Parental Advice Sought: Bedtimes

[omahas]

I'm a bit at my wit's end regarding this issue. For several years now, Elf and I have been putting Yamaarashi-chan and Kouryou-chan to bed at about 9 pm, for a 6:45/7am wake up (6:45 for Yamaarashi-chan, 7 for Kouryou-chan). In the mornings, Yamaarashi-chan wakes right up. Kouryou-chan does not.

This has led me to believe recently that Yamaarashi-chan could go to bed later, say 9:30. We tried that for a while, but unfortunately had problems with Kouryou-chan constantly getting out of bed to see what her sister was doing.

In the past couple of months Kouryou-chan has been exhibiting bedtime behavior that is driving me nuts. She refuses to go to bed, regardless of whether her sister goes to bed with her, constantly gets up and harasses us or her sister, and generally behaves like she is not tired at all. In the morning, she continues to act like she is sleepy and tired. But now I'm wondering whether her morning behavior is "sleepy" behavior or "I'm not a morning person" behavior

Tonight we tried something different. We allowed both to stay up until 9:30. It resulted in them staying up until 9:45, actually, because they were both catching up on some chores. It's a little after 10, and Kouryou-chan is *still* acting like she isn't tired, getting up and saying she is bored, wants to find a toy, needs water, etc. I am so sick of this I'm ready to just tie the kid to the bed and ignore her for the rest of the night!

What experience do you have, if you are a parent with a child near Kouryou-chan's age (8 years old), with bedtimes, specifically with how long your children sleep at night. Do you think that the 10 hours we give Kouryou-chan is enough? Too much? Should we ratchet it down to 9 hours? Yamaarashi-chan could easily, I think, go to sleep at 10/9:45 and have a good night's sleep...but I don't know about Kouryou-chan. The two year difference can be a big one.

Any advice/thoughts welcome.

Comments

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

A couple of ideas:

-- have an in-bed reading time every night. Lately we've loosened it, but for years Stone went to bed at 8:30/9/9:30 but had thirty minutes to read. The benefit of this is that if the kid gets out of bed excessively, they lose the reading time entirely and go to bed *earlier*, so that may motivate her not to abuse the time so badly. Yet you get to move on to your chores and email at a reasonable time.

-- tie bedtime to behaviour. Have some set action in the morning that is fairly non-invasive, such as dropping a marble in a jar every time she requires intervention. At night, every marble is a minute off her bedtime. (Don't move her sister's bedtime of course.) I use this with Stone today. If he's too surly in the morning, his bedtime gets docked 15 minutes. He's old enough to manage it pretty well these days.

As for amount of sleep, I don't think that's predictable. Everyone is different, and it changes at different times. Enough sleep this week may not be enough next month, ESPECIALLY for kids. When and how the sleep happens may be an issue too, and there's little you can do about that when school is in.

Good luck! Stick with the rituals I know you already have, make it as consistent as you can, and know that it's a struggle for lots of folks.

--

[tbclone47.livejournal.com]

Orion's been a challenged sleeper since day one. When I try to get him to bed on a school night by 8:30, it still ends up being 9:30 before he's asleep (sometimes later). Tonight I let him stay up later (no school this week). Sometimes he seems to nodd right off, sometimes not. But we have got a system down, a night time ritual (pjs, teeth, night time potty, reading in the "reading chair" (unless it's gotten way too late), and bed. I also generally will lie in bed next to him for a while because he really likes it, and personally, I don't mind the time relaxing. Sometimes I'm tired enough that I drift off with him. For whatever reason, even though he might not get to sleep right away, he is quiet, and (as he says) just hangs out until sleep overtakes him.

Not a parent, but...

[ladyallyn.livejournal.com]

Speaking of my own experience from early childhood until today, and that of partners I've had, two thoughts.

-- put a lamp in her room on a timer to come on at least an hour before her wake-up time. I would not have believed the difference until I slept with a guy who always had a light on. I found it makes easier for me to get 'oriented' upon waking. I'm still primarily nocturnal, but can function much better with a $5 Ikea desk lamp and a $4 Home Depot timer.

-- figure out the length of her sleep cycle. Mine is about 4.5 hours and I can function quite fine on that, or I'm going to try to get 9. If hers is 3.5 or 4 then she might do fine on 7-8 hours of sleep (if so set earlier wake-up not later bedtime, and she can have reading time or computer time or whatever you choose to let her do). Waking me in the middle of a sleep cycle is a sure way to have a cranky, slow, disoriented person for most of the day. That was a killer for me from elementary school through high school.

FWIW -- and noting time of post I'll either be up and about around 7 or not until ~11-ish.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

Good point about the stretching/meditation. I had to do some serious stretch work, starting with a self massage with my smelly oils for the pain, moving into the stretches, then some meditation, before I was able to settle enough to try going to bed again last night.

Obviously I wouldn't recommend this highly involved, nearly 2 hour ritual for the kid, but even just a few stretches definitely calm me and get the jitters out of my bones. Also, that one night I babysat and you were out later than usual (remember she ended up falling asleep on the couch with me?) I did talk her through the body meditation Tabbifli mentioned above and it seemed to help ease her anxiety a little.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

My daughter will be 8 in April and she goes to bed by 8 pm. She used to get up at 7 am and started being late for school. I told her if she couldn't get to school on time, we'd need to move her wake-up time. It's currently at 6:30 am but she gets a few minutes of cuddle time when she wakes up.

She has a CD she listens to at night on a timer. She uses a dental rinse where you can't drink for 30 minutes after it and that takes care of a lot of the "I need a drink" problems. She has a bedtime routine that ideally starts at 7:30 involving putting on her jammies, brushing and flossing her teeth, and brushing her hair. Theoretically I read to her but we rarely have time for that, it seems like.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

I'm not a parent, but I have helped raise alot of kids, either in my babysitting years or, more recently, my younger cousins. For what it's worth, here are my impressions.

1. It definitely sounds like night-owl/not morning person behavior to me. I struggle with this myself. I actually get energized as the sun goes down.

2. K is used to Y being in the room with her. Also she might be missing something horribly exciting, like watching Y finish her homework. Both are possible points of mild anxiety that could be keeping her from sleep.

3. Not enough physical exercise during the day? She's a very energetic child and her energies at bedtime seem to be high still.

Maybe try letting them both stay up a little later, emphasizing that they need to get up in the morning and still get ready to go on the same time-table or it's back to the old bedtime. One or two nights isn't enough of an experiment time though, they both need time to adjust in various ways. That means, of course, you'll have to suffer through the adjusting too, but it's part of a family's growing pains. If K can't handle it and Y can, it's perfectly fair to say they have different bedtimes. It might be time to try the separate rooms again too as that would make it easier with the bedtimes. If K doesn't stay in bed, even a little quiet time would help - i.e. sending her to bed earlier than Y, but allowing her to read quietly until Y goes to bed (and not playing her game which could get too stimulating).

So again, just some ideas from kids I've known and what I know of yours. Hope it helps.

And one more thing, the more I seemed to care about a hard line on the bedtime, the more the kid (didn't matter who, was pretty universal) would work the tricks for a later bedtime. The challenge itself was entertaining. You must be inexorable without getting upset. Be doing something quiet and boring during the bedtime challenge process. Make it not a big deal.