Bedtime for Baby…Is Midnight OK?
Posted by Susan Epstein on November 20th, 2008 at 05:16pm
Recently I have been speaking to parents about how their evenings are structured. What I found out was interesting…
Parents who work out of the house…tend to give their infants a later bedtime..somewhere around the time they go to bed themselves. They tell the child care providers to let baby sleep as long as s/he needs to in the morning and throughout the day.
Nothing like it...
Some parents believe that if the baby is “really tired” the baby will sleep through the night and later in the morning.
I guess I can see the logic in this but still I was skeptical. We humans are programmed to sleep when it is dark and be awake when it is light. Ask anyone who works the nightshift how difficult it is…and they will tell you that they are exhausted all the time.
So I went searching and found some info that those of you who are interested can take a look at….
http://babyparenting.about.com/cs/sleeping/a/earlybedtime.htm
So let’s talk about what you parents are doing and let’s figure out collectively what is best…
Tags: baby, bed time, kids staying up late, parent discussion
Under Teens/Tweens
2 Comments for Bedtime for Baby…Is Midnight OK?
1. Rachael | November 20th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
This is an interesting topic. I look forward to hearing what everyone has to say.
2. Ranae | November 21st, 2008 at 5:09 am
My husband and I have a blended family with 5 kids. Three are biologically mine and all 3 are night owls and love to sleep in just like me. All 3 have had similar sleep patterns. As newborns they all took the standard naps but by 6-9 months they all were night owls not going to bed until 9 or 10pm. My 20 month-old has been taking only one nap that lasts about three hours since he was about 9 months old. By the age of 2 my first two children were done taking naps because I was having a hard time getting them to bed even by 10pm. I imagine it will be the same with my 20-month-old.
My step-son’s are 11 and 8 and as far as I know they were early to bed by 8pm and early to rise at about 6am. As they have gotten older they like to stay up and sleep in. Right now my husband is the only one who can barely make it until 9pm. If he is up past 10pm he can barely function the next day.
I have wondered if it was healthy for my kids to go to bed later but both my older children do very well in school, play sports and have plenty of energy for other activities despite their lack of sleep. My youngest is also home with grandma during the day, so sleeping in until 9am is not an issue yet. We will have to revisit that when it comes time for pre-school.
I believe my kids have their sleep patterns because of my lifestyle and how I was raised. My parents were not strict with bedtimes and my dad is definitely a night owl. Also, I was a single mother working 40 hours a week with my first two children, who are now 15 and 13 and I’m sure I kept them up for selfish reasons, wanting to spend more time with them, feeling I missed out on the day. Currently, with my 20-month-old son, we are very busy with the other 4 kids so we are never home. I also continue to work 40 hours a week so want to spend time with him too.
For the record, my husband would want it to be known that he is a lot more strict when it comes to bedtimes
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