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This is true. Sorry GP, but if your kids are of the fairly typical variety then parent is right. I remember when our son was younger and we would chat with othe

This is true. Sorry GP, but if your kids are of the fairly typical variety then parent is right. I remember when our son was younger and we would chat with other parents. Our son was always in bed by 7:15pm and getting up at a reasonable morning hour. Other parents became amazed as bed time was always a fight for them. How do you do it, they would ask, as if we possessed some secret knowledge of child taming. My wife would then explain the routine and consistency required to achieve this magical feat. You could see their faces fall as the process was described. No magic this "consistency and routine" thing could never work for them and their house. Precious Jimmy or Sue are just different.... So many times this. We thought maybe our kids really were abberant. But then we met other parents with this secret knowledge as our son aged and we had a daughter. I accept my children's disappointment. May they learn it young. I am here to guide them to the most productive life possible. Productive in the fulfillment sense, not the material sense. This will always require weathering the storm of their sometimes outbursting disappointment. Funny thing, though, after a while they learn that no actually means no and they don't lose their cool so much over it these days. Edit: just want to say it actually is hard. It requires a lot of the parents to be consistent and show up regularly. It is so hard in fact that it is a sort of secret. But within the confines of this sacrifice and constraint there is a sort of calm and freedom that makes day to day life flow better. It isn't for everyone, but modifying a young child's behavior in most cases is anything but mysterious.

ido 10y ago
Don't they wake up extremely early if they go to bed at 7:15pm? My son already wakes up at 6:30am when bed time is 8:00pm. I am not looking forward to waking up at 5:45am instead!
- bitexploder 10y ago
  They mostly follow the sun these days. Now that they are both older (5+) we tend to flex the schedule +/- 1 hour or so. Read them a story for a few minutes and they have all the skills to put themselves to sleep easily now. The specific time does not matter so much as the routine and consistency. The trickiest thing to work around is the Sun. My kids tend to do best when the Sun is mostly set. Some of the time they do pop up earlier. But like all things it changes. At my kids age my role in the morning is quite different from what it used to be :)
  - ido 10y ago
    Mine is just a year old so yeah, it's a different situation. But also in Berlin during summer day time is ~4:30am to 9:30pm and in winter it's extreme in the other direction, so having them follow the sun doesn't work quite as well as it would be in regions closer to the equator!
    - bitexploder 10y ago
      Ahh, yeah. I live in the south east United States. We change our clocks by an hour in spring and fall. It is the trickiest when the Sun sets later because they tend to want to be up a little later in the day (800-830) now before the Sun doesn't make the house so bright, but it is still fine. We just used heavier drapes when they were younger to trick their mental clocks a little. Easy to forget the planet isn't the same for everyone else :)
watwut 10y ago
If I had to have exactly same routine every evening, I would personally hated it and go crazy. Occasional difficulty to wake up is low price for not having to structure all family life and my life around 7:15 sleeping time. I really like to be able to stay on playground longer when whether is right or be with my adult friends a bit longer or, well, anything like that. If the kid would be autistic I would do it, but otherwise nope.
- bitexploder 10y ago
  Yeah, I hope this advice didn't seem too totalitarian. We did that all the time and still do. I think it is more of a "most of the time be consistent". And bed time is only one component. The routine is also super important, possibly more important than a specific time, but the timing certainly helps. The routine before bed is like programming to their brain that helps them hit their off switch easily. After a few years they can do it with very little help from an adult. So it is also all about the age where they are going to most easily learn these skills. To me it is worth doing it when they are younger because it is just another invisible life skill that really helps them be happy and whole.
- thomastjeffery 10y ago
  The point is to have a normal routine that you can break. Rules are meant to be broken. It turns out that you will always have a routine whether you are aware of it or not. Everyone enjoys the rush of freedom that comes from breaking the rules. Remember they are only rules, not laws. Rules and routine aren't simply restrictive, they can give a backdrop to all the other moments.
  - photojosh 10y ago
    Yup. Our kids are normally in bed by 7:15, and they're in the older 7-9 bracket. (Up at 6am, but so are we.) Their delight when you do something special like going out for dinner or a "late" night walk is wonderful. Can be as often as 1-2x a week or even more during school holidays.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

ido 10y ago

Don't they wake up extremely early if they go to bed at 7:15pm? My son already wakes up at 6:30am when bed time is 8:00pm. I am not looking forward to waking up at 5:45am instead!

bitexploder 10y ago
They mostly follow the sun these days. Now that they are both older (5+) we tend to flex the schedule +/- 1 hour or so. Read them a story for a few minutes and they have all the skills to put themselves to sleep easily now. The specific time does not matter so much as the routine and consistency. The trickiest thing to work around is the Sun. My kids tend to do best when the Sun is mostly set. Some of the time they do pop up earlier. But like all things it changes. At my kids age my role in the morning is quite different from what it used to be :)
- ido 10y ago
  Mine is just a year old so yeah, it's a different situation. But also in Berlin during summer day time is ~4:30am to 9:30pm and in winter it's extreme in the other direction, so having them follow the sun doesn't work quite as well as it would be in regions closer to the equator!
  - bitexploder 10y ago
    Ahh, yeah. I live in the south east United States. We change our clocks by an hour in spring and fall. It is the trickiest when the Sun sets later because they tend to want to be up a little later in the day (800-830) now before the Sun doesn't make the house so bright, but it is still fine. We just used heavier drapes when they were younger to trick their mental clocks a little. Easy to forget the planet isn't the same for everyone else :)

watwut 10y ago

If I had to have exactly same routine every evening, I would personally hated it and go crazy. Occasional difficulty to wake up is low price for not having to structure all family life and my life around 7:15 sleeping time. I really like to be able to stay on playground longer when whether is right or be with my adult friends a bit longer or, well, anything like that. If the kid would be autistic I would do it, but otherwise nope.

bitexploder 10y ago
Yeah, I hope this advice didn't seem too totalitarian. We did that all the time and still do. I think it is more of a "most of the time be consistent". And bed time is only one component. The routine is also super important, possibly more important than a specific time, but the timing certainly helps. The routine before bed is like programming to their brain that helps them hit their off switch easily. After a few years they can do it with very little help from an adult. So it is also all about the age where they are going to most easily learn these skills. To me it is worth doing it when they are younger because it is just another invisible life skill that really helps them be happy and whole.
thomastjeffery 10y ago
The point is to have a normal routine that you can break. Rules are meant to be broken. It turns out that you will always have a routine whether you are aware of it or not. Everyone enjoys the rush of freedom that comes from breaking the rules. Remember they are only rules, not laws. Rules and routine aren't simply restrictive, they can give a backdrop to all the other moments.
- photojosh 10y ago
  Yup. Our kids are normally in bed by 7:15, and they're in the older 7-9 bracket. (Up at 6am, but so are we.) Their delight when you do something special like going out for dinner or a "late" night walk is wonderful. Can be as often as 1-2x a week or even more during school holidays.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]