Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Thats not really what I think of 'bedtime' as. When I was a kid 'bedtime' meant being in my bed, lights out, no more reading or anything. Hated it as I had insomnia so would just lie awake for hours bored, thats probably why I'm reluctant to enforce bedtime (in my view of it) but time in the room reading and tidying up sounds good.
That's me. To this day I remember that horrible feeling of being locked in my room, told I wasn't to get out of the bed, and looking out the window seeing kids in the neighborhood still playing outside at 8:30 pm, I wasn't tired. I felt like some prisoner. I decided never to do that to my kids.
I still cannot lay in a bed if I'm not tired. The good part of not forcing yourself to sleep when you're not tired is that you never need sleeping pills and drugs. If I get insomnia, I just deal with it. Or I decide I'll get started on some project I've been putting off and then suddenly I'm tired and fall asleep.
Also for me, I think my sleep times have always been flexible, and every now and then it helps me a lot to have a flexible schedule. If I'm on call for my job, I have to be able to wake up at 2 am and be as sharp as I would be at 2 pm, and for certain upgrades or projects, we have to come in at midnight and work until 4 am or so. I can show up for work at midnight be wide awake and raring to go, others are nodding off by 12:15 am.
Maybe it's individual internal clocks. If a child has a natural clock that tells them they're tired at 7:30 pm, it would be easier than the night owl child who is wide awake still at 9 pm.
That's me. To this day I remember that horrible feeling of being locked in my room, told I wasn't to get out of the bed, and looking out the window seeing kids in the neighborhood still playing outside at 8:30 pm, I wasn't tired. I felt like some prisoner. I decided never to do that to my kids.
I still cannot lay in a bed if I'm not tired. The good part of not forcing yourself to sleep when you're not tired is that you never need sleeping pills and drugs. If I get insomnia, I just deal with it. Or I decide I'll get started on some project I've been putting off and then suddenly I'm tired and fall asleep.
Also for me, I think my sleep times have always been flexible, and every now and then it helps me a lot to have a flexible schedule. If I'm on call for my job, I have to be able to wake up at 2 am and be as sharp as I would be at 2 pm, and for certain upgrades or projects, we have to come in at midnight and work until 4 am or so. I can show up for work at midnight be wide awake and raring to go, others are nodding off by 12:15 am.
Maybe it's individual internal clocks. If a child has a natural clock that tells them they're tired at 7:30 pm, it would be easier than the night owl child who is wide awake still at 9 pm.
I remember the feeling too, trying to read by the light coming through the slightly ajar door or memorising the patterns on the wallpaper for hours. Horrible.
I agree, that is inflexible. I am just more about, time for TV off, computer off, take a bath, read a book. Get ready for tomorrow.
I have just seen crazy households, where there is no structure, kids up at all hours, doing play station, going to Walmart, outside playing, at 10:00, in the summer, running around playing, no quiet time. So, this sets up not doing homework in later years.
Actually, set bedtimes are more important for parents' brain sanity.
Lol! Absolutely. I think I'd go bananas if I couldn't have down time in the evening.
To me, a set bedtime is just part of childhood. With our first child, my husband and I decided that we didn't want any fighting regarding bedtime. We wanted the kids to get plenty of rest, and also wanted some peace and quiet for ourselves.
From the start, we trained them to be in bed at 8pm. It was hard with the first one, but by the time she was 10 mos, she was in the routine. There was no problem with the other two. We make sure they get lots of exercise after school and on the weekends so they can be tired at night. They are so used to the schedule now that they start slowing down by 7:30, and by 8:00, it's lights out.
When our kids were tiny they set their own schedules and we went with it because it just so happened to work out for all of us. Once they got to be school age we liked them to be in their rooms by a certain time but nothing was set in concrete and what they did in there was up to them. The eldest liked to sleep all the time and usually just did that, the youngest liked to read until he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. And there were always exceptions since neither my H or myself had a set schedule to our own lives. We HAD to be flexible but just wanted them to sleep enough to be awake at school. It mostly worked that way..lol.
Yes, once they have to start getting up at 6 am to get ready for school, they will tend to want to go to bed pretty early. Then in summer they might revert back to their night owl ways and sleep in.
With toddlers and pre-school kids, it can make a difference if they take a nap. Some kids do better with a good nap but then may end up staying up later, others can skip the nap and just go to bed earlier. Or the kid will go through various phases. In the same family, you can often see some kids who prefer the early morning and naturally get up early, others seem to prefer sleeping in and staying up.
I rely so heavily on routine for happiness that I can set my own bedtime and still have it be routine. I usually go to bed around 8:30
I brush my teeth first
Then I change my clothes
Then I get into bed and read until I fall asleep.
I am not happy unless I have routine in my life.
I'm the opposite --- I don't like routine too much. I like sometimes being up until the wee hours, other times I'll go to bed fairly early to get up early. I can work any shift, when driving cross country, I can drive at various times of the night and day. Our family reunions tend to be around a camping trip and bonfires -- no one is asleep by 8:30.
I tend to doubt that set bedtimes really somehow would change someone's IQ but I would think for school age kids, there needs to be enough sleep or they won't concentrate in class too well. Keeping a third grader up until 1 am on a school night will very likely affect learning ability.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
