Late bedtime mamas?

kaskade · April 2011

Let me preface this with I do believe you should figure out a bedtime that works for your family. That being said...I get flack from my SIL [friendly, but still] for letting K stay up so late. She typically sleeps from 10pm to anywhere from 8 to 9:30 am.

SIL puts her son down at 7 pm and he gets up between 4:30 and 5am. Obviously, with my swing shift schedule that would be a nightmare for me! We have tried bumping K's bedtime earlier and earlier, and keeping her up during normal evening naptimes, but no luck. She just does not want to sleep earlier. Since this is working for us we're probably just going to stick with the late bedtime. We both go to bed around midnight.

Anyone else have a night owl? Did you try switching to earlier?

MrsAmyB · April 2011

kaskade:

Let me preface this with I do believe you should figure out a bedtime that works for your family. That being said...I get flack from my SIL [friendly, but still] for letting K stay up so late. She typically sleeps from 10pm to anywhere from 8 to 9:30 am.

SIL puts her son down at 7 pm and he gets up between 4:30 and 5am. Obviously, with my swing shift schedule that would be a nightmare for me! We have tried bumping K's bedtime earlier and earlier, and keeping her up during normal evening naptimes, but no luck. She just does not want to sleep earlier. Since this is working for us we're probably just going to stick with the late bedtime. We both go to bed around midnight.

Anyone else have a night owl? Did you try switching to earlier?

Seriously, do what works for you. You're doing it right, J. Those silly, SIL's

You are going to hate me but... I stay up late (like 12-1am). My kids go down at 8 (9 for Meg) and they get up at 9...9:30. Not sure how I pulled that one off. They get up about midnight for food and a diaper change.

cwhip77 · April 2011

Yes! We put M down to sleep around 9:30pm. She usually sleeps in til about 9am depending on when she fell asleep. I love that she keeps these hours, I work nights part-time and it would be a nightmare for me if she was a super early riser. My husband also likes that M has a later bedtime because after work he has time to go out and do something fun with her, have a later dinner and then to bed. We don't see any reason to try to adjust her sleep pattern. My only concern coming up is that I've noticed a lot of preschools start fairly early so we might need to get her to wake up a tad earlier when that time comes.

I've actually wondered if her sleep patterns mirror mine because of my work. I'd be curious if other night workin' mamas have late to bed kiddos too. And both my husband and I are night owls so maybe it's something in our genes? Who knows.

I wonder why your SIL gives you grief about this? Would she rather your kiddo wake up really early so you're exhausted all the time? Having a kiddo waking up at 4:30 in the morning sounds horrible.

JRS72206 · April 2011

Isa goes to bed around 10 and sleeps till 9-10, sometimes 11am. I love it and would never change her schedule. This means I can work late and still get decent sleep.

MrsEditorJax · April 2011

Speaking of being a night owl ... my cough has me back up after attempting to go to sleep ...

DH and I have always been night owls. I didn't even get off work until midnight when I was at The Times, and then I had to drive home. I never really adjusted. I can get up early when I need to, but I prefer to have my "me time" late at night and then sleep until 10 or 11. This would be greatly complicated by having an early rising child, but ...

... Collin goes to bed about 10-10:30 p.m. and then sleeps until about 10-10:30 a.m. It works VERY well for us and our schedules. DH is a sports reporter, so if Collin went to sleep around 7 or 8, he wouldn't even see him several nights of the week. The way things are, we are able to eat dinner together about five of seven nights of the week, and have some family time before he goes to bed. He naps around from about 2:30-4:30 p.m. and that works out well, too, because I have work calls to make. He's pretty flexible about naps, though, which makes it easier to go places.

We have gotten plenty of side-eye and snarking about what time Collin goes to bed, but it works for us, which, ultimately, is the most important thing. As long as our schedules work this way, we're not going to adjust things for him to go to bed at 7 when we often aren't even eating dinner until then.

tfarabians · April 2011

Cruz's bedtime has been all over the place over the years. Personally I sort of liked the 10pm bedtime in the summer but that was with a nice 3 hour nap from about 2-5pm. He has since quit napping which is ok with me because they both go down now around 7:30-8pm. The earlier bedtime is sort of a drag though especially in the summer when its nice later so if J will let us we might do some adjusting. Do what works for you especially with your hours. If she were getting up early for school and not getting enough sleep that would be a whole different thing.

keri1013 · April 2011

While I often suggest to parents of babies to try bumping bedtime earlier if they are having sleep issues, and while that worked well for us, it doesn't work for everyone. I would never suggest in a situation like yours that you "should" put her to bed earlier. If it works for her and works for you guys, great! Everyone's getting sleep, and that's a good thing in my book. I see no reason to change.

JDCSKF · April 2011

cwhip77:
Yes! We put M down to sleep around 9:30pm. She usually sleeps in til about 9am depending on when she fell asleep. I love that she keeps these hours, I work nights part-time and it would be a nightmare for me if she was a super early riser. My husband also likes that M has a later bedtime because after work he has time to go out and do something fun with her, have a later dinner and then to bed. We don't see any reason to try to adjust her sleep pattern. My only concern coming up is that I've noticed a lot of preschools start fairly early so we might need to get her to wake up a tad earlier when that time comes.

I've actually wondered if her sleep patterns mirror mine because of my work. I'd be curious if other night workin' mamas have late to bed kiddos too. And both my husband and I are night owls so maybe it's something in our genes? Who knows.

