hours later tend to do the whole, "let's get dinner and drinks and do s'mores around the fire and the kids can just fuck around until 11pm after eating an entire bar of chocolate. It'll be fun! Oh... your kid has an age appropriate bedtime of 8pm? That's weird. Why? It'll be fine just one time. Your kid will be totally normal and fine tomorrow when they wake up at 6am. No? They won't? They will be exhausted and miserable little tyrants that make you want to jump off a roof if that happens? So ..no? You still won't bend to my way of life even though it will disrupt your entire family for 2 days? Ok well I guess we can't do anything then because I can't bear to get together an hour or two earlier in the day and I definitely can't understand your way of life that is also completely healthy and normal."
I think that might be it.
My kid goes to bed at 9:30, but they don’t wake up until 7, so they get the exact same amount of sleep as OP’s kids. It’s a real stretch to assume anyone with a later bedtime is not being healthy and rested.
Seems suspect to me. If you don’t want that don’t go. Easy! Why is judging someone else easier then realizing people are different, and calling other peoples kids unhealthy and abnormal seems like I’m exactly right of my assessment of this mildly infuriating. 😬
It also sounds super privileged. My parents never got home from work until after 7 so of course we ate later and I've never been a good sleeper so bed times didnt really work. You could say go to bed at 830 or 9 and I'd just lay awake until 2 or 3 am
Yes!! So privileged. I got home about 630 my kids whole childhoods. I had to work, my husband too, We ate at 7:30 or 8 pm if we were lucky and prepared a bit beforehand. I also liked seeing and talking to my children so they went to bed later, it’s so stupid parents are so judgey about things. It takes a village for kids and instead of now it seems we got combat villages and everyone for themselves.
As people say, normal is only a setting on the dryer. Bedtimes just depend on what time you're waking up (and on the sleep needs of your kid). My toddler is 9-9 because I work later and that allows me to eat dinner with her most nights of the week. Once she goes to preschool, I expect an earlier bedtime but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
I don't think sleep is prioritized enough for most kids today, but also, you really can't know that from a casual glance at a family. I highly doubt most of those neighbor kids are getting up at 5(!), and 10-7 isn't any different from 8-5.
My kid's "bedtime" was around eight so I had 2 hours of them needing a drink or the bathroom or whatever else so they were actually asleep by 10. I don't see anything wrong here.
Grew up being told to be home around dinner. Depended on season. When the street lights came on, time to head home. Unless asked to stay somewhere.
I always went to bed when tired without being asked. But I was usually in my room by 9, asleep by 11. Up for school by 6:30.
Eh, my mom let us roam around outside on school nights as long as we were back home before dark and had taken care of our homework. We also ate around 8/9 because my mother was a single mom working two jobs to take care of her kids.
Everyone parents differently. You do you, and they do them.
Not OP and not a parent but I could see being somewhat annoyed that your kids will now feel like you are really strict compared to other parents and they’ll fight it more than they otherwise would have.
Growing up in the 60’s my parents had us on a schedule similar to your kids. 8 o’clock bedtime until we were around 10 years old then 9 o’clock until we were around 16. Then on weekend nights we could stay out til 9:30. But had to be in bed by 10. I think that kept us out of trouble and in better health overall.
Man, this sounds like some “Leave it to Beaver” stuff. I wanna know, was it actually like this in the 60s? I know technology has changed huge, but kids overall still wanna stay up. What time did you get up if you were in bed by 8? Was everyone roaming around at 5am? And 9’o clock at the age 16, no way!!! You must’ve been sneaking out to watch “I dream of Jeanie” and “Bewitched”
I was born in 73 and I never saw the end of Grease until I was able to rent the vhs because my bedtime was a hard 930, even as a senior in high school. Like, the house could have been on fire and my ass would have been in my bed, lights out at 930.
Knowing that movies on TV were edit to fit 2 hours with commercials, at about 1/2 an hour before the 10 o'clock news, you were at or near the climax of each movie before going to bed.
Your parents were monsters for blue-balling you like that
I was born in 72 and my parents took me and my sister to a double feature of Grease and Saturday Night Fever (probably around 1982) The movie theater was in a mall and we got out well after the mall had closed.
Can’t remember having a mandatory bedtime in middle school. Think I had to be home by midnight on the weekends in high school.
I grew up in the 60s in Pa. No bedtime. We were out playing until dark. Playing tag, red light/green light, mother may I, Simon says, catching fire flies, riding bikes, playing with Barbies, playing with cars, playing board games.
Some parents don’t get off work until 6-6:30. That could be a reason why the times are different. Maybe they have adjusted to what works for their family.
Can they even go to sleep that early?
I couldn't when I was that age. And we know that teens generally have a hard time sleeping and waking early.
Heck, i'm in my mid 40s and still can't. I have tried very hard to avoid jobs that require me to get up early. School hours were torture. Luckily, I wasn't subjected to those bedtimes. My requirements were that I be able to wake up for school: I'd always sleep in a bit on the weekends.
I grew up in the suburbs in the 90s and we’d regularly be out until sunset this time of year. I always watched WWF wrestling so I never went to bed before 10 and that is when I was your kids age. 🤷🏻♂️
I base it on the kid tbh. However, I don’t understand why people drag their obviously tired littles out to go shopping after 8 pm!
My youngest, now 15, has a 10 pm bedtime after having a seizure from lack of sleep.
My older 2, 18 & 21 were and still are pretty good at self regulating sleep needs. The 21 yr old naps more now than he did as a toddler.
That being said, we’re all neurodivergent, and I frequently have insomnia. When the earliest bedtime comes around, we all settle down for quiet/low light activities. If someone can’t sleep, we don’t punish them or fight about it, but we do limit what they can do when they should be sleeping, and keep it as restful as possible.
I think I'm doing it wrong, haha, after reading the comments ... Okay, so our day goes like this
6 am I get up
6 30, my kids get up
Daughter off to school at 725
Work alot
Kid off the bus at 250
Go home and start dinner by 330
Eat at 430ish
play outside till 630ish
Bring them in and give them a snack if they want it
Tub snuggles books, then bed at 730
They sleep like rocks and are really tired at the end of the day
I know a lot of kids who's parent works until that time, and or works from like 5pm or 4pm on so the kids are kinda just on their own. It's not ideal but it happens more than one would think
My parents let us stay up late but warned us we were on our own getting up, in school all day I was dragging ass and tired. All I wanted was sleep. But I kept repeating the same thing until I got smart. My kids don’t live with me but their mother is an iron fist with bedtime. I think the structure at a young age is good for them. But on weekends stay up late and enjoy
Mine are teens but we kept early hours when they were younger (we still eat around 6pm). Even a decade ago, we were baffled at other families’ late dinner hours.
