Does your toddler choose their own bedtime or did you decide when it would be?

Just wondering if there are any parents out there who let their toddler decide each evening what time they go to bed?

I am seriously considering just giving up and letting ds do his own thing between the bath and the onset of sleep. I have read there are lots of cultures who let children decide their own bedtime and I figure that we let ds decide lots of other things, like what to wear, what to play, what to eat. All of his other choices have limits, a certain number of options I suppose. Sleep is different and something that's totally up to him anyway. I can't force it and i'm not trying but I do resent the time it takes him to go to sleep at night. It's been going on for months now, seriously & I'm really sick of sitting in his room every single night for up to 2 hours waiting for him to fall asleep.

If you do this in your family, how does it work? What boundaries do you have around it? What are the advantages/disadvantages?

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we've always had a set bedtime, but hun you need to do whats right/best for you
xx

I have a set bedtime for the girls, but I have thought about trying something similar.

My biggest problem is that DD2 will not go to bed unless DD1 is going to bed as well. Shes done it since the day she was born (would not go down at night until DD1 was in bed, regardless of how sleepy she was).

We try so hard with bedtime which is 7:30, but dd is still up in bed next to me. She is so strong willed and I am just to tired to deal with the fight. I am ignoring her though, she will drift off soon....i hope! Big :hug:

Just wanted you to know that you are not alone :hug:

DS always had his last bottle from when he was sleeping through at 7:30 so bed time since then has been adrink of milk then bed
DD just goes to bed when i do which is a shame for me lol

I'm on my pod so can't see how old your boy is.
We have a strong routine, and it has been going so long they pre-empt everything now, but when dd was little we basically left the toddler gate on her door. Once the story had been read and the bedtime songs had been sung, the light went out and we would leave. Often she would play in the darkened room for a little while.
Then we would come in before we went to bed and put her into hers. No big deal.
Hth

For our sanity we've ended up letting DS set his bedtime - he fights going to sleep at the best of times :rolleyes: so for us to stress less we have given up trying to force him to go to sleep unless he's really really tired. We all get worked up if we try to do otherwise. we do know that DS will go to sleep typically anywhere from 7:30-9:00 pm each night so we just ride it out until he drops.


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We’ve never had a set bedtime because my kids are night owls and quite frankly after 8pm I just CBFed. DS usually falls asleep on the lounge at around 7:30pm. DD just trashes the house till somewhere between 8:30pm and 11pm.

Ask me about dinner time, we totally rock dinner time, we’re great at that. At bed time we just totally suck! :( But *meh*, I figure ‘ya can’t be great at everything. :hug:

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I'm on my pod so can't see how old your boy is.
We have a strong routine, and it has been going so long they pre-empt everything now, but when dd was little we basically left the toddler gate on her door. Once the story had been read and the bedtime songs had been sung, the light went out and we would leave. Often she would play in the darkened room for a little while.
Then we would come in before we went to bed and put her into hers. No big deal.
Hth

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That is what I do with DD1, minus putting into our bed as her sister is already there. I don't care what she does as long as she doesn't destroy anything. But it's go to bed, I read her two stories, goodnight hug and kiss and then I leave. When she falls asleep is up to her, but she has to stay in her room.

littlelara - we have also had a "strong" routine since ds was 5 months old. He is now over 30 months old and since he turned 2 bed time has been more and more difficult. He was a kid who would be placed in bed and be asleep 10 mins later with no settling, no story etc. He just went to sleep at 7pm every night. It just doesn't work anymore. I probably have the wrong title on the thread. My question is really, what would you do if your strong routine stopped working and your child stayed awake an extra hour or two every night?

ETA - for those of you that put your kids in their rooms and expect them to stay, how did you achieve that (aside from the toddler gate?) I would be happy to leave ds in his room playing quietly or reading (he just started wanting books at bedtime the last few days) but the problem is he wants me sitting in there with him until he falls asleep and its driving me nuts!
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No set bed time here.
After dinner DS normally goes and watches a movie in our bed and generally falls asleep there. We then transfer him to his own room.
It is rare that he is not asleep by 8.30
The only time we have trouble is if we have let him sleep late in the afternoon (say, past 3 o'clock) and he is genuinley not tired. But come 9.30, he goes in his own bed like it or not. That is very very rare though.
I see no problem at all with it.

He goes to bed when he's tired. He wakes up at different times, depending on what we are doing in the day - and only has a nap somedays.
We keep a watch on his behavior, and when he starts getting clingy or unco or silly or repetitive we tell him "When the big hand gets to (whatever number is in 15 minutes) it's get ready for bed time".
Some nights that's 7.30 (earlyish start, no nap) other nights its midnight (slept in and had a nap).
We also sometimes give him the choice mid-afternoon "are you going to have a rest or are you going to bed straight after tea".
It works pretty well for us.

I've got set bet times here. Always have since I was able to get them into a routine. 730 is bedtime. Some times that is later if we're out or its a movie night. But they are really good when it comes to bed time.

No specific set bed time here because sadly i cannot program her to fall asleep on cue :rofl:

We try to keep "going to her bedroom" around the same time usually 8ish but depending on the night she can take up to an hour to settle to sleep.

Day sleeps are just as bad I try to schedule her nap 5 hours from wake up time depending on how well she slept the night before.

I guess it depends on what your comfortable with, I wish DD would go to sleep earlier and stay asleep all night, but thats wishful thinking.

You could try a partial routine if you wanted to keep things predictable for him, but then not get too stressed if he doesn't fall asleep straight away ??

Nae x

oops - double post

Truthfully, I have no idea how I got her to stay. We started off sitting with her when we started her going to bed by herself (in our bed), but that only lasted a week. If she ever came out, we just put her straight back in.

No bedtime here either. My DD1 is a great sleeper and always has been. She has maybe been up past 8:30pm a handful of times and most night after her bath and a glass of milk she likes to cuddle with DH or myself and will end up falling asleep. She very rarely has a day nap anymore so most nights she is asleep by 7:30pm. If she has had a nap and is not showing any tiredness and it gets past 8pm I do tell her it is quiet time now and she will come cuddle. She goes through stages of wanting to go to bed before falling asleep and wanting to fall asleep in the lounge room. I choose not to force her and we all have a good night.

My DD chooses when she goes to bed but it is always around 6pm so works for us too. Not sure what I would do if she was keen to stay up all night, don't think I'd fight a losing battle though if that makes sense.