At what age do kids no longer have set bedtime?

[Anonymous]

I'm wondering when kids are basically responsible for putting themselves to bed...thanks!

[Anonymous]

About age 34, sometimes later.

[Anonymous]

At some age after you no longer have responsibility for getting them up in the morning...

[Anonymous]

After they leave home to go to college

[Anonymous]

Gee, I had a requisite bedtime all the way through high school. I almost never stuck to it, but it was clear that if I was tired the next day, "tough luck -- you were dumb enough to go to bed after midnight."

So the "requisite" was more of the if-you-want-any-sympathy variety.

Bedtime at 9th-12th grade: 10:30 (I had a 6:45 am bus to catch, and if I didn't catch it, my parents didn't write me a tardy excuse. Tough tomatoes, girl!)

[Anonymous]

We were pretty strict about an early bedtime with our kids until our oldest got to 8th-grade. At that point, we felt like he needed to learn for himself how much sleep he needs. This has worked out pretty well. He wakes up at 7, goes to school and has a team practice after school almost every day. He knows that by 10 pm he's pretty tuckered out, so he's learned to get his HW done by that time. That way he can get 8 or so hours of sleep most schoolnights.

[Anonymous]

when they got out of high school. 10 when they were in highschool sometimes 11.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:About age 34, sometimes later.

DH is 38 and I still have to tell him to go to bed.

My memory was that my folks expected me to go to bed by 10 or 10:30 (midwest, so that was after the news). But they wouldn't turn the lights off on my if I were still doing homework. I got up at 6:30 in order to leave the house at 7:30 for 8 AM class. I am a bear if I don't get enough sleep, so 10:30 was a pretty reasonable bedtime for me. Friday and Saturday nights were more flexible, unless I had to be up early the next morning for sports or something. Also, 10:30 was when my parents went to bed.

I was probably in middle school when they stopped telling me when to go to bed though. I just don't remember it being an issue after 5th grade or whenever I was old enough to stay up late enough to watch Fantasy Island, which came on at 9 PM.

[Anonymous]

In early middle school, our kids became responsible for going to bed and getting themselves up. Mostly that means they are in bed around 10-10:30p, and up around 6:45-7a. We help things along by having the internet access cut off at 10pm.

[Anonymous]

It can really depend on your child's sleep temperment....some kids may need more help remembering to get to bed, whereas other kids go easily. I remember around 10th grade is when my parents kin dof eased off, but there was no computer or calls to the house or tv allowed after nine, unless something homework related was happening.

[Anonymous]

It depends on the child really. If your child has always been independent, gotten themself up, etc. then... they'll be ready for a 'no bed time' as early as 7th grade!

However, if yours is the type that won't get to school unless *you* wake them up... then they're not ready for it until they leave.

My niece doesn't have an 'official' bedtime... She wakes up at 6 AM every day. The catch is... she's been getting herself up since she was six years old. [The joys of the alarm clock!] And she's been waking up her father to take her to school since she was about ..10 or 11. So she's very independent. She jokes about how she wouldn't get to school if she didn't get up. Even so... she stays up only as late as 10:30 or 11... while she has friends who go to bed as late as 2 or 3, who *do* have bedtimes!