children's bedtimes

[walkitout]

I have some Issues when it comes to enforcing kids' bedtimes. These largely revolve around my parents enforcing a 6 p.m bedtime when I was in early grade school (I think 3rd or 4th grade) with beatings if we were caught up reading by the hall light. When a teacher at school predictably raved about what a good reader I was, I mournfully (and completely innocently) noted that my reading was a Very Bad Habit and one I needed to break. The teacher, not unexpectedly, inquired and was horrified when I (again, totally innocently -- I did not grok that this was something One Didn't Talk About) explained that I was regularly beaten with a stick because I wanted to stay up later reading. Very shortly thereafter, and at the time somewhat mysteriously (this is something I pieced together years later), my parents took me aside and told me not to tell my sisters, but if I wanted to get up and read by the hall light, as long as I was quiet and as long as I got up in the morning I could do so. At the time, of course, I was kind of charmed to have a little deal on the side. When I got older, I became convinced that like employers who stop their employees from discussing pay so no one knows what's up, my parents were similarly cutting separate deals with my sisters. Efforts to ferret the details out of my sister R. have thus far failed, which makes that theory increasingly implausible.

I mention this because over at the Well (I keep thinking how nice it would be if the NYT went out of business and all their bloggers continued on their own, or at some other site; especially Tara), there's a pointer over to an article by a pediatrician, about her own kids' bedtimes, and the Obama kids' bedtimes. If you are interested, you can pursue it yourself. I won't give them the traffic, altho I will note that the people who worry about their kids and themselves getting enough sleep are rarely the people who probably should be worried about their kids and themselves getting enough sleep.

I think kids and schedules are a piss poor combination. That said, for several months now T. has had a strikingly consistent bedtime and bedtime routine, even tho we've made no effort to create a routine and have on occasion actively thwarted it. And that bedtime is a _lot_ earlier than it used to be. Sadly, he gets up a lot earlier, too, which is a real bummer.

A.'s habits are still fairly flexible. She sleeps every few hours during the day, and she sleeps a good long stretch only partly waking up for snacks at night. I'm sure some day she'll disappoint me too, by developing a regularity I will find somewhat deplorable. My favorite personal schedule, adopted in college, and maintained until the kiddies started arriving, was sleeping from about 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. Alas, I haven't been able to sustain staying up that late for years, and the last few months I haven't been able to sleep in that late, either. Which just goes to show you that setting a 6 p.m. bedtime is kind of pointless.

All that aside, I _do_ believe that people need to get enough sleep. I even believe that there are times of day and night when sleep is more rewarding than others (trying to go down for a nap at 10 a.m. for me is really tough, but napping at 3 or 4 p.m. is really easy). I just don't think it should be taken quite as far as our culture persists in taking it.

Comments

[jinasphinx.livejournal.com]

6 p.m. bedtime in 3rd grade?! I know we've said this before, but I just have to say it again: your parents are frakking NUTS.

I have noticed lot of the Sleep Experts, M.D., Inc. like to dictate a particular bedtime (although I think even they only like 6 p.m. for infants). But some families get up and go to work at 8 a.m., and others of us roll into work around 10, so it never made sense to me to prescribe a single bedtime for every family.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

My bedtime was 7:30 up through second or third grade, and I thought that was insanely early. But my son's bedtime is only 8:00 to 8:30 (he's ten, and an early riser by nature, as is my husband), and that seems pretty much exactly right: if he has to stay up much past that, he generally *wants* to go to bed. I think he'll adapt to the far-too-early schedule for middle school next year a lot more easily than my daughters did.

I think you are overreacting, FWIW, but I must say you have the best excuse for overreacting I've ever heard. I guess I would say that precise *schedules* can be suboptimal for kids, but *routines* are often quite valuable. In other words, all the elements of a schedule (planning, order of events, etc.) *except* precise time requirements.

schedules, routines, planning, etc.

[walkitout]

I agree with you that people in general, and generally children in particular do better when things happen in the order and manner which they expect them to happen. An order of events and expectations about that order of events are well within the meaning of schedule. Just because _I_ tend to think that schedules imply specific times doesn't mean that the dictionary and/or other speakers of English agree with me. ;-)

I'm bemused by the idea that I have a great excuse for overreacting. To me, it's a set of life experiences that led to a particular conclusion. To someone else, with a very different set of life experiences, it's an uncalled for conclusion, but makes sense given what I've got to work with. I can understand, intellectually, the alternative perspective.

But it's so much easier for me to be around children when I don't have anything particular planned. And if I am around children with a particular plan, it's so much easier if there's no particular time frame.