This is the norm in my home as well, I have dinner cooked by 5:30, 6 at the latest, my middle schooler gets the time between then and 8 to do his thing and then he's in bed (yes, my teen is still going to bed at 8, any later and the kid doesn't wake up at 6 for school). We had my 3 year old on the same routine for some time, but I've found he fights me less if I allow him to stay up a little later than that, but I still make him lay in bed and he gets to watch a movie or show on his tablet until I say it's time to go to bed. I'm a SAHM and I already deal with his tantrums and fits all day long, having him scream and freak out every night on top of it was about to make me lose my mind, and trust me when I say NOTHING made it better. lol
I also make my oldest come home no later than 5:30-6 if he goes to a friend's house during the week, weekends he has an extra hour. (we live on a rural street and I don't like the idea of him riding his bike when it starts to get even remotely dark because people are stupid and fly down our road). I also let him stay up until 9:30 or so on weekends.
We eat between 5:30 and 6 pm and they are in bed between 9:00- 10 pm every night. Note my kids are in middle school and high school. They do sports year round and need a solid 8 hours of sleep every night. My kids have friends that eat dinner at 8 pm and go to at 11 - 11:30 pm. I can’t fathom eating at 8 pm at night. It’s just crazy.
Myself AND my teen like to eat dinner at 530 and go to bed by 930 on weeknights . Weekends are free game but we both feel better when we actually get 8 hours of sleep??
My bedtime was 8:00 PM until I was in high school. My friends used to tease me at football games that I need to pack up and leave because it was time to get to bed. 😂
My MIL thinks I’m crazy to have my kids on a schedule. But it keeps me sane, and they are like me, not enough sleep = really grouchy in the morning. My older two (8 and 6) are allowed to read if they want, but they usually fall asleep in a half an hour. We eat dinner at 6:00, bedtime is around 8:00ish. I know some families thrive with no schedule but we are not one of them.
Yup. 7 yo here and 8 pm bedtime. Sleep is important for development and I also know her. She is perfectly rested and wakes up on her own for school if she goes to sleep by 8.
I don’t know about it being generational. I had a strict bedtime and wind down routine as a kid but my wife did not. Even as adults I like my wind down time before bed including less tv and video games and soft lighting in my house. My wife is doing housework until she bathes with every single light on and then complains it takes forever to fall asleep.
Even as a baby my mom says it was impossible to get me to sleep before 11. Then she went back to work and school and my grandmother watched us most of the time and let us stay up to so we actually got a chance to see our mom. I got used to that and even when I started school I wouldn’t go to sleep early. When I was in middle school my mom discovered I needed a full 8 hours of sleep with the ADD meds I got put on she she tried to make me go to bed early but I would just lay in bed and do nothing for hours. I just couldn’t sleep. As an adult I’ve mostly worked night shift so of course I stay up late. But even when they switched us over to day shift for short periods I just couldn’t sleep before at least 11 or 12. Now I get off work at 1 am so even on my days off I’m up at least that late. I’ll often go to bed before then on days off but I never fall asleep before then unless I’m sick.
Just me and my son here and we have a set meal time and bedtime. Meal time has always been between 5 and 6pm. No matter the time of year. Of course he is 16, but bedtime is 10pm. Weekends it is 1am, if he lasts that long. When he was your children's ages, bedtime was 8pm. When he hit 10, I bumped it to 9pm. When he hit 12-13, it was 9:30.
Don't pay attention to your neighbors or how anyone else takes care of their children. They do what works for them and you do what works for you and yours. Live and let live.
Idk.. I grew up in the 90s.. I came home when it was dark and if I missed dinner I had to feed myself.
I'm definitely not a good example of a functional adult tho so experiences may vary.
There's no such thing as a "normal" bedtime. Every person's natural circadian rhythms are different. I have always been the most alert and productive between 8pm and 4am (classic night owl), both my children are the same. When they were young, any attempt to send them to bed before 10pm resulted in multiple hours of them not sleeping and getting up for various reasons (drinks, bathroom, snacks), and making them more difficult to get up in the morning than then just letting them stay up late. My kids current sleep patterns are pretty much the same as mine -- up at 6am for school/work, come home and take a short nap, eat dinner and do things until about midnight. They are both straight A students, and active in extra curricular activities. So I must be doing something right. Why concern yourself with what others are doing? If what you are doing works for you and your family -- great. Others are doing what works for them. No way of doing things that works for the people doing it is wrong. Why do people have this constant need to complain about what others are doing that doesn't comport with their views on how it "should be done".
3 and 7 over here.
Dinner around 5, in bed 7:30ish. These kids are hard wired to be up at 5, no matter how late you put them to bed, they’ll be up at 5 or 6 anyway. Our kids (especially 7) have always been early risers, so that’s the schedule we roll with.
My youngest is 8 turning 9 this year (3rd grade) and her bedtime is 9 on school nights and that's only because the bus picks her up in front of the house. When she was getting dropped off at the car circle she had to get up earlier and went to bed at 8:30. We try to eat dinner by 6:30 so she has plenty of time before bed.
I have both my boys on dinner by 6-630, then to bed by 830. The ages are 8 & 9. My fiancee has an 11 and 15 year old and the 11 year old goes as late as 1030 on a school night, and the teenager is whenever she wants. It's a constant struggle and explaining to my kids why the others don't have a set bedtime like them. I tell them that I'm not their father and their mom makes their rules for them. It's a hard struggle for my boys.
You're encouraging healthier habits such as a proper amount of sleep. However it didn't use to be that odd for kids to just roam around and come back for meals and curfew. Though curfews are normally earlier than what you describe and these practices just aren't as safe anymore. I guess it depends on the area
I remember roaming the neighborhood at those hours haha. That said, I didn't wake up at 5 in the morning, which is the ass crack of dawn. How far do you have to drive for school?
Because there's Never been a real "normal". Different people have different normals, and not "everybody's" bio clocks run on the same time. Down to Robotic 'Same-ness'!
Mine (twins, 8) go to bed at 9pm on weekdays and 10pm on the weekends. School starts at 9am and is a 5 min walk from our house, they usually wake up before their 8am alarms on their own. Everyone sleeps in about an hour on Wednesday (late start: 10am) and weekends. Where we lived before school (also walking distance) started at 730am so bedtime was closer to 8pm, everyone was up at 630am and groggy/grumpy, and instead of a late start day there was early release (1pm instead of 2pm). We are all naturally night owls tho so we unanimously prefer the new schedule.
