Just wondering what time is bedtime for your child, also, do you instill the same time on weekends or not? My ds is ten and a half and currently bedtime is 9 for him and his ds who is 14. But rarely do they get in bed at that time because their always seems to be some sort of "delay"! Just wondering what tactics or consequenses you use to make sure that they are in bed on time...

By Imamommyx4 on Sunday, October 22, 2006 - 10:09 pm:

5 yo dd has lights out at 8:30 pm but school isn't until 8 am. She gets 10 hours of sleep and is good to go.

By Mrsheidi on Sunday, October 22, 2006 - 10:17 pm:

8 or 8:30. Tonight, he was so cute...he pretended to sleep walk up to his crib while he "snored" and had his eyes barely open. It's his way of telling me that he's uber tired. LOL!

By Pamt on Sunday, October 22, 2006 - 10:27 pm:

In bed at 8 and lights off at 8:30 for 9 y/o (4th grade). Starts bathing at 7:30ish.
In bed at 8:30 and lights off at 9:00 for 12 y/o (7th grade). Starts getting ready for bed at 8:15 but takes a shower in the morning.

They just know and understand that it is bedtime because we really starting enforcing bedtimes from the time they were 6 months old. It's never been an issue (well, except for brief periods in the toddler and preschool years--LOL ). Both of my boys are also early risers and play hard all day so they are always ready for bed. On weekends they go to bed at 9-9:30ish unless they have someone spending the night or it is a special occasion or something.

By Tink on Sunday, October 22, 2006 - 11:47 pm:

My three are all in bed at 8pm sharp. They can read as long as they like, theoretically, but I do go in and tell my 9yo to put the book down at 9pm. The younger two always conk out around 8:30. My 7yo is an early riser and needs less sleep than the girls so he's up between 6 and 6:30am. I get the girls up at 7:10am for school. They all have the same bedtimes for the weekends but we're more likely to let them stay up for special reasons if there's no school the next day.

Like Pam, we've always enforced bedtimes as infants. It's just made life easier to always have the same rules. They have a routine that starts at 7:30 and it covers all the usual excuses of needing a drink of water, a trip to the bathroom and making sure their homework is packed up for the next day. They've tried to get creative with their delay tactics ("hiccups" were a common occurance for a few nights) but it's never been too much of a problem and they all know how much they hate how they feel when they don't get enough sleep.

By Debbie on Sunday, October 22, 2006 - 11:49 pm:

We start bedtime at 8pm. My youngest(age 6)goes right to sleep. We read after dinner because he is just too tired by bedtime. My oldest reads for 30 minutes, and goes to sleep at 8:30. They go to bed around 8:30-9:00 on weekends, unless something special is going on. My youngest needs lots of sleep, and he knows it. Sometimes he will even ask to go to bed earlier.

By Unschoolmom on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 06:11 am:

We don't have schoool so it's quiet time around 8;30 or 9 and bedtime at ten. Move it up an hour when we have to do something the next day.

By Colette on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 06:43 am:

Youngest dd is in bed by 8a, reads til 9p. Teenage dd and ds are usually in bed by 8:30-9p - younger teen reads til 9:30p, older teen reads til 10p.

By Jackie on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 06:53 am:

My 2 yr old goes to bed between 8-8:30. My 7 yr old about the same. We bring the 2 youngest ones upstairs at the same time. My son(12) is usually in bed by 9pm and watches tv for a bit. He normally is asleep before 10.

By My2girlygirls on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 07:09 am:

My 8 year old dd is in bed by 8:00 and lights out by 8:30. 11 year old dd is in bed by 8-8:30 lights out no later than 9:00. The older one gets up at 6:00 to get to the bus stop by 7:00 and the younger one gets up at 6:45 to be at school at 8:15. Weekends are a little later, they will start to watch a movie by 7:30 and lights out when the movie is done, they sleep upstairs in the playroom on the weekends. We don't really change too much in the summer either. It's just too hard to get back into the routine if we do.

