kids bedtime is.....? I'm not normal?? h uh??

“Just a quick survey please if you don't mind :)

I had to listen to my kid telling me that "normal" parents think 10PM is early to go to bed on a school night.

HUH??? 10PM? On a school night?
WTF? 9PM...that's what I say! Is that really too early?

But then...I am the super scary mom anyway...that never lets them do anything fun. (yupp, his words...I am scary when I am mad, so they rather do what I say or else...) Whhhhaaaaaaaaa!!!!!


I really don't wanna scare them, and didn't think I do. They do come to me with all or most of their problems...at least I thought so.

Am I scary? really now?”

“You aren't scary Gemini! At least you are a parent that cares about their children's rest. They are just making you feel bad so they can stay up later and play x box! I know I'm not a parent but 10pm sounds really late to be going to bed on a school night before high school.”

“Back in high school I think I was usually in bed by 10, any later and I was tired during the day.”

“What time do they have to get up Gemini? Some kids don't need much sleep, but, for adult sanity purposes they should at least be in their bedrooms by nine, with the option to read, no t.v. or video games”

“my 9 yo, 3rd grade, gets into jammies and starts reading at 8:00. Lights out for her is 9:00.

my 11 yo, 6th grade, starts reading at 8:30 and lights out is 9:30.

Now weekends and holidays is a different matter. They can stay up as late as they want as long as they aren't bugging me :)”

“i never got to catch the 10oclock news till i was a freshie in high school...lmao”

“sarah's 10 - she's in bed no later than 9:30, up at 6:00 rarin' to go.

her 13 yr old Bro will be up till 10, but he's pretty quiet the last 30 mins or so. I think its a matter of principal for him.
last edited: 4/13/05 8:25:13 PM”

“Guy I work with has 7 kids. The oldest who is 11 has to be in bed by 9:00. I was in bed by 10:00 when I was in H.S... but my parents were pretty liberal about that sorta thing.
last edited: 4/13/05 8:27:16 PM”

“Oh... and being a scary mom is a good thing imho ;)”

“A couple of summers ago I was on a group canoe camping trip with some other families. One other family was trying to put their kids to sleep around 7 pm. there was still nearly 2 hours of daylight left. My kids were splashing and yelling as they swam in the river. It was long before those two kids were back out of their tent splashing and running with my kids. When it got dark they played flashlight tag and made smores. they had the night of their young lives.

sometimes you need to be flexible.”

“Yep! Flexibilty is good :-)
Though at home weeknights..bedtime is 8 pm, lights out at 8:30...so we can have some adult time, talk, catch up, watch tv with no kids around ;-)
When backpacking, it is dark or whenever I go to bed-or if winter, when it gets freezing.”

“Bryan is 14 (15 in august)
Cameron is 11 (12 in july)

Cameron isn't so bad...he falls asleep with me on the coutch around 9PM...but Bryan...well...he could stay up until 12 if I wouldn't start buggin' him. 9PM it bedtime...that's it!! Stop playing the damn xbox by 8PM (okay...sometimes I'll let him until 8:30PM).

both are allowed to stay up on weekends. And of course I wouldn't send them to bed at 7 while on a camping trip. I make exeptions all the time.

Bryan needs to get up at 7AM
Cameron gets up at 6:20 AM

Scary...hmm...scary is okay to an extend. I want them to have respect, and yes, they do have lots of respect, and I know I do scare them a little bit if I am angry. But I also want them to come to me if they need to (drugs, friends that get them in trouble, etc...) I don't want them to be scared of me.

I was scared once when I was little. I fell of the swing and really got hurt pretty bad. I run away because I thought my mom will throw me out the window. LOL (long story...)

I don't want my kids to feel that way.
last edited: 4/13/05 8:40:04 PM”

“For 14 9:00PM is fine. My kids are 9 and 7 and their bedtime is 8:00. When our daughter turns 10 we are thinking about letting her stay up until 9:00.”

“remember you have to set the precedent with bryan, as cameron will follow in his brother's footsteps.
in bedroom at nine(with no electronics, lights out by 10?)”

“I'm lucky that my kids love to read. Its a good transition from a hectic day to a good nights sleep.”

“gem, my bedtime was 9... but i do remember being bitter because it'd still be light outside and i was wanting to be out there running around.

but that's ok, i turned out to be semi-normal.

heh heh. kinda.”

“You guys had awesome parents. I had to be in bed by 8 until I was 11.”