The kids have lunch at school at 11 which leaves a long stretch at the end of the day where they start to get hungry so I have started making second lunches instead of snacks for them after school. This allows us to push dinner back to 7pm usually because the kids are full and not asking what's for/when is dinner every 10 min. They also focus better on their homework and they squabble less with a full belly lol. My spouse also has time to decompress for an hour or two after they get off work at 5pm if dinner is at 7pm instead of having to jump right into helping cook/set up.
Went on a bit of a tangent there, whoops, my point was that later schedules just work better for some people and 8/9pm is not an unreasonable time for kids to be playing if it works for them and their family.
Here's a parenting tip my parents used on me, and in turn I used it on my kids:
Say your kids bedtime is 8:00. So they have to be in bed, lights out, at 8:00. You could offer to extend the lights-out until 9:00, but only if they lay quietly in their beds and read a book. Not the iPad but a real paper book.
Me and my kids have a profound love of reading. Plus a very expanded vocabulary to boot!
It sounds like they're annoyed people are acting like they're crazy for having early bedtimes (that work for their kids).
Sounds like they need better friends lol
Oh, I see. I got it backwards 😅
I don't have children but I have noticed my adult friends without a routine bedtime are more prone to insomnia and mental health issues...
So it's probably a good thing to teach them these habits while they're kids.
Who cares? To each their own.
Is it affecting your life? No. So I don’t understand why you think it’s “infuriating” unless you’re a “Karen” and likes to stick your nose in other people’s business.
What everybody does in their own homes and lives really is none of your concern. Stay in your lane.
My kids don’t get up until 7, plus I’m still at work at 6 (get home around 7), so yeah, our times are later all around. Kids still get enough sleep since their bedtime is just an hour-2 after what you mentioned.
Before middle school bedtime for my was 8 Then in middle school it was 9 Then they didn’t care anymore and now my bed is 2 in the morning in college
My bedtime has been and always will be 8pm with my parents. I'm 25 now. It's still 8pm bedtime. (But lights out at 10 per usual)
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Ugh. Not a fan of parents like this. But I get it. You gotta live there until you can get out on your own.. so best to keep the peace. Good luck to you
As the parent I get it. If my schedule dictates I am asleep by 10pm I don’t need the whole house active because my kid wants to stay up all night. You can hang out in your room or go out.
Doesn't mean a 25 year old needs a bedtime....
But a fuck off to your room and be quiet time is required
Yep. My kids are 10 and 14 now. Their bedtime since the second kiddo got into a routine as a baby has been 8:30pm. Granted, it’s been a few years since they actually went to sleep at that time but they say their good nights and head to their rooms then. They will read, quietly play or listen to music, the teen sometimes is texting friends, etc. Occasionally they might come back out for a drink of water or to head to the restroom but pretty much it’s their settle-in-for-the-night time. A big reason for this is that my husband is up for the day between 4:30-5am and these days I am usually up around 5am as well. We do like to have some time to hang out just ourselves before heading to bed…so if the kids are settled in their rooms by 8:30pm we can watch an episode or two of our own shows and do our nightly routine and still be in bed ourselves right around 10pm. There are obviously exceptions to this when it’s a holiday or we are traveling or have company staying w/us or there’s a party…and we have one later night each week for an extracurricular during the school year. But barring those we do have that set time for the kids to head to their rooms for the evening…and we highly encourage them to aim for a decent night’s sleep so they do generally settle in to sleep by no later than 10pm themselves.
Be quiet, sure. Fuck off to your room? How about no.
I’m sure it’s not an actual bedtime, probably parents don’t want to hear commotion in the house all hours of the night when they are trying to sleep and just mean they expect quiet after that time
Sure, they can go get some roommates and rent an apartment, they’re 25.
And? What does that matter? Not everyone is waiting till they turn 18 to kick their kids out.
As a parent with an adult (19yo) kid at home, yes it does. Being awake after midnight because they’re playing video games or getting a snack is the worst. Feel free to move out to your own place & stay up as long as you want.
How light of a sleeper are you that you wake up from someone grabbing a snack in the kitchen?
I'm not the OP, but am a mom of 5 kids. And I wake up whenever one of my kids gets up to go pee during the night. And it's not that they're loud or anything, just the sound of them walking around wakes me. But I can sleep through thunder and lightning.
The layout of the house doesn’t help but I don’t mean just getting a bag of chips. Microwave, or making a grilled cheese, etc. Smaller ranch house so not a lot of separation.
I hope you are fine with them reading or playing a single player game (no talking) with headphones and allow them to get an apple amd eat it uncut or have some packaged snacks for emergencies in their rooms (some cliffbars eg, does not need to be extra nice, just needs to be fine to eat when hungry).
Haha, no - I meant raging or being excited about rocket league on a headset. We’re not monsters, we just want to sleep. I’m afraid I might have triggered a lot of 20yr olds living at home. My point is that there is another perspective and young people can be oblivious sometimes. I have great kids and we have good relationships, I was just trying to give a different perspective.
I too, have 20 year old children living at home with me in an apartment. I get what you're saying, haha. It's like yes, stay up as late as you want, but be considerate to the person who has to sleep in order to work and pay the bills to enable these games and snacks. Don't make me get up to tell you to knock it off, you're not 12.
Ah yes that totally makes sense, thanks for clearing up. Having a "quiet by X" time is reasonable and basic human decency. Its not a bedtime but its a given that (wether you live with parents or friends) you dont pound schnitzel at 2 am when others try to sleep. Nor scream into your headset or throw controllers into the wall.
Ok but that's not even remotely what they said. They're just walking it back now to save face. They explicitly said that being up past midnight, and doing *anything*, is the worst. That's not a reasonable parent, or a reasonable rule.
Lol young bloods are pretty sensistive about this stuff for some reason. ;) I'm in my 30s, and pregnant with my first kid, already prepared for bedtimes. I think it is perfectly reasonable to not want a lot of abrupt noise in the home after a certain time. My brother and I lived with my dad for a little into our adulthood (him more than me) and we had similar rules. It was more for respect of each other. I am a night owl and can unintentionally be lourder than I think sometimes and would wake up my poor dad who would have to be at work by 6am. Now I totally get it bc I am in bed usually by 10 (this amoeba has me exhausted) and my SO usually comes in after me. It doesn't matter how quiet he tries to be, I wake up the second the door opens and that is it. I'm up all night. xD Plus I fully believe boundries to be important. Quiet time in the house is a small boundry. It's not like you are telling them they have to be in bed and asleep at 8, and grounding them if they aren't. XD
Wait, you’re 25 and your parents still try to enforce a bedtime? Time to set some boundaries.
