As a French child, I can tell you that in summer, we were never going to bed until quite late - and I have magical memories of long hike with my grand father in June where we could see, smell and feel the summer night coming. I raised my children the same way in the US, and most of my neighbors in the suburb are doing the same. I see kids going for a stroll with their parents in my american suburb at 8:00 pm on a school night in May, and it is fine. My main issue with the way America does childhood is the obsession with sports - and how early it becomes a competition. For me, that is the most detrimental to children in the US; all the sports are oriented to create “champions” way too early and cut the options of just playing a sport because it is fun and healthy. Also, it should be much cheaper to participate.
I think the big elephant in the room is early bed times enable parents to participate in American capitalism. If your kids are in bed at 7 (and hopefully can go to sleep alone without your assistance!) you can “log back in” and do more work. Or maybe you don’t but it’s your precious time to take care of yourself as a parent because you didn’t take care of yourself all day (because capitalism means you should work all day and shuffle your kids to activities that you pay for and then put them to bed and maybe then you’ve earned a moment of peace but go to bed early to wake up early and churn out more). Structuring your day around your kids and relaxed fun inherently means you’re not structuring it around maximum productivity. I’ve chosen this relaxed sleep lifestyle here in the US and it definitely had an effect on my performance in corporate America (and I’m ok with the impact on my earning potential and long term promotion prospects). Additional food for thought! Thank you for sharing this!
Absolutely! We went on holiday to France last year, our daughter was nearly two. No rushing around long late naps in the afternoon and all the kids were up and happy to go to bed later. No stressing about waking up early. It was liberating what being a parent could be like if all the work stuff wasn’t so rigid. It’s such a shame. Looking forward to our next trip there soon!
This is what I thought - I have friends who have to be at work early and they put their kids to bed very early. They are the first ones who leave a gathering! I was a SAHM for years and was fairly relaxed about naps and bedtimes...and my kids are teens now and are what we call "high functioning humans" lol. See - this is another clue some of us really belong in France.
And I do respect those parents for that rigidity! For them, it’s key to sanity and survival. Not for me though. I definitely think that my preferred parenting style has influenced my career decisions for the rest of my life (instead of vice versa). Both respectable choices. I wonder what an “intense career” actually looks like for parents in France!
We live in USA. This is how we have always raised our children. We have 7 - we have no strict bedtimes, but everyone goes to bed when they are tired. We do not organize any plans around our kids naps or bedtime - it gives all of us the freedom of soaking up childhood. And My kids are very well rested. One time a family member asked us when do your kids go to bed? I just scratched my head. I felt it was such an odd question.
It is also a little bit of joke among our friends because we will be hanging out late and our little boys will just fall asleep on our laps. They stop when they are tired and we are not restricted. My kids will sleep anywhere.
Especially during the summertime you will find my children playing late into the evening catching fireflies. Childhood is too short to stress over perfect bedtime routines.
I only have 1 so far, but he is extremely alert and has a hard time going to sleep even at home- so, I kinda time my errands around his naps, but absolutely not our social life. We have some friends with 3 children who are on a strict schedule, and it’s annoying. When we have them over we have to eat at 5, which my husband has to leave work early to manage, then they leave by 8. Idk, I also think it makes children entitled when everything revolves around them. I’m a big believer in rest and order, but not… precision.
I disagree. We don’t follow a strict routine for the sake of it, but for our own sanity. Our kids are completely out of sorts when they’re way off the routine. It blesses us when they know what to expect, have food at regular intervals, and good sleep. We’re not obsessive over it, we’ll stay out later to spend time with friends or family, but there’s a cost to our household when we do. Just to add another perspective!
I think there's room for both. I live in southern Spain, and we have a pretty rigid routine during the school year. Occasionally, on the weekends, we'll stay out late for a dinner or family party and they go with our flow (or fall asleep in a stroller, which is also fine). When summer hits, though, things change. Telling a 4-year-old to go to sleep at 8pm while the sun is still very much up (tonight it'll set at 9:44pm) is not an easy task. We adjust and recalibrate and figure out a new routine that works better for us. I think the rhetoric online about anything related to child sleep is so extreme -- you must do one thing or the absolute opposite -- when really, you just need to find what works best for your family, regardless of what country you're in.
I always hated going to bed early enough for a "room halo" as a kid. Thankfully I didn't have to do it *every single day* to the point of missing out on the last meal of the camping day (10 pm deep fryer stuff) or something
Getting divorced when my son was still quite young highlighted why exactly we were not meant to be together. My ex-husband's household is run with military precision. Bedtime is 7pm and not a minute later. Calories in, calories out. Exercise is a religion and children talk about 6-pack abs before they can run. There was no room for spontaneity and joy was most certainly not on the menu. As my son got older, living in that atmosphere caused enormous unhappiness so he lives with me full-time now. Common sense and balance will create more well-rounded humans any time. That is a hill I will die on.
I find it so ironic and American to obsess over circadian rhythm, bedtimes, routines etc. when seasonal rhythm & relaxed bedtime is the most natural to our bodies & circadian rhythm.
My low sleep needs child has never gone to bed at 7:30 😆 Actually she recently did and her body obviously treated it as a nap because then she was awake for 90 min at
I just wrote an article about how I have felt imprisoned by my sons sleep schedule and it's almost as if Substack sent me this article in response! I really needed to hear this!