“LOL...so I am not so bad after all!
"Normal" parents. Tssss...WTF? Who's normal now days...

9:30! That's it! I am setting the limit to 9:30. Lights out and all! Live with it or...well or else!

if they only knew!



LZ, my kids still had to be in bed by 8 two years ago...I sort of realized that I was a little too stricked there, so I cut 'em some slack.
last edited: 4/13/05 9:35:12 PM”

“Me too, LZ. I remember approaching my mom and dad when I was in 6th or 7th grade and trying to logically explain to them that since I was older now my bedtime should be something past 8 p.m.


Gem, you are doing fine. Of course some kids are staying up later. They have parents who don't care like you do. Not too long ago I got a call at 11 p.m. on a school night from one of Tuck's friends. The ringing phone woke me up, and he wanted to talk to Tucker. I told him to not ever call here that late again.

Luke (5) 8 p.m.
Tuck (10) 9 p.m., last hour has to be in bed reading.”

“My kids go to bed at 8pm but they aren't settled in until 8:30. I allow my 11 year old to read in bed. She's usually asleep by 9:30 but there are ocassions when I have to tell her lights out because a good book can keep her up till 10/10:30. The other two are 5 and 7 and in Kindergarten and Second grade.”

“same here sunshine, I have to tell my kids to stop reading after an hour or they would read until their eyes rolled out of the sockets”

“My kids are in bed reading at 8. Asleep by 9. If they get any less than 9 hours sleep they are zombies the next morning. They wake up at 6:30. Me too. Sucks. Ahhh parenthood. And my wife wants another one too. Man oh man.”

“Two boys, 14 and 16 bedtime is around 10, never later than 1030. 1 Girl, 17 almost 18, bedtime for her is around midnight. Of course she never makes it to midnight it's more like 11.”

“High school aged kid, 10or may be later.

Less than thatwhatever time mom says”

“I used to read under the covers with a flashlight. I can remember losing the flashlight and getting grounded once when Mom found me awake at 2am.

Gem, kids need rest. Your kid's bedtime seems reasonable to me.

My little one is in bed at 7:30. We read to her for about 1/2 an hour. Some nights she's in bed earlier because she's just worn out (even with a two hopur nap in the afternoon). We have a 5 yr old two doors down who has called at 9:30 at night before. She always has dark circles under her eyes and is cranky constantly.”

“Sass...I did the same thing. (flashlight)
Yeah...I am not gonna worry about it anyways. They are going to bed when I say! Period!!! No buts!

I think it got more to me that he said he's scared of me when I am mad. (it kind a was all one conversation).”

“Well, kids don't want to disapoint their parents and making you mad means he's done something wrong most likely. It makes sense that it would be scarey seeing you mad if there's normally a penalty. I was scared to death of my mom when I finally made her snap. It didn't happen too often (she had the patience of a saint with me and my three brothers, esp me) but when it did, holy crap, we scattered! She always caught up with us.
I bet 9 kids out of 10 are scared when their parents are mad.”

“"...I sort of realized that I was a little too stricked there, so I cut 'em some slack.
last edited: 4/13/05 9:35:12 PM”
Gemini
9:34:08 PM
4/13/05

I used to hate gettin' stricked.”

“I was (and shoot, probably still am) one of the 9 of 10 scared when their parents are mad.

Gem, I don't have any kids, but your times are pretty close to what I had growing up in the 80s and early 90s. I think I turned out okay.”

“Ahhh parenthood. And my wife wants another one too. Man oh man.”
bionicear
11:34:25 PM

puppies, can sometimes replace those baby urges”

“Just don't go to the dark side and take up with cats.”

“I was always forced to go to bed at 8PM, unless it was a Friday or Saturday night. My parents let me stay up until 8:15 then!”

“When my daughter was less than one, we used to let her stay up until she fell asleep. This could get to be pretty late. We kept saying that we needed to get her on a more regular schedule, but never seemed to do it.

Then, my wife went to Atlanta for a 7-week long training course for her job, leaving me alone with our daughter. Within about a week I instituted the 8:00PM bedtime, just so I could have some time to myself to relax and do what I wanted to.

On another note, my wife's co-workers (mostly female) were surprised that she didn't take our daughter with her and put her in a daycare temporarily while she was in Atlanta. Anything would have been better than leaving her in the care of a man!”

“i had a pretty liberal upbringing. i had no curfew from 16 on.

sometimes i wonder how the hell i ended up being the fine upstanding citizen i am.”

