Later Bedtime or Not?

My husband and I are having a debate on whether to push back the kids bed time. They will be 2 next month and currently go to bed between 7:30 and 7:45. DD will sleep until 7 at least, sometimes until 8 but DS's sleep is horrible. He's always been an early riser, up around 6 but lately we've had 2 instances of waking at 4:45 am! Totally unacceptable. We have had some sniffles and may have teeth coming in but nothing major. My husband thinks we need to push the bedtime back to 8 to get him to sleep later but I'm afraid it will backfire and I'll end up with very tired (and cranky) toddlers. Both nap reasonably well...about 1.5 - 2 hours consistently.

Anyone have opinions?

 

I think 8pm is a reasonable bedtime. Also, is the current bed time 7:30-7:45 and they are actually awake later than that, or are they asleep by that time? If you put them down at 7:45, I dont think 15 minutes will cause a huge issue.
Would you consider only altering DS bedtime since he has been the one with sleep issues?

 

IMO, I wouldn't change your current routine. It is probably a phase that your DS is going through, teeth, etc, with the earlier than normal awake time. Later bedtime does NOT mean waking up later!! One of mine is a sleeper and the other isn't - it just means that we all get up early, they nap well and still go to bed at their normal time. Bottom line is that you should do what works for everyone! Good luck figuring it out!!

 

I think it depends on your child. I have 2 children that will sleep later and you put them down later and 2 that rise at the same time every morning no matter what time I put them to bed. Which is yours?

Personally, it sounds like a phase to me too and wouldn't change things. My 8 and 10 year old go to bed at 8 so that sounds late for a 2 y/o to me especially if they are early risers and really what's 15 in gong to do except delay their sleep?

 

I'm on the whole "it's a phase" bandwagon!! I wouldn't change it! I would probably keep it closer to 7:30 myself.

We are a 7:30 house still! After the time change it gets easier! :hug:

 

I agree with 'depends'

AS a PP said--I have one DD that will sleep later if you put her down later....the other gets up at the SAME time no matter what!

I woudl wait it out- maybe adjust naps if you need too. One of my DDs dropped a nap (and took a shorter one) a good 1 1/2 years before her sister.

We also use a timer in their room--they know if the light is not on, it is NOT time to get up!

 

We were just contemplating whether or not we should move back our kids bedtime (I posted something similiar a few days ago)....becoming early risers, too. However, I think we have figured out our issue was 2 yr molars. Having said that, our kids do go to bed at 8pm. I think that is an acceptable bedtime for a 2 yr. old. I don't think it is too late. Over time their bedtime has gradually gotten to 8pm. It use to be 7pm then it moved to 7:30pm and now it is 8pm. I don't remember at what age we moved it to 8pm, but I would say they have been going to bed at that time for at least 4-6 months. We changed because we noticed they just hadn't wound down by 7:30pm. It was just taking them longer to be ready for bed...even though we were still doing the same bedtime routine. Even when we put them down at 7:30...it took a good 30 minutes to fall asleep. So we pushed their bedtime back a bit. Despite some sleeping issues we have had recently, they still sleep 11-11.5 hours or so at night.

Do you notice that they are not ready for bed that early? Does it take them awhile to go to sleep? If they crash when you put them down, I wouldn't change their bedtime just to try and get them to sleep later. That probably won't work. As someone else pointed out, a later bedtime does not neccessarily mean a later sleeper. The waking up early might just be a stage. However, if you have a hard time getting them to go down that early, I would consider pushing it back a bit.

 

I always find that an earlier bedtime actually helps my kids to sleep in later when they start waking earlier. The whole "sleep begets sleep" theory. That's just my personal experience, though.

 

Thanks for the responses ladies. They typically fall asleep pretty quickly after they go down and DS seems to really want to go to bed at that point anyway so I might keep things the same and hopefully wait for him to outgrow the phase! I am going to keep a sleep log to see if there is any correlation between length of nap and wake up time too...I'll let you know know my unscientific results!

 

Agree 100%, so true for us ... and the reason why my oldest went to bed at 6 pm from 4 months old to 2 1/2 years old and slept 13 hours straight. My twins started going to bed at 6 pm at 2 1/2 months already (also due to planning issues, getting my oldest to bed). Even now, the twins are in bed before 7 (almost 3) and my oldest is in bed at 7, sleeping by 7.30 pm (she's 5). My children sleep better when they go to bed earlier (of course depending on how tired they are, their day, etc, but I am not afraid to put them down earlier if needed, it only helps!).

 

We recently experimented with this, though mine are older. We found putting them to bed later just resulted in a later wake time, so exactly the same amount of sleep. It did not affect naps at all, but they have to be up by a certain time anyways for preschool, etc so sleeping later doesn't benefit us except on weekends, and we can just put them down later then.