Letting your child choose their own bed time?

[nicholeraine]

I know this is frowned upon by so many people. My son and I have very structured days, following a schedule with everything from meal times, to play times, to reading time, etc. But when it cmes to nap time and bed time, he just wont go to sleep when I'd like him to.

Sometimes I just let him stay up with me and he lays on the couch with me while I watch TV. And he falls asleep on his own when he gets tired.. no struggle. It's so much easier than forcing him to sleep, that I'm actually considering just letting him do it every night..

I have honestly tried everything. What good is it for me to get frustrated with him like that when he's not tired? I don't like upsetting him just so he'll sleep. Everyone I know looks down on letting him stay up, but it is so much easier.. everything else we do is so structured, but this is just impossible. It's never been easy, since he was born.

He's 19 months next week.

Anyone have any advice? What is your opinion on letting your child stay awake until they fall asleep on their own?

[lafemmedesfemmes]

when my kids were 19 months old, i let them choose their own bedtimes to the extent that i let their tiredness dictate when i started winding them down for the night. then i structured their days around that. so, if i knew a kid turned into a rambling wreck at 11:30pm, i'd start winding them down at 10:30 or 11, so that he'd fall asleep peacefully by 11:30. same thing with naptime. it was kind of annoying that our family's circadian rhythm ran a bit later than everyone else's, but our schedule suited us just fine, and we all got enough sleep. that's the important part!

christina

[Llyra]

If it's working for you, then it's fine. My rule for sleep has been whatever works best, to get everybody enough sleep with the least amount of fuss. For some families, that means a structured bedtime. In other families, not. In our house, bedtimes are very structured. I have three kids sleeping together in one room. DH has to be up at 5 every day, and DD1 has to be up for the school bus. And the kids and I seem to be the sort of people who need more than an average amount of sleep-- DD1 is 6, and still sleeps 12 to 13 hours a day, for example. So we do best with an orderly bedtime.

My friends, on the other hand, have one child, who's 3. Mom stays home, and she and the child are able to sleep in if they want to. There's no urgent reason for them to need to be up at any special time. They have a very freewheeling approach to bedtime, and it works for them.

[ramama]

When DDs were younger, I would have a ballpark bedtime. No, I don't want to force then to sleep at a certain time, any more than I'd like them to still be up at midnight. More than anything, I wanted to raise them to listen to their own bodies, got to sleep when they're tired, eat when they're hungry, etc. Ultimately, I seem to have children who require less sleep than average. Sure, sometimes they stay up too late and poop out early the next day, but it all regulates in the end, on its own.

ETA: My children do not do well with being woken up (they get that from their mama ) So if we have an earlier-than-normal event to go to the next morning, I try to manipulate it so they naturally fall asleep a little earlier (music, lighting, reading, etc.)

[Marissamom]

I can't fall asleep when I'm not tired, so why would I expect my kid to. I also don't have set times for eating, she's very capable of telling me when she's hungry. she does pretty much always eat when we do, but she chooses when she eats in between those times. At 16 months, we know when she's tired so we should tuck her in and she tells us when she's hungry and needs a snack.

[bobandjess99]

I'm with you OP. I love it when my kids just ...fall asleep because tey are tired. Thats how we do it here.