By Kittycat_26 on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 07:24 am:

Geesh, I'm a little bit earlier for bedtime than most of you.

Timmy goes to bed at 7pm and watch 20 minutes of TV. Then it is bedtime. However, he has to get up at 5:30am to get ready for daycare.

He rarely fights this bedtime and sleeps straight through so we'll keep it this time for a while yet.

By Kaye on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 08:36 am:

My kids start bedtime at around 8. My youngest is in bed by 8:30 (3rd grade) and the other two are expected to be lights out by 9. On weekends we don't enforce it. With the youngest we do. My dd is in 7th, she has hit that phase where she would like to stay up late and sleep till noon. If we are doing nothing that doesn't bother me. If we have plans I make everyone go down by 10. We get up at 7:15 for school.

By Crystal915 on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 10:15 am:

8pm, regardless of the day of the week. My kids are 4, so no morning school, but I have to get them up for the sitter at 6:20am. I just carry them to the car in their blankets and jammies. They don't always go to sleep at 8, but I keep them on a schedule of at least being in bed around 8 every night.

By Breann on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 10:22 am:

In bed at 8pm, lights off for my dd at 8:30. She likes to read in bed for 30 minutes.

On weekends, we usually let them stay up a little bit later.

By Tripletmom on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 10:27 am:

My 7yr DD starts getting things in order around 7:30 she's in bed at 8pm and reads until 8:30.Last night she wanted to finish her book so she went to bed early.My boys went to bed at 6:20pm and were up at 7:10 this morning.They all have colds right now so they're getting around 13hours but usually its 7 to 7 for them.

By Melanie on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 10:51 am:

On non-sports nights, all three (ages 5, 9, and 10) are in bed by 8:30. We hold the same bedtime whether it's a weekend, holiday, summer, whatever. Not that there aren't nights that go later, of course. But, in general, it's 8:30 all the time.

By Janet on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 11:33 am:

Oh gosh, I'd LOVE to have bedtime at 8:30~
My 11 yr old goes at 10, and my 16 yr old goes whenever she finishes homework...usually around 11 or later, depending. I sure do miss elementary school!

By Jtsmom on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 02:25 pm:

My 5 yr old goes to bed at 7:30 and lights out at 8pm, my 2 yr old is in bed at 7:30pm and he is out immediately.

By Dawnk777 on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 03:21 pm:

Janet, that's what my kids go to bed, too, at 14 and 17, between 10 and 11. They both get up fine and are getting good grades in school.

By Enchens on Monday, October 23, 2006 - 06:55 pm:

My 1.5 year old is in bed by 830 and my 3.5 year old is in bed by about 9. My younger ds babbles and sings for about 30 minutes before falling asleep. My older ds used to go to bed at 130AM so the fact that he's in bed by 9ish is incredible. Oh, and he hasn't taken naps since he was 1. When he gets closer to starting school, I'll be putting him to bed earlier.

By Bellajoe on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - 11:32 am:

Both kids 5, and 7 start getting ready for bed at 8:00. Lights are usually out by 8:20 after Pj's, brushing teeth and bedtime story.

Dd has started to ask to stay up later on weekends. So depending on what's going on they might be able to stay up till 9:00 on weekends.

In the summer they stay up till around 9:00. We are usually outside till the sun goes down

By Stace on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - 07:24 pm:

My son, 3 1/2 goes to bed bt 8:30-9. He has to be up by 6am to go to school! The weekends, it doesn't matter to me what time he goes to bed. He is still a decent napper so if he is tired he will just go down for a nap earlier the next day.

By Reds9298 on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - 09:09 pm:

Natalie is 2 and goes to bed right around 8:30.

By Missbookworm on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - 09:18 pm:

All my kids are in bed by 8:30 at the latest except on weekends. They usually talk/read for about 1/2 hour before sleeping (except my daughter). We're up by 6:30 everyday (me earlier).