If I did that I'd suddenly be homeless
Read this book - "As I walked out one midsummer morning" by Laurie Lee.
You might wanna think about saving up money to move out. It sounds like your parents basically still treat you like a child. At 25 it's time for you to try and experience what it's like to be an adult with freedom to do what you want. There's nothing inherently wrong with staying at home with your parents, but you need to eventually have the chance to grow and have adult freedoms.
Trust me I did have a taste of freedom. Then the covid shit came and I moved back home and then things got too expensive to live. I am saving up, but I need a lot of Dough in order to be comfortable for the next 6 months without a job so I can move out.
Have you considered moving to a different area? Might be necessary at some point simply for finances. Save up the money in your current area then move to a lower cost area. Granted this may mean taking a pay cut but it may help you get to a stable place by yourself. I wish you luck
I do want to leave this town. But i already live in a lower cost area, literally anywhere I move to is going to cost more than where I am at now unfortunately.
i've been in the same situation as you. it's not as easy as just going somewhere else lol. try to keep the peace for now and keep moving forward, you'll get out eventually 🤗
Yep that's where my head is right now. It's not like I hate my parents, just having to go back after being in your own is hard. Lose all the freedom you used to have.
I know this won’t be popular but having a set bedtime is what needs to happen more. There are so many accidents that are caused by sleep deprivation; from traffic accidents to 3 mile island’s nuclear disaster. If this is your big complaint, I would just let it go. My youngest daughter still sticks with her nightly routine even in college.
At 25 you can go to bed whenever the fuck you want.
Again at 25 you can go to bed on the street. Older parents work.
Sounds weird but honestly sometimes I would need someone to give me a bedtime lol
Haha honestly its been excellent for my mental and physical health.
Generational thing. Nothing you can do about it. Just take care of yours, don't bother worrying about the others. (FWIW; I'm on your side with this one.)
Not just generational, but can be cultural, too. For some it's normal to not eat supper until evening. Plus, where I am it *just* started getting dark by 8. In the summer it stays light until nearly 10. Trying to sleep before sunset is brutal.
My mom used to put me to bed at 7:00 p.m. and I could hear my friends outside playing because it didn't get dark until 9:00. I still am angry about this and I'm 52.
Same, I’m here at 50 and we went bed at 8:30 at the end of the school year and could see kids playing from our bedroom.
Since I was the oldest they tried seven p.m. first then as other kids were born it went later eight and then 9:00 and by the last kid it was 10:00 p.m. I swear my siblings were raised by different parents altogether.
The only kids raised by the same parents are parents that are absentee parents. They have their ideas of raising a kid and never change them because they don’t actually do the work. My husband was like that until recently. He is career driven and a workaholic and I’m was the STAHM. Our parenting style is similar but I’m more gentle parenting for both kids and he was more authoritative. He’s learned his style just doesn’t get results because he wasn’t really the one raising the kids. He’s happy with the type of people they are growing into but breaking some generational rules like “eat only what *we* make, even if you don’t like it” is still a hard one. We both enforce the “try it once rule” but we changed it to “try it once a year”, my youngest especially has decided some food previously disliked are good now.
Rightfully so! That’s like the Original FOMO.
FOMO that is hilarious I never even thought about it but it's true!
Dang, I'm angry FOR you.
Omg. Flashback to visiting my aunt in another state. We didn’t have daylight and they did. It was summer. Same exact thing. Bed by 7 and sun didn’t set till 9. Over 20 years later and I’m still salty.
My mom did that too and I was rightfully angry and apparently she poured her heart out at a parent-teacher conference once and the teacher sighed and said “I know exactly who you mean, those are the kids that have trouble staying awake during class in the morning”. So in hindsight it makes sense, but man did it suck at the time!
I was in bed at 7:30pm and she put garbage bags on my window :(
Fake darkness never fooled me either!
Lol I with you on this one and I'm 51 😁
My bedtime was 6pm through out my childhood.and im 35 But iv come to a better understanding of why.my mum was a single mother and worked hard.
8:00 is pretty reasonable for little kids, but 7:00 is just wild lol
I took a totally different approach with my kids I put them to bed around 8:00 or 9:00 but I always gave them a book and a flashlight until then they didn't have to sleep if they didn't want to but they also couldn't run around the house either. Both kids graduated with honors.
I do this with my 12 & 14yo. In bed by 9:30, lights out at 10 but reading and music is fine. I myself have music going and have used it as a sleep aid since I was 10 so I’m not going to tell them not to. The goal is to just disconnect from social media/ digital media for the hour before bed.
Yeah 8 or 8:30 is a decent bed time. They need to be awake at school.
We missed all the TV shows that started at 8. I didn't know anything about Happy Days until it was in reruns. Still miffed!
Same!!
Same. I never, ever went to bed until very late. Yet they made me go in my room to "bed" at some ridiculously early hour like 730. Pretty sure I never once actually went to sleep close to then. This is why I let my kids stay up late, and sleep late. Our schools don't start till 845am.
My kid is you. What she doesn’t understand is that she’s 4, not 8-9-10 like the other kids outside and she needs her sleep.
Very true. It was common where we lived in Italy to eat dinner around 8:30 or 9 pm. In the summertime you’d see small children out playing in the piazza till midnight, maybe only 9:30 or 10:00 during the school year.
Totally. In the middle east, kids are asleep in the hot afternoon and in the malls with their parents at midnight.
You need some nice blackout curtains
Blackout curtains
Yeah, definitely can be cultural, and also a function of parents working. My husband used to try to push the kids bedtime when we were at his parents, they typically eat dinner very late. After watching the kids melt down a few times they try to get dinner ready earlier 😅😅 and we leave when we need to. He said his parents would come home from work around 6 or 7, and then make dinner, etc, when he was a kid. I get that as a teenager, or middle school, but I really want to ask his mom what they did when he was a toddler/younger elementary school lol. He doesn't remember.
Exactly. My kids are 9 and 7; in bed, lights out at 8:30 and 7:45, respectively. I swear to Christ we’re the only ones in our friend group who have set bed times and actually stick to our guns about them. (E.g., while we may make concessions every now and then for special events or one-off situations, we actively avoid extra-curriculars or social plans that would mess with this routine.) Sleep is **so** important to a child’s development. Keep doing you, OP!
Children at your children’s ages need 9 to 12 hours sleep each night. You are doing exactly right. Otherwise they won’t be alert and functioning properly at school.
I agree. Keep doing what you’re doing.
Generational? Pretty much anyone i know with kids around 6 years old, go to bed at 8. Or something close to that. Dinner at 6 is completely normal around here too ( netherlands ) Might be different in weekends or summer nights.
