Managing Different Bedtimes

[1011]

My boys, 9 and 6.5, share a bedroom. Currently, bedtime on school nights is 8pm. Very reasonable, and my youngest boy totally needs it. My oldest is really wanting a later bedtime, and I believe he can handle 9pm. However, his brother will probably flip out about it not being fair if his brother gets to stay up later. How would you all handle this?

 

[verygrateful]

@1011 My 11 year old and 5 year old boys share a room (new baby sister arrived a few weeks ago & took over our other bedroom), and they do well with their separate bedtimes.

The 5yo gets solo stories and snuggles, and he’s usually fast asleep by the time the 11yo gets into bed. They have a bunk bed so that was an extra concern since our oldest has the top bunk but we let them choose where they slept too so that was also helpful with the transition & different bedtimes.

Treat a later bedtime as something to look forward to when he’s bigger for the littlest one, and in the meantime, make bedtime for him special by reading stories and having one-on-one time with just him before tucking him in.

 

[kokopuff]

@1011 I've gone through the same thing. My boys are similar ages and shared a room. We simply told our 6 year old that older brother has earned a later bed time and when he is 9 he will get the same option. Basically, we don't give him a choice. The trade off was, though, that we had to sit with the 6 year old at bedtime because he was used to having older brother in the room lol but it worked out eventually and became normal.

 

[1011]

@kokopuff I like this. I already read with my boys before bed, so I think I'll continue that with my younger and he will just get to pick the book every night now.

 

[kokopuff]

@1011 Yes! That's so perfect--he gets to choose!

 

[jewels777]

@1011 We have found that it isn’t so much an issue of being unfair (we are the parent, they can whine all the want about it being unfair, different ages warrant different bedtimes) but when they share a room it’s very likely the older one will wake up the younger one when he goes to bed, or he has to tiptoe to bed every night. The former defeats the purpose of the earlier bedtime and the later I believe to be unfair

Here are the things that worked in some way for us
-split the difference and both kids go to bed at the same time (8:30 in this case)
-put both kids to bed at the same, earlier time. If the older one truly doesn’t need that much sleep he will wake up early in the morning and gets unrestricted access to the tv and fridge before everyone else gets up
-both kids settle into bed at earlier time, but are given different privileges. Younger can only read books by tiny light but older can work on sticker by number pictures while listening to music on headphones or sometimes finishing his TV show on his tablet. This worked well because the kids were bunked so they couldn’t see each other from bed

I obviously don’t know your kids but most children don’t get enough sleep. Unless he’s waking up super early or you don’t feel like he has enough time to get everything done (lots of extracurricular does this). Kids that age do need 10 hours of sleep a night, so assuming he takes an hour to fall asleep after bedtime, he would need to stay asleep till 8 am every morning to get all that. My house is much too noisy to allow this but your situation could be vastly different!

 

[1011]

@jewels777 My house gets quiet at 8, because that's when the toddler goes to bed as well (she is in another room). Both boys are asleep by 8:30, and they can wake anywhere between 6-7:30. I'm not too worried about the older one getting enough sleep, if he's out by 9:15 and wakes between 7-7:30, that's still close to 10 hours.

 

[onya]

@1011 Personally I just do them all at the same time for connivance because otherwise you’ll likely wake the other when the eldest goes to bed.

Why not try 8:15 as a compromise or 8:30?