“Anything would have been better than leaving her in the care of a man!”
bitpusher
8:40:20 AM
4/14/05

Ha Ha! My wife's birthday is this Saturday and a bunch of her friends are taking her out for lunch. One of them is surprised she is leaving her home with me. I said it's only for a few hours. I know I don't have breasts to feed her, but I think I will be able to whip something up in case she get's hungry.”

“I was a homemaker for five years.

Those dang high heels really #&%!$ed up my feet.”

“What my wife's co-workers didn't know is that because I have a brother who is 13 years younger than I am, I had loads more experience taking care of a baby than my wife did. The first time my wife ever held a baby is when she held her own daughter.”

“Birch was in charge everyday from the moment he got home from work until midnight when I got home. he and the little one have a much closer relationship than I had with my Pop growing up. I love that they're so close.

I encourage new parents to leave the baby with gramma and grampa fro the git-go. It's really important to have a night off every once in awhile and be able to go out with the husband/wife. I have friends who have a 4 yr old and haven't been away from her since she was born. Their whole existance revolves around the child and they practically ignore eachother.”

“I'm afraid to answer. Gem (Psycho Mom)scares me!! :)”

“One of my cousins is like that. I remember running into them once, when their child was about 9. They were alone, and I asked about their daughter. The mother was extremely nervous because it was the child's first night away from home.

It was all I could do to not shout "Cut the #&%!$ing cord already!"”

“I used to take off from the kids when I could.

We all enjoyed being apart as much as being together.


Gimme outta here!!!!!!!!!!!”

“I had lots of experience as a kid.

My mother's philosophy was: "Kids are like cats. Once they figure out you are not going to kill them, you can't do a thing with them." It worked. She raised 5 relatively "normal" well adjusted kids.

The real question on how much sleep and what bed time is one of common sense. Do you have to drag them out of bed in the AM to make it to school? If yes, earlier bed time. If no, it's OK to try a later bed time. When they start getting difficult about getting up, then they are staying up too late.”

“When I was a kid we had to be in bed before Perry Mason.


buh-buh-buh, bah-bah, buh-bah”

“No experience as a parent, but . . . .
“I had lots of experience as a kid.

My mother's philosophy was: "Kids are like cats. Once they figure out you are not going to kill them, you can't do a thing with them." It worked. She raised 5 relatively "normal" well adjusted kids.

AJ



exactamundo. and that's why my mom gave up giving me a curfew when i was 16.”

“For 10 years I worked a few hours in the morning and then spent the rest of the day as a stay at home dad (not that we stayed home much, plenty of places to roam during the day). Best time I ever had. I am not nearly as happy now that I am working full time at a "career" again.”

“When #3 was 2-3-4 years old we would wander the neighborhood after the other two got off to school.

He could identify magnolias and azaleas when he was 3.

The elementary school was right on the James River.
At low tide we could walk as far as we wanted along the sea wall and see all kinda cool dead fish and stuff.”

“we would go down to the end of wrightsville beach to shell Island and play on the sandbags wall holding back the inlet then wonder back through the marsh and sand until it was nearly 5 pm. Then we'd race home and do our "flight of the butterfly" routine (as my 27 yo niece used to call my routine) where we cleaned the house and cooked dinner in a whirl of activity before mom came home at 6pm ;-)

Or go hiking at Carolina Beach state park and play on teh 60' sand dune, or laze the day away at a county park, or visit the childrens museum, or go have mud fights in the construction site where they were land clearing for an industrial park. man, those pons and ditches were fun. I wouldn't go near them now, but they were full of good clean dirt back then, or strawberry/blackberry picking,

I have to stop now, this trip down memory lane while sitting at my desk is starting to depress me”

“That little boy is now over six feet tall and he's not blonde any more.

We covered a lot of ground with him riding my shoulders.

Together we were a nearly eight-foot tall package.”

“Mark, I bet you would put those days up against any days of your life as time best spent.


My eldest daughter is now 11. I took over her care when she was 9 mos old. She's become a pretty good backpacker.

My 9 yo daughter is my athlete and hates everything girly. I started with her from birth.

My 5 yo boy is a pistol, but he's developmentally delayed and is around 20-22 months developementally. He has spent many a mile riding in a backpack on my back. I have permanent indentions in my back from his feet digging in there while he tried to stand tall in teh saddle. Apparently my hair makes good reins too.
last edited: 4/14/05 10:08:05 AM”

“stop it you guys are makin me want to have some little brats- err children of my own!”