Bedtime for young children

seven-day-weekend

Children here in southern Spain are regularly up until midnight, especially in the summer.

They have a siesta in the missle of the day and the school day is split into morning and late afternoon.

fernliebee

Personally I am somewhere in the middle of the routine debate. I believe certain things should be in a routine, but it should be a bit flexible and work for everyone in the family. As such we found our own routine through time. When she was tiny, she called the shots really, she was BF so a lot of time was spent doing that. I also preferred to sleep at night so would let her stay up until I went to bed (she would cluster feed all evening!) so I could get 5-6 hours of good sleep. We did however have a strong routine of bath, baby massage, story, last feed, then bed. Then when she dropped her night feed, I slowly put her down (started routine) earlier and earlier each night, until she went to bed at 7.30. Since then she has pretty much slept from 7.30-7.30. That said, on special occasions or if we are out visiting family etc, then I will let her stay up late as she can catch up the next day with a nap. She has never had a problem adjusting to this, and always slot's straight back into her routine the next night.

As for your neighbours, I would say each to their own. I wouldn't do it with my kid's but they are allowed to do it with theirs. There are no hard and fast rules. Maybe their kid's don't sleep well, so like when I had my newborn, they would rather let them go to bed at the same time as them so they can get some sleep. ALso who is to say they have no routine? Maybe their routine just means they go to bed at 11-12 and don't wake up until mid morning.

littlerat

As young children my brother and I didn't sleep much. The earliest bedtime I remember started at 8:30, and that involved a small snack if we wanted it and a warm drink, we'd be in bed about 9PM, usually read for an hour or 2. Any earlier and we'd simply we awake at stupid hours of the morning as we didn't need much sleep.

When younger than that I slept 4 - 6 hours a night, my brother 1 - 2 hours! We were both healthy just wouldn't sleep much, wouldn't nap in the day from about 6 months old, our poor parents!

Unless we were still up stupidly late we pretty much decided our own bedtimes around 11, 12 years old, we both knew how much sleep we needed and how tired we were, to tell us to go to bed the same time our friends were would've meant a lot of waken hours in bed, even now neither of us need that much sleep!


Could be that the parents are irresponsible, could just be those hours work best for them, may be the kids don't sleep much so a late bedtime ensures they slepe at the same time.

That said, they should be quiet and try to not disturb neighbours, that's just inconsiderate surely?!

PurpleJay

Really it is up to the parents what time their kids go to bed. Late nights will only become a problem for them/ the children when they have to get up in the morning. I never bothered with routine while M was tiny but since I went back to work when he was 1 we have to get up at 7am 3 times a week so if he doesn't get to bed reasonable, he would be shattered. If we didn't have to get up, I would be more inclined to keep him up a bit later and stay in bed a bit later but then I do like my evenings.... He is 3 now and usually in bed between 7-8. We are still fairly relaxed and take things at his pace with regards to how many books to read etc and on the odd occasion we plan to go out in the evening, I try to get him to have a nap so he feels ok.