I wonder why your SIL gives you grief about this? Would she rather your kiddo wake up really early so you're exhausted all the time? Having a kiddo waking up at 4:30 in the morning sounds horrible.

there are preschools with afternoon programs for 3 year olds, there aren't many, but they are out there.

rachel927 · April 2011

We put A down between 9:30 and 10:30pm and he usually sleeps until 7-8am. It works for us and our schedule so we figure there is no reason to change it! You have to do what is best for you guys. I agree with PP that there are preschools who offer either a morning or afternoon session.

zazzu · April 2011

W has a late bed time too. We actually like it that way. We can have family dinner, and dh gets to spend time with him when he gets home. Dh and I stll have an hour of time to chat and watch tv after baby goes to bed. We got a few comments about it at christmas from dh's family, but it's way better than being up at 5 am. We are not morning people. Only once he has somewhere he must be early in the morning will we start transitioning him.

IdahoGirl · April 2011

My family gives me the side eye for putting my kids to bed so early! Seriously, Will turns into a pumpkin if we don't have him swaddled and trying to go down by 7. Same with Madelyn at that age.

And it totally sucks in the summer. Now that Madelyn is older, I'm glad she can stay away a bit later and not have it so tough.

Of course, with our schedule, I"m waking them up at 5:45 to get into the car....so...it's good they're down earlier.

You do what works for you. As long as they're getting the sleep they need, who cares what time it is.

iheartstuart · April 2011

Mia goes to bed around 10:30 and wakes up around 10:30. It works great for us and there is no reason to adjust it.

mishquiche · April 2011

Ditto IG. I get flack for my kiddo's early bedtime. He is usually in bed and asleep at 6:30 pm or so and up for the day between 5:30 and 6 am. I'm a morning person, so it works great for me. I know to a lot of people getting up that time would be considered torture, but I just make sure I'm in bed by 10. We've messed with his sleep times a little and he does best with his current schedule, so I figure why mess with it. I would rather him go to bed early and wake up early if it means he STTN.

I agree that you do what's best for your family. Other people can just shove it. Stick out tongue

sparkelz · April 2011

We put DD2 down around 9 or 10 and she sleeps until around 11 am (She wakes to eat a couple times in between and is only awake for about to min. and she is changed at that time). With DD1 I did the same thing, when she was little I worked nights and she generally went to sleep around 10 or 11 and slept until 11 am, it worked great for us. I can't imagine having a 7 pm bedtime, when I go back to work I will not even get home until 5pm so I would barely see LO. I feel that as long as LO is getting enough sleep you can do what works best for your family.

With that being said when DD1 started preschool and had to be up for school at 7:30 in the morning we started having her go to bed at 9pm so that she would still get enough sleep.

heather318 · April 2011

I wish Jake had a later bedtime! Right now he goes down at 7:45-8. I work 3-11:30pm so it'd be nice to have him sleep in a little later. Hoewever, he has been sleeping until around 8:30 lately so it's not too bad. DH doesn't pick him up until around 7 on days I work so he barely gets an hour with him most days of the week. The only problem with pushing bedtime later is that my parents are terrible at getting him to take naps. So he's already cranky as heck by the time DH picks him up at night.

MissLauraQ · April 2011

I beleive in you do what works for your family.

Now saying that - I have always put my kids down around 7:30 to 8:30 (depending on the kid) and BOTH of them wake up about 6:30 am

I hate waking up early - but I deal with it to get them to bed early - that night time is MY time with my husband or downtime away from them, and I cherish it.

Another reason I like this schedule (that most kids are too little for yet on the Nest ) is that SCHOOL starts about 7:30 am, and I need to get them up, dressed, fed, lunches made and teeth brushed. So once your kids are in school, that sleeping in thing doesn't work anymore.

ckmommy · April 2011

As other ladies have said, do what works for you. C's bedtime has changed over the past few months and hours to bed between 8pm and 10pm depending on what is going on in our day. Most of the time he I'd just fine, as long as he gets adequate sleep, tgat is all I care about.

MSTie24 · April 2011

Late bedtime here too- DD goes to sleep between 9-10:30 (usually, sometimes she takes a late nap and is up past 11 afterwards) and wakes for the day anywhere between 7:30 and 9ish, which frankly is still too early for me. I have a hard time falling asleep before 11-12 no matter how early I got up. DH and I are both night owls and currently he doesn't even get home from work on Saturday until 8ish so it allows us to have family time together at night and sleep later in the day (when we don't have work/activities.) Plus we are not hobbled from doing nighttime activities like going on dates or visiting the ILs for dinner. I think each family needs to do what is best for the them and tell everyone else to kiss off.

If they're not the ones putting her to sleep and getting up with her in the morning, they don't get a vote.

Seattle_JiLLn · April 2011

I don't understand why anyone would have an opinion about the bed time of someone else's kid??? I would HATE to have bedtime at 6:30 or 7. It would mean rushing through dinner and right to bed. I value having a family dinner together and having time to play afterward with Daddy. Ben was always late - I'm thrilled that we now start bedtime at 8:30 and he's in bed at 9. But he doesn't fall asleep til 10 usually. Sometimes later. He's up at 7:30, sometimes earlier but he has to stay in his room til 7:30. He still naps too.

Cooper's sleep has been a wreck so I've been keeping him up til 10 or 10:30 so he'll sleep til around 5 before he wakes up the first time. I really would prefer if he went to bed at 9, but I really didn't like being up for 2 hours at 3AM.

Whatever works, works. Once you start getting closer to school age, you'll have to adjust of course, but it's easier as they get older IMO.

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