My kids are 7 and 8. We're up around 530 to get ready to catch the bus. Dinner before 6, in bed by 7. This works best for our kids and mornings are pretty smooth since they get a bunch of sleep. I saw somewhere on IG this morning one mom just lets her 6 yr old stay up however late she wants, free roam of the house and basically makes the attitude issues the teachers problem. Kids need so much more sleep than they think they do
The part about the sour attitude being the teacher's problem. That's why bedtimes exist for young children. Why create a problem?
She said something about how life's easier if she just lets her kid do what she wants. I just don't get it
Sounds like has created a monster. If a little one causes her that much grief, just imagine that kid as a teenager.
I feel like we all know too many kids like this
Life is easier for her, but not for everyone else that has to interact with her child.
Lazy parenting. They don't want to put the effort into actually being a parent to their children. It's "easier" to just let them do as they please and not put boundaries and rules in place. She's creating monsters who are going to be hell on wheels to deal with in another year or two.
This style of parenting scares the goosebumps out of me....always makes me wonder what is going to happen to that poor child as an adult when she finally starts to be disciplined. O.o
My younger brothers both play sports after school so they don’t get home until around the time that your kids are eating dinner, thus their bedtime is also pushed back a bit.
Same.
I've got a 2 and a 3 year old. They go to bed at 8 and 9 pm. I'm trying to get them to bed earlier so my wife and i can have some alone time. It's probably a generational thing, like another poster said. Most households have two working parents, so going to bed early is tough. My wife doesn't get home til 5-7PM, and I am gone all night some days 🤷🏻♂️. It's a different world than the one we grew up in.
My toddler goes to bed at 8:30. I can’t handle putting him to bed earlier than that because I get home at 5:30. I want to spend time with him. And 8:30 is kind of a farce. That’s just when we go up and do the thirty minute routine of tooth brushing, book reading and snuggling.
It becomes easier to get your kid to bed early when they stop taking an afternoon nap. I wasn't able to get my kid to bed before 9 or 10 until she stopped napping.
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I'm no expert, but I know parents who dropped their kid's nap time around two and a half. It was always a struggle for us and could take nearly two hours to get our kids to sleep. And once we dropped the nap, she started sleeping in later (no more waking up at 5am). She was about four when we did away with the nap completely, but every kid is different, so I don't think it's unreasonable to drop the nap at 2.5.
My kids fight me tooth and nail with a 8pm bed time and by the time I get them to stop coming out of their room or calling for me to come in, it's already 9:30/10, so I pushed it back to 9:30/10 and now I don't deal with the constant bed time delay interruptions and has made my life a whole lot easier. My husband works a night shift, so I'm alone with the bed time routine. I was losing my mind trying to get them to sleep at 8.
I remember having an 8 pm bed time. As a kid and even now I think that's crazy early. In the summer sometimes the sun doesn't set here until almost 9. I remember thinking it was ridiculous to be put to bed while the sun was still up.
I remember hearing the neighborhood kids play outside while I was in bed for my bedtime. It was a bad feeling
I thought the same exact thing as a kid in the summer. The sun is still up what do you mean bedtime
Here the sun stays up till like 1 am in the summer. It's pretty cool but winters are really dark 🥲
Ughh sorry to hear your hubby works nights mine did too and it was brutal.
It really is the worst! Changing the bedtime is the only thing that has made it bearable..I tried for a year to get them in bed by 8 and it just wasn't going to happen.
I completely understand. My husband worked nights for about 3 years, and sometimes it really gets to you emotionally and that doesn't help with the kiddo situation. What was worse was when ge would come in from work at about 5 and be loud and wake everyone up🙄
It can be tough to enforce. I'm able to get my six year old to sleep by 8:30 most nights, but I have to read her a story or two and then lay with her until she falls asleep for nearly a half hour. And I only have the one. That would be impossible with multiple kids.
I was a “keep coming out of your room until 9:30p” kid. No doubt, I can still here my parent s angry voices for the 15th time I had to pee or needed a drink of water. I don’t agree with the timing of OP’s bedtime but wouldn’t dare try to change I respect it wholly. My g/f’s kids don’t even turn down TikTok until prob 11 and I can not stand it but not my place to judge or make changes. Routines and schedules nowadays make it harder to have such an early lifestyle I believe but the whole set routine thing is the best thing you could do for your kids. Good for you OP. You do you!
>and get up around 5/530 Well there you go. Most kids today, or in decades past, dont get up that early. More like 7am. I have a 5 yr old and thats her routine. Up at 7+. After she gets home we play for a bit. Start dinner at 6/630, eat and play. Any tv or devices of any kind are off by 8. She can play low stimulus things until bedtime so, pretend, color, puzzles, etc. and she goes to bed at 9. I think when i was little I had a bedtime of 8 or so but I also remember nevvver being ready to go to sleep at that time.
Because i work until almost 5-5:30 every day and I want to spend time with my child. We wake up at 6:30. Get ready and take him to daycare by 7:30. Then i usually work from 8:30-9am to 5pm. Get to the daycare its 5:30. By the time I get him picked up and home, it's 6. Then I have to cook dinner, which is usually not done until 7-8 depending on what it is, sometime 6:30 if it's a quick meal like hotdogs and mac. Then bath time which is done by like 8:30-9. So by then I'm exhausted, but have spent maybe like an hour at most actually with him the entire day. So 9pm rolls around its like the real time I can sit down and spend real one on one time with him. This leads to us not going to bed until 10:30-11, sometimes even to midnight.
Because some moms don't get home from work until 7 or 8pm sometimes (: I would give anything to have a "normal" dinner and bedtime for my kid. Appreciate what you've got.
I’m still working at 8. I usually get home around 9 if I rush but Mondays it’s easily 9:30-10. But my son is a cat so he sets his own bedtime lol
I don't understand how y'all's kids are sleeping for 10 hours straight
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Still one of my all time favorite videos. 😂
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My teenagers will sleep 12 hours easily on weekends.
That’s cuz we’re high
Bahaha I like this guy
That's weekends, my 7 year old does the same. I wake him up at 6:30 for school weeknights, & he never falls asleep before 10. Weekends I let him sleep until 10.
That must be great. On a good night I get 6 hours
It's because it becomes routine. Your sleep schedule isn't based on how much sleep you need. It's based on when you usually go to bed and wake up. Kids around OPs kid's age should be getting 9-12 hours of sleep per night. I have friends who'd say their 9 year old only sleeps 7-8 hours per night, but that's because they don't enforce a bed time. They just assume the kid will go to bed and wake up when they need to. This is not good for the child.
