Bedtime for 6 year old?
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Anonymous
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Our 6 year old starts bed time at 7:30 and is generally asleep by 8:15. After bedtime stories, he typically reads on his own for 15ish minutes before falling asleep. He wakes up between 6:45 and 7:15. I would definitely say that we don't see any correlation (at least not in the direction you're hoping) between bed time and wake time (with appropriate regular bed times - sure the occasional super late night for something special (talking midnight here) might lead to waking up around 8). However generally on nights he goes to bed closer to 9 for whatever reason, he tends to wake up earlier (which always feels very annoying to my adult sensibilities as this tends to weekends/holidays when we could be sleeping in).
Sleep is important (for kids and adults). Time to self is important (for kids and adults). The main hard things we have found, he is not very good about having different routines based on the day of the week. Weekdays we need to get moving to be ready for school. Weekends it would be ideal if he could spend more time playing on his own, reading, start his own breakfast, etc. All of which he CAN do. But with there being more weekdays than weekends, routine kicks in. |
Anonymous
Well ok then. You thinking your husband is lazy and selfish is a problem far beyond your 6 yr old’s bed time. But as others have said, it doesn’t matter when you “prefer” another human to wake up, you need to instead help your daughter find a routine that will keep her occupied, happy, and quiet until you’re ready to get up. |
Anonymous
| Mine goes to bed about 9. He’s a very heavy sleeper, still in overnight diapers. He wakes up around 7 and usually reads in bed or plays in his room for the first hour or so. |
Anonymous
| We start the bedtime routine at 6:45p. Upstairs, bath, jammies, books, last glass of water...goal is 8pm. It is really nice quiet time that we get to unwind together at the end of the day. |
Anonymous
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8:30 for hours but like every person, every child has different sleep needs.
We are still waking our y-year-old up for school at 7am. On weekends she can stay up till 9pm and will naturally wake up at 8/8:30 unless she needs to be woken earlier. Our 10-year-old though, he’s always been an earlier riser. It didn’t matter when we put him down for bed. He would always wake up at 5:30am/6:00 and if we pushed his bedtime back to 9:30 he’d wake up at 6:00 but me miserably cranky by 10:am. So he went down at 7:30pm and woke up at 6:00 and would manage fine. But by 4 he was old enough to know he was not to leave his room or wake us till 7:00. He had fresh water, a bathroom and tons of toys and books. He could self entertain. Your six-year-old may always be an early riser, but they shouldn’t be mindlessly roaming through the house at 6:30am. Set some boundaries, get an awake clock. |
Anonymous
When I put my six year to bed later, I get earlier wake ups, so watch out! |
Anonymous
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Kids have different sleep needs. My 6yo goes to bed at 7:30pm on weeknights and needs to be woken up at 6:30 to make it to school on time.
On weekends, bedtime is 8pm and will sleep until 7:30 or so. |
Anonymous
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Your 6 year old is old enough to play quietly or read a book for 30 minutes when she wakes up.
It's hardly selfish to want some down time in the evening! |
Anonymous
| Some kids have a natural alarm clock regardless of what time you put them to bed. My younger DS would be up at 6:30am on the dot regardless of what time he went to bed until he was older (8ish) and now it can range from 6:30-7:30. My older DS would sleep in every day if we let him. It was more genetics that anything - no change in bedtime ever altered the morning. |
Anonymous
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I go upstairs with all 3 kids at 7:30ish. Youngest (3 years old) is asleep by 8:15. Older two (6 and 8 years old) are asleep by 8:30ish. I do it solo pretty much every night.
Kids wake up somewhere between 7am-7:45am during a school day and from 7:30-8:30am on weekends. |
Anonymous
| Our 6yo still pretty much sleeps 7pm - 7am. |
Anonymous
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For the people whose 6 year olds are getting up and playing quietly by themselves until 7, how have you made this happen? My 6 year old won’t get out of bed before 7 during the school week, but on the weekends she’s up at 6 (or sometimes even 5:30) bouncing off the walls in our bedroom. She has a consistent bedtime and is in bed by 8, asleep by around 8:30 or 9 depending on how long she reads to herself.
She definitely knows that we want her to stay quiet in her room until 7 but our 6 year old cares almost exclusively about what she wants rather than what we want. Did others institute consequences (or rewards) and what were they? Or did you just persistently keep repeating the expectation? |