Child dependent. One kid was pretty functional, even on suprisingly limited sleep. Another kid was a total basketcase -- the max he could go is a half hour later than his official bedtime.

Not yet for my 8.5yo. He still basically begs to go to bed at his usual time...he knows when he's tired and he just wants to go to sleep NOW.

I am so envious of the parents who dont have to care! I am a PP with a 9 year old who needs consistent sleep and will not sleep in, and I hate having to enforce early bed time! We miss out on a lot of what could be fun things because its just so not fun to deal with the fallout the next day. I hope you all appreciate your blessings! And understand that we can't all do that.

So kid dependent.

Truthfully, I've never cared. Since both my kids were babies, we probably had at least one night per week that they were up late. They've always seemed to roll with it, but they're both pretty easy going kids in general. I only notice it now if we try to do two late nights in a row, we'll usually have a meltdown on day 3, which is totally understandable (kids are 7 and 5). So we try to avoid that.

Around age 5-6 for my kids, but it depends if your kids will sleep in or take a nap the following day.

Even close to age 10, I still make exceptions based on what we have planned the next day. If my kid has a swim meet or a morning baseball game, we don’t stay out late. May kids think this makes me an awful, no fun ogre, but I tell them grownups do the same thing. When I have an important presentation at work or I am running a half-marathon, I don’t stay out late with my friends. I go to bed a bit early so I am rested and ready to do my best.

Kid dependent AND parent dependent. I sometimes enforced the bedtime because I knew dh would not be any help the next day with the resulting fallout

We've always been lax about bedtime on the weekends, when the kids could just sleep in the next day (or more likely just have a lazy day). We've made exceptions for occasional things like Friday dinners with friends or Saturday concerts.

Last year, my husband took our 5 year old to fireworks for the first time (our 3 year old stayed home with me and went to bed). This year, the kids are 6 and 4 and we recently kept them out til 9:30 for a festival. Their normal bedtime is 8:00.

My kid is 5 and we were really strict until about a year ago, and even then a later bedtime was for something out of our control (travel took longer than expected) or a special event. And even then it would be like missing bedtime by an hour. We’ve relaxed a bit except on school nights. We’re still almost down to the exact minute (because of the Hatch) on most days.

I’d say around 6/7 I’d let it go an hour later maybe two for a special event. But we would do an early night the next night. My kid also doesnt sleep in.
She’s 11 now and normally goes to bed 9/930. I’ll let her stay up til 12ish on very rare occasions for a special event. She did a sleepover a couple months ago and they were awake til 2am. She was awful the next day so not doing that again.

Our kids are 3 and 6 and we've just noticed in the last few months that we can make bedtime exceptions without completely ruining the next day.

For a long, long time we were hard-core 7:30pm bedtimers because the kids would wake up at 5:45am regardless of the time they went to bed and if they didn't get enough sleep they'd be monsters. All of a sudden if they are up late, they sleep closer to 7am and it's been SO MUCH fun to enjoy that freedom from the schedule!

My oldest was like this for years. I know I seemed super rigid about bedtime but it just wasn’t worth having a horrible day the next day. It got better around 8. Maybe it will for you.

My younger one has never had the same issues. I think you just have to try and see.

My kid won't sleep in, so even as an 11yo we have to keep a tight lid on it.

Anonymous wrote:Op here - unfortunately my 7yo does not sleep in the next day to make up for it. He’s a beast when tired. Just nasty to his siblings in particular which is unfair to them. But it feels so lame never doing any of the fun summer evening events. I wish we could just have an easy day the next day but the fighting and moods are the worst the days we are home a lot

My oldest was like this and still is. A teenager that doesn't sleep in past 730am, ever. It's just his hard wiring. However, now he has to deal with himself and it doesn't blow up our lives.

You stop worrying about it when it stops ruining your next day, whenever that is.

Anonymous wrote:Totally depends on the kid. One of my kids has always been fine with an occasional late night as long as most nights he stuck with a bedtime. The other one is a terror if she goes to bed even an hour late one time.

This. We will make exceptions for special occasions, but my oldest can be an absolute terror the next day if they don't get enough sleep. So, even with a 9 YO (the oldest) we don't usually push back bed time more than 30 minutes on a school night.

Totally depends on the kid. One of my kids has always been fine with an occasional late night as long as most nights he stuck with a bedtime. The other one is a terror if she goes to bed even an hour late one time.