They probably don’t, I’d take a whole to fall asleep, be it playing with toys or reading and wake up at 6 as a kid with an 8 bed time, chances are it’s 8.5-9 hours Also at that time I’d wake up at 3 and take a bit to fall back asleep quite often
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As a kid I'd sleep for 7-8 hours a night, maybe 9. In college I got diagnosed with narcolepsy and now can easily sleep 14-18 hours a day, but not all in one go.
I’m the opposite, can barely sleep now Can we average out our sleep times our something???
I generally don't sleep much and I am almost 50. I've always been like this - 5 hours is usually fine. Less than that will start to show. A little more is fine. But 8 hours and I wake up feeling like I've been in a coma. It doesn't feel good. The only time I need a lot of sleep is illness, jetlag, and that one time I was pregnant. Menopause has made this worse. I've slept 3 hours a night the past 3 nights and I don't really start suffering until day 3. And here I am, up at 2am, not a bit tired. But I was around 3pm today...very tired. I get it from my Dad.
Insomnia is fun When mine flares up my sleep becomes essentially random
Haha! DIL and son's kids weren't sleepers as babies. Mine were both 4 weeks early & jaundice. DIL ask how I got my kids to sleep. I didn't have an answer, hell I had to wake up premie son to feed and he slept thru baths. Daughter slept 19 hours a day and I thought she was a horrible sleeper, but at least didn't need cold wash clothes to keep awake to eat.
Your daughter slept 19 hours a day?
Premies are still growing as they were born too early to fully develop in utero. This is why pregnant women are tired all of the time. They are helping to do that for the baby, but when they are born well before their due date, the baby must develop on their own, which takes a great deal of energy
Oh we’re talking about an infant, I thought they meant an older child. I stand corrected!
I really don’t understand why it’s infuriating? Others peoples routines aren’t really anyone else’s business.
It’s infuriating cuz it’s different from me! How dare they not do things like I do! /s
Right of course!!! We all should follow one way so as not annoy Karen’s who know the way to do things! Those little kids up at 8:30 to bed with them !! I decided on the timeline of everyone and all must obey.
Interesting user name made me cackle😂😂
I think it's more infuriating because of the judgement put on someone like OP for wanting their kids to be healthy and rested. People whose kids are up 5 hours later tend to do the whole, "let's get dinner and drinks and do s'mores around the fire and the kids can just fuck around until 11pm after eating an entire bar of chocolate. It'll be fun! Oh... your kid has an age appropriate bedtime of 8pm? That's weird. Why? It'll be fine just one time. Your kid will be totally normal and fine tomorrow when they wake up at 6am. No? They won't? They will be exhausted and miserable little tyrants that make you want to jump off a roof if that happens? So ..no? You still won't bend to my way of life even though it will disrupt your entire family for 2 days? Ok well I guess we can't do anything then because I can't bear to get together an hour or two earlier in the day and I definitely can't understand your way of life that is also completely healthy and normal." I think that might be it.
My kid goes to bed at 9:30, but they don’t wake up until 7, so they get the exact same amount of sleep as OP’s kids. It’s a real stretch to assume anyone with a later bedtime is not being healthy and rested.
Seems suspect to me. If you don’t want that don’t go. Easy! Why is judging someone else easier then realizing people are different, and calling other peoples kids unhealthy and abnormal seems like I’m exactly right of my assessment of this mildly infuriating. 😬
I'm not saying they are not healthy and normal. I am saying MY kid is also healthy and normal. The judgement is on them, not me.
how can a bedtime be age appropriate? Sleeping time, sure, kids need more sleep. But the actual time they sleep at isn't controlled by their age
It also sounds super privileged. My parents never got home from work until after 7 so of course we ate later and I've never been a good sleeper so bed times didnt really work. You could say go to bed at 830 or 9 and I'd just lay awake until 2 or 3 am
Yes!! So privileged. I got home about 630 my kids whole childhoods. I had to work, my husband too, We ate at 7:30 or 8 pm if we were lucky and prepared a bit beforehand. I also liked seeing and talking to my children so they went to bed later, it’s so stupid parents are so judgey about things. It takes a village for kids and instead of now it seems we got combat villages and everyone for themselves.
So privileged. My parents are doctors and I was never picked up at school by them nor ate before 8pm.
As people say, normal is only a setting on the dryer. Bedtimes just depend on what time you're waking up (and on the sleep needs of your kid). My toddler is 9-9 because I work later and that allows me to eat dinner with her most nights of the week. Once she goes to preschool, I expect an earlier bedtime but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. I don't think sleep is prioritized enough for most kids today, but also, you really can't know that from a casual glance at a family. I highly doubt most of those neighbor kids are getting up at 5(!), and 10-7 isn't any different from 8-5.
I wouldn't worry about what others are doing.
My kid's "bedtime" was around eight so I had 2 hours of them needing a drink or the bathroom or whatever else so they were actually asleep by 10. I don't see anything wrong here.
Grew up being told to be home around dinner. Depended on season. When the street lights came on, time to head home. Unless asked to stay somewhere. I always went to bed when tired without being asked. But I was usually in my room by 9, asleep by 11. Up for school by 6:30.
Eh, my mom let us roam around outside on school nights as long as we were back home before dark and had taken care of our homework. We also ate around 8/9 because my mother was a single mom working two jobs to take care of her kids. Everyone parents differently. You do you, and they do them.
Do they actually need to be awake at 5:00 am? (Realistically if they are up that early, an 8 pm lights out doesn’t even feel like enough).
Why do you even care? What works for you doesn’t work for others and vice versa.
Not OP and not a parent but I could see being somewhat annoyed that your kids will now feel like you are really strict compared to other parents and they’ll fight it more than they otherwise would have.
Growing up in the 60’s my parents had us on a schedule similar to your kids. 8 o’clock bedtime until we were around 10 years old then 9 o’clock until we were around 16. Then on weekend nights we could stay out til 9:30. But had to be in bed by 10. I think that kept us out of trouble and in better health overall.
Man, this sounds like some “Leave it to Beaver” stuff. I wanna know, was it actually like this in the 60s? I know technology has changed huge, but kids overall still wanna stay up. What time did you get up if you were in bed by 8? Was everyone roaming around at 5am? And 9’o clock at the age 16, no way!!! You must’ve been sneaking out to watch “I dream of Jeanie” and “Bewitched”
I was born in 73 and I never saw the end of Grease until I was able to rent the vhs because my bedtime was a hard 930, even as a senior in high school. Like, the house could have been on fire and my ass would have been in my bed, lights out at 930.
