Summer and kids are out late

amother

Mon, Jun 03 2019, 7:59 pm

My son is nearly nine and needs his sleep. If not we're are looking forward to a day of tantrums, staying home from school, refusing to cooperate etc.. The problem is that kids on our block starting age 5 are still playing outside at 9:00 pm. My son's bed time is 8:00 and I have been trying to push it till 8:30 because of this issue. Over the weekend he was by his father and went to bed probably 12:00 Friday night and motzei shabbos. Last night he went to bed around 7:45, 8:00 and this morning he refused to get up. I had to cajole and what not and drove him to school (at least he went) I tried to put him to sleep early tonight but he was giving me such a hard time with coming in including trying to run away from me. I eventually just lost it when my toddler was crying and he was acting like an overtired difficult kid. I yelled. It was really bad. He was crying. I felt so bad.

My question is what do I do? I want to have a nice summer with him and I can't change his father or my neighbors. I don't want him to be the nerd who goes to bed early. He is old enough to care. I want to habe my cake and eat it too.

amother

Mon, Jun 03 2019, 11:40 pm

rowo wrote:

Will he be home during the day? Or does he need to be up early to leave to camp?
In the summer after a few days of late nights (not outside till 9! But later than normal) my kids start to wake up later.
I love the slow mornings!

He has school until August. And summer schedule seems to already have begun Sad

amother

Mustard

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 12:44 am

I have a strong opinion about this. I don’t know if you live in Lakewood, but I do, and this is a big issue in development life. I’ve learned to make rules. I say this is what we do in our house. I doesn’t matter what the neighbors do, this is how we do it. Stick to your guns. Kids playing outside at 9 is not normal, sorry. In our house, we don’t go collecting. Period. We will raise money a different way. Your kid is not a neb, and that is life, he will never have/ do the same things as “everyone else”. Make a time and don’t budge! He’ll get it eventually.

FranticFrummie

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 12:51 am

I remember very clearly being that age. My mom insisted that I be in bed, or at least in the house, by 7pm. All the other kids got to play until the street lights came on, and that was their cue to go home.

It was torture trying to relax and sleep with the sun shining through your curtains, and happy laughter outside your .window. I felt like I was being treated like a baby.

Try buying blackout curtains, and a white noise machine. If that fails, see if you can regulate his sleep with a low dose of melatonin a half hour before bedtime, and some quiet activities.

Is he your oldest? I hate to tell you this, but a he heads into his teens, it will only get worse. As his body changes, so will his biological clock. He'll need more sleep, but not want to go to bed early.

The sooner you can get him used to putting himself to bed early, with a dark and quiet room, the sooner he'll be able to learn how to self-regulate.

amother

Emerald

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 1:14 am

Nothing to do with developments.
I live in Lakewood I’m on a regular old spaced block and had at least 6 kids playing in my back yard at 8. Most of the mothers didn’t want to be the bad one to tell kids to come home. Some mothers didn’t care yet.
I also have to figure out how to enforce a normal bedtime without embarrassing them.
I’d prefer all friends gone by 7 but I think I may need to settle for 7:45/8:00. 9 is late.
Summer shabbasim are hard. They just get late and at 9 there isn’t really a solution.
At his next well visit can you have his dr explain to him how much sleep he needs. I find sometimes that helps.

crust

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 1:16 am

amother [ Mustard ] wrote:

An opinion? I'm with you. Every parent is allowed to have an opinion.
Having 'Strong' opinions with an S can become problematic.

Kudos to you for being such a strong mother but there's a דבר הממוצע for everything.

OPs child is already dealing with things so I assume if she wants to create a rule it'll have to be one that is absolutely necassary and it'll have to be one that she's able to be consistent with.

The first thing would be to see if its really so important to him OP. Are these neighbors nice to him? Does he count on them as siblings? How left out will he feel? How many kids really stay outside till 9?

Can you negotiate it to 8:30?
Can he get a treat if he comes in early?

I know it's hard because where I live the kids are outside from Purim till Chanukah.

I used to be upset because it was hard to shlep in kids that are in middle of a game or building the next great aircraft.

Then I took my child listened and explained to him why its important to come in earlier.
It costed me a few charts prizes whatever it was but I can say that for the this child that really needs the sleep my talking helped bh.

amother

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 7:42 am

Seems like were all on the same page about kids needing their night sleep... guess were going to need to figure this out together. Me and him. And we actually live on a very small block. I spoke to some neighbors around the corner and they were very surprised kids are out that late. They call their kids in at 6:30...

amother

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 9:31 am

amother [ Wheat ] wrote:

I give my kids a later bedtime in the summer. The fighting is not worth it and they end up falling asleep late anyways. I think an 8:00 bedtime for a 9 year old is on the early side, especially in the summer. But all the kids on my block are inside by 8. The big kids stay out later.

Read my post again.