Bed time an uphill battle...

[3peewees]

I have a 3 year old, 5 year old and a 7 year old. Most nights go pretty smoothly. The time to wind down, brush teeth, potty etc all begins at 7pm. By 730pm all kids are in bed. However my 7 year old, 2nd grader, sometimes says he has a hard time falling asleep. He thinks he should be able to stay up until 8pm. He shares a room with his little brother, the 3yr old. So if my oldest is up, my little one has a hard time falling asleep.

What age/time do you lay your kids down for the night now that school's back in session? Is 8 really that late for almost 8yr old? How much sleep do they need as they get older? I know he gets tired easy after a long day of school but still fights going to bed. Our bedtime doesn't change much during the week even in summer just because my DH gets up early to go to work and I get off at 9pm 4 nights a week. The weekend we still try to cap out the times they go to bed but when DH and I are ready to go down they go down as well. Sometimes earlier than they would like

 

[quirkycanuck]

I'm starting into back to school sleep routines now with my children. I also have a wide range of ages and children sharing rooms. I will be interested to see some of the responses on this topic, but know you are not alone.

My 2yo DS has a really hard time with sleep routine. Sometime he won't shut down until 3 AM. My 7yo SDS on the other hand is a morning person and gets up as early as 7. I have to synchronize these somehow so that DW and I can stop behaving like shift workers working on opposite shifts.

Any thoughts/experiences appreciated.

 

[mom2many]

I'll use your examples of how those ages would work in my house. With 8 my age range is to great to really break everyones down.

At 3 bedtime is 7, at 5 bedtime would be 7:30 and at the age of 7 8 sounds reasonable.

In my house my 2 year old is in bed at 7, lately she has been a butt about it, but normal for her age. The 6 and 8 year old are laid down at 8 and the 11 year old is between 8:30 and 9.

It will take a little getting used to but in time the kids will adjust.

 

[3peewees]

Thanks you! I just don't want my 7yo DS to feel punished because he shares a room with his little brother. And at 730, though not always feeling tired, we still make him lay down. I guess it's worth a shot to give him a little more freedom.

 

[Frank]

We have 8 kids and 1 teen in our house. Bed time <I>never</I> goes smooth but some nights are better than others, lol

We start getting our youngest kiddos (2, 2 &amp; 4) down right after dinner and usually have them down by 7pm. Sometimes 7:30, even 8 on really trying nights.

Our girls (8 &amp; 11) share a room. We also have three boys (6, 8 &amp; 11) sharing a room. At 730pm, we have the 6, 8 &amp; 8 y/o's start getting ready for bed, if all goes well they are in bed by 8, 8:15 at the latest. At 8:15 our two 11 year olds get ready for bed. To avoid disruption of the kids in their rooms already in bed we keep their pajamas in the laundry room and allow them to read in the living room until 9pm. If they fall asleep doing so, we cover them up and let them sleep there. They generally don't but once in awhile it happens.

The teen (14) is new to our home within the last week. We've set his bedtime at 10-10:30pm.

 

[ikon99]

In our house bed time is 8 for the 5 y/o and 8 for the 9 y/o. The 5 y/o gets a story and the 9 y/o gets the ipad for 15 minuts and reading x 15 minuts. Latley, the 5 y/o is bucking bed time. She is a morning person, and is up by 0600, the 9 y/o needs roused out of bed twice in the morning.

 

[Bottlelover]

My friend and her husband pretend to go to sleep at the same time as their toddler and that seems to work for them!

 

[ikon99]

My friend and her husband pretend to go to sleep at the same time as their toddler and that seems to work for them!

Ahhh, trickery. I love it. :cute:

 

[bssage]

My friend and her husband pretend to go to sleep at the same time as their toddler and that seems to work for them!

Yes: I pretend very realistically very very

Times all sound reasonable. I know when the kids where young we could track behavior issues directly to sleep. Cole used to listen to books on CD. That helped calm his mind. And he had heard them a hundred times so not interesting to keep him awake.

I am no expert but do have some formal sleep knowledge. The railroad testing involves a section on sleep and we have sleep training stuff from time to time. Kids of course do require more sleep than adults. But 8 hrs is pretty much as low as it goes. Sleep is also banked. For example if you little one gets shorted an hour tonight of needed sleep. They will owe that hour before they feel fine. Another hour tomorrow. They owe two hours. It will keep banking until you catch up or fall down. Thats the bad news. The good new is you can get that needed sleep at any time. If your short an hour you can make that up with an hour nap ect...

Just a little sleep trivia