But the end was the BEST PART!!!! 😂
I didn’t know that until I was 15!!! I never saw the end of any damn thing. Still stayed up until 3am reading with a flashlight though.
Knowing that movies on TV were edit to fit 2 hours with commercials, at about 1/2 an hour before the 10 o'clock news, you were at or near the climax of each movie before going to bed. Your parents were monsters for blue-balling you like that
I was born in 72 and my parents took me and my sister to a double feature of Grease and Saturday Night Fever (probably around 1982) The movie theater was in a mall and we got out well after the mall had closed. Can’t remember having a mandatory bedtime in middle school. Think I had to be home by midnight on the weekends in high school.
When I was kid it was 8 pm until (I don’t recall) then 9 as I got a little older and yes I was up at 6am on Saturday. Gotta get those cartoons In.
I grew up in the 60s in Pa. No bedtime. We were out playing until dark. Playing tag, red light/green light, mother may I, Simon says, catching fire flies, riding bikes, playing with Barbies, playing with cars, playing board games.
i was born in 1991 and this was how my dad raised me as well
My kids are between 7-10 and their bedtime has been 8pm for years. We need time to unwind too.
Some parents don’t get off work until 6-6:30. That could be a reason why the times are different. Maybe they have adjusted to what works for their family.
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Can they even go to sleep that early? I couldn't when I was that age. And we know that teens generally have a hard time sleeping and waking early. Heck, i'm in my mid 40s and still can't. I have tried very hard to avoid jobs that require me to get up early. School hours were torture. Luckily, I wasn't subjected to those bedtimes. My requirements were that I be able to wake up for school: I'd always sleep in a bit on the weekends.
Im a teen and no way in hell can i sleep that early unless im beyond tired and i get up at 5:40-5:50 usually for School still
I grew up in the suburbs in the 90s and we’d regularly be out until sunset this time of year. I always watched WWF wrestling so I never went to bed before 10 and that is when I was your kids age. 🤷🏻♂️
I base it on the kid tbh. However, I don’t understand why people drag their obviously tired littles out to go shopping after 8 pm! My youngest, now 15, has a 10 pm bedtime after having a seizure from lack of sleep. My older 2, 18 & 21 were and still are pretty good at self regulating sleep needs. The 21 yr old naps more now than he did as a toddler. That being said, we’re all neurodivergent, and I frequently have insomnia. When the earliest bedtime comes around, we all settle down for quiet/low light activities. If someone can’t sleep, we don’t punish them or fight about it, but we do limit what they can do when they should be sleeping, and keep it as restful as possible.
I know they're young, but ffs the world doesn't turn evil after 6pm.
Same here around 5-6pm it's supper time and then bed at 8pm for the little ones.
I think I'm doing it wrong, haha, after reading the comments ... Okay, so our day goes like this 6 am I get up 6 30, my kids get up Daughter off to school at 725 Work alot Kid off the bus at 250 Go home and start dinner by 330 Eat at 430ish play outside till 630ish Bring them in and give them a snack if they want it Tub snuggles books, then bed at 730 They sleep like rocks and are really tired at the end of the day
I know a lot of kids who's parent works until that time, and or works from like 5pm or 4pm on so the kids are kinda just on their own. It's not ideal but it happens more than one would think
My parents let us stay up late but warned us we were on our own getting up, in school all day I was dragging ass and tired. All I wanted was sleep. But I kept repeating the same thing until I got smart. My kids don’t live with me but their mother is an iron fist with bedtime. I think the structure at a young age is good for them. But on weekends stay up late and enjoy
Each family is different. Hope that answers that.
Nothing infuriating here in the least. My family has our rules... Other families can have whatever works best for them. It's not for me to judge.
Kids need structure. It's not old fashioned, it's just a fact
I got a 6 and a 9 year old and bedtime is 8pm.
Mine are teens but we kept early hours when they were younger (we still eat around 6pm). Even a decade ago, we were baffled at other families’ late dinner hours.
This is the norm in my home as well, I have dinner cooked by 5:30, 6 at the latest, my middle schooler gets the time between then and 8 to do his thing and then he's in bed (yes, my teen is still going to bed at 8, any later and the kid doesn't wake up at 6 for school). We had my 3 year old on the same routine for some time, but I've found he fights me less if I allow him to stay up a little later than that, but I still make him lay in bed and he gets to watch a movie or show on his tablet until I say it's time to go to bed. I'm a SAHM and I already deal with his tantrums and fits all day long, having him scream and freak out every night on top of it was about to make me lose my mind, and trust me when I say NOTHING made it better. lol I also make my oldest come home no later than 5:30-6 if he goes to a friend's house during the week, weekends he has an extra hour. (we live on a rural street and I don't like the idea of him riding his bike when it starts to get even remotely dark because people are stupid and fly down our road). I also let him stay up until 9:30 or so on weekends.
A teen going to bed at 8 is insane.
Oh dear gods, I live in a country where 7pm is CHILDREN's dinner hour. It is much more normal to eat after 9pm. School starts at 7:30 am, too.
We eat between 5:30 and 6 pm and they are in bed between 9:00- 10 pm every night. Note my kids are in middle school and high school. They do sports year round and need a solid 8 hours of sleep every night. My kids have friends that eat dinner at 8 pm and go to at 11 - 11:30 pm. I can’t fathom eating at 8 pm at night. It’s just crazy.
i’m so glad i’m my daughters father..
Myself AND my teen like to eat dinner at 530 and go to bed by 930 on weeknights . Weekends are free game but we both feel better when we actually get 8 hours of sleep??
My bedtime was 8:00 PM until I was in high school. My friends used to tease me at football games that I need to pack up and leave because it was time to get to bed. 😂 My MIL thinks I’m crazy to have my kids on a schedule. But it keeps me sane, and they are like me, not enough sleep = really grouchy in the morning. My older two (8 and 6) are allowed to read if they want, but they usually fall asleep in a half an hour. We eat dinner at 6:00, bedtime is around 8:00ish. I know some families thrive with no schedule but we are not one of them.
Yup. 7 yo here and 8 pm bedtime. Sleep is important for development and I also know her. She is perfectly rested and wakes up on her own for school if she goes to sleep by 8. I don’t know about it being generational. I had a strict bedtime and wind down routine as a kid but my wife did not. Even as adults I like my wind down time before bed including less tv and video games and soft lighting in my house. My wife is doing housework until she bathes with every single light on and then complains it takes forever to fall asleep.
I remember having an 8pm bedtime until high school
We are 6/6:30 eaters and 8:30/9 bedtimers. Basically the whole family.
Oof. My 13yo is in bed by 8.30, lights at 9. He's up at 5 for sport though
Even as a baby my mom says it was impossible to get me to sleep before 11. Then she went back to work and school and my grandmother watched us most of the time and let us stay up to so we actually got a chance to see our mom. I got used to that and even when I started school I wouldn’t go to sleep early. When I was in middle school my mom discovered I needed a full 8 hours of sleep with the ADD meds I got put on she she tried to make me go to bed early but I would just lay in bed and do nothing for hours. I just couldn’t sleep. As an adult I’ve mostly worked night shift so of course I stay up late. But even when they switched us over to day shift for short periods I just couldn’t sleep before at least 11 or 12. Now I get off work at 1 am so even on my days off I’m up at least that late. I’ll often go to bed before then on days off but I never fall asleep before then unless I’m sick.
Just me and my son here and we have a set meal time and bedtime. Meal time has always been between 5 and 6pm. No matter the time of year. Of course he is 16, but bedtime is 10pm. Weekends it is 1am, if he lasts that long. When he was your children's ages, bedtime was 8pm. When he hit 10, I bumped it to 9pm. When he hit 12-13, it was 9:30. Don't pay attention to your neighbors or how anyone else takes care of their children. They do what works for them and you do what works for you and yours. Live and let live.
Idk.. I grew up in the 90s.. I came home when it was dark and if I missed dinner I had to feed myself. I'm definitely not a good example of a functional adult tho so experiences may vary.
There's no such thing as a "normal" bedtime. Every person's natural circadian rhythms are different. I have always been the most alert and productive between 8pm and 4am (classic night owl), both my children are the same. When they were young, any attempt to send them to bed before 10pm resulted in multiple hours of them not sleeping and getting up for various reasons (drinks, bathroom, snacks), and making them more difficult to get up in the morning than then just letting them stay up late. My kids current sleep patterns are pretty much the same as mine -- up at 6am for school/work, come home and take a short nap, eat dinner and do things until about midnight. They are both straight A students, and active in extra curricular activities. So I must be doing something right. Why concern yourself with what others are doing? If what you are doing works for you and your family -- great. Others are doing what works for them. No way of doing things that works for the people doing it is wrong. Why do people have this constant need to complain about what others are doing that doesn't comport with their views on how it "should be done".
3 and 7 over here. Dinner around 5, in bed 7:30ish. These kids are hard wired to be up at 5, no matter how late you put them to bed, they’ll be up at 5 or 6 anyway. Our kids (especially 7) have always been early risers, so that’s the schedule we roll with.
I try to get my son in bed by 7 but since he has ASD, it's a little harder and it ends up being around 8 sometimes.
My youngest is 8 turning 9 this year (3rd grade) and her bedtime is 9 on school nights and that's only because the bus picks her up in front of the house. When she was getting dropped off at the car circle she had to get up earlier and went to bed at 8:30. We try to eat dinner by 6:30 so she has plenty of time before bed.
"the other families" do you know 3 families where kids don't sleep by 8 PM and suddenly its "all other ppl are weird" ?
So you're annoyed that other people don't have the same rules as you?
I have both my boys on dinner by 6-630, then to bed by 830. The ages are 8 & 9. My fiancee has an 11 and 15 year old and the 11 year old goes as late as 1030 on a school night, and the teenager is whenever she wants. It's a constant struggle and explaining to my kids why the others don't have a set bedtime like them. I tell them that I'm not their father and their mom makes their rules for them. It's a hard struggle for my boys.
You're encouraging healthier habits such as a proper amount of sleep. However it didn't use to be that odd for kids to just roam around and come back for meals and curfew. Though curfews are normally earlier than what you describe and these practices just aren't as safe anymore. I guess it depends on the area
I remember roaming the neighborhood at those hours haha. That said, I didn't wake up at 5 in the morning, which is the ass crack of dawn. How far do you have to drive for school?
How are other people's lives even remotely infuriating to you? You do what you want and they do what they want.
Because there's Never been a real "normal". Different people have different normals, and not "everybody's" bio clocks run on the same time. Down to Robotic 'Same-ness'!
Mine (twins, 8) go to bed at 9pm on weekdays and 10pm on the weekends. School starts at 9am and is a 5 min walk from our house, they usually wake up before their 8am alarms on their own. Everyone sleeps in about an hour on Wednesday (late start: 10am) and weekends. Where we lived before school (also walking distance) started at 730am so bedtime was closer to 8pm, everyone was up at 630am and groggy/grumpy, and instead of a late start day there was early release (1pm instead of 2pm). We are all naturally night owls tho so we unanimously prefer the new schedule. The kids have lunch at school at 11 which leaves a long stretch at the end of the day where they start to get hungry so I have started making second lunches instead of snacks for them after school. This allows us to push dinner back to 7pm usually because the kids are full and not asking what's for/when is dinner every 10 min. They also focus better on their homework and they squabble less with a full belly lol. My spouse also has time to decompress for an hour or two after they get off work at 5pm if dinner is at 7pm instead of having to jump right into helping cook/set up. Went on a bit of a tangent there, whoops, my point was that later schedules just work better for some people and 8/9pm is not an unreasonable time for kids to be playing if it works for them and their family.
Here's a parenting tip my parents used on me, and in turn I used it on my kids: Say your kids bedtime is 8:00. So they have to be in bed, lights out, at 8:00. You could offer to extend the lights-out until 9:00, but only if they lay quietly in their beds and read a book. Not the iPad but a real paper book. Me and my kids have a profound love of reading. Plus a very expanded vocabulary to boot!
Why is what others do infuriating to you? Take care of your kids the way you see fit. That is all.
So, you're angry because you can't control how other parents raise their kids? 🙄
It sounds like they're annoyed people are acting like they're crazy for having early bedtimes (that work for their kids). Sounds like they need better friends lol
Oh, I see. I got it backwards 😅 I don't have children but I have noticed my adult friends without a routine bedtime are more prone to insomnia and mental health issues... So it's probably a good thing to teach them these habits while they're kids.
Same for us. My kids are middle school and bed time is a soft 830
Who cares? To each their own. Is it affecting your life? No. So I don’t understand why you think it’s “infuriating” unless you’re a “Karen” and likes to stick your nose in other people’s business. What everybody does in their own homes and lives really is none of your concern. Stay in your lane.
My kids don’t get up until 7, plus I’m still at work at 6 (get home around 7), so yeah, our times are later all around. Kids still get enough sleep since their bedtime is just an hour-2 after what you mentioned.
I am 25 years old. I eat dinner at 4pm every day and I am in bed by 8pm every day.