My children are all grown now. But when our first was born, all ideas about bedtime went right out the window from day one. She was a night owl, through and through. Continued to be a night owl her entire childhood. We homeschooled, so bedtime and wake time didn’t matter. My mother started nagging, “How’s she going to get up when she gets into the ‘real’ world.” Turns out, just fine with an alarm clock. She also works night shift. I also had an early to bed kid and another night owl. (From what I can tell, no one was cognitively harmed by staying up late.)
It must be my French ancestry because we rarely go to bed before 10. Homeschooling helps in that way. My husband gets home late, I value eating as a family so we rarely eat by 8. Then there are evening chores and winding down. Occasionally, I suddenly decide to be strict about lights out at 10, but it usually doesn’t work.
Agree homeschooling completely helps the freedom of bedtime routines. I have children who fall asleep all at different times. Just this Friday night my kids and all of their friends were playing till 11 pm. No, that is not every night, but they have the freedom to do so!
I learned valuable lessons living in a third world country with minimal electricity. You don't need to live by a watch, you go to bed when it gets dark and you get up when it's light, and hospitality to those around you is a way of life.
This honestly seems quite similar to how things are done where I live in the Midwest in the US for the most part. I think the part of these conversations that people forget is that American parents don’t necessarily do these things because we are insane, we do them because there is zero support for us here. The people I know that are strict about bedtime are strict because they have to get the kids to daycare or school or camp so they can go to work in the morning and staying up until 9:30 or 10:00 makes that nearly impossible. The French way sounds delightful and I feel lucky that I see a little similarity!
My daughter is two and a half and sleep used to be our number one concern. From sleep regressions when she was younger to her refusing to do it anywhere but with me. I live in New York, so of course I bought the camera with the breathing belt tracker and I have the sound machine (both travel and stationary versions) 😜but the one thing that helped me keep my sanity was bedsharing. I figured one of the perks of being a SAHM is that I don’t need to rush. So I lay with her, and sometimes I get my own nap in which is glorious! Sometimes I sneak out to get things done around the house or write. In the winter everyone settles before 9 around here, but now that we are enjoying fairs and festivals and outdoor events, we are all going to bed closer to 11 some days, including my toddler.
Thank you for writing this! People think I’m crazy when I tell them my toddlers bedtime in the summer is between 9 and 930 and that’s only if we’re not doing something that requires us to be out later. He sleeps in until 8 AM and sometimes he takes a longer daytime nap but I’m not rushing home to put him to bed at 7 PM when the sun is still blazing
As a French child, I can tell you that in summer, we were never going to bed until quite late - and I have magical memories of long hike with my grand father in June where we could see, smell and feel the summer night coming. I raised my children the same way in the US, and most of my neighbors in the suburb are doing the same. I see kids going for a stroll with their parents in my american suburb at 8:00 pm on a school night in May, and it is fine. My main issue with the way America does childhood is the obsession with sports - and how early it becomes a competition. For me, that is the most detrimental to children in the US; all the sports are oriented to create “champions” way too early and cut the options of just playing a sport because it is fun and healthy. Also, it should be much cheaper to participate.
I think the big elephant in the room is early bed times enable parents to participate in American capitalism. If your kids are in bed at 7 (and hopefully can go to sleep alone without your assistance!) you can “log back in” and do more work. Or maybe you don’t but it’s your precious time to take care of yourself as a parent because you didn’t take care of yourself all day (because capitalism means you should work all day and shuffle your kids to activities that you pay for and then put them to bed and maybe then you’ve earned a moment of peace but go to bed early to wake up early and churn out more). Structuring your day around your kids and relaxed fun inherently means you’re not structuring it around maximum productivity. I’ve chosen this relaxed sleep lifestyle here in the US and it definitely had an effect on my performance in corporate America (and I’m ok with the impact on my earning potential and long term promotion prospects). Additional food for thought! Thank you for sharing this!
Absolutely! We went on holiday to France last year, our daughter was nearly two. No rushing around long late naps in the afternoon and all the kids were up and happy to go to bed later. No stressing about waking up early. It was liberating what being a parent could be like if all the work stuff wasn’t so rigid. It’s such a shame. Looking forward to our next trip there soon!
This is what I thought - I have friends who have to be at work early and they put their kids to bed very early. They are the first ones who leave a gathering! I was a SAHM for years and was fairly relaxed about naps and bedtimes...and my kids are teens now and are what we call "high functioning humans" lol. See - this is another clue some of us really belong in France.
And I do respect those parents for that rigidity! For them, it’s key to sanity and survival. Not for me though. I definitely think that my preferred parenting style has influenced my career decisions for the rest of my life (instead of vice versa). Both respectable choices. I wonder what an “intense career” actually looks like for parents in France!
Oof!!👏🏼
We live in USA. This is how we have always raised our children. We have 7 - we have no strict bedtimes, but everyone goes to bed when they are tired. We do not organize any plans around our kids naps or bedtime - it gives all of us the freedom of soaking up childhood. And My kids are very well rested. One time a family member asked us when do your kids go to bed? I just scratched my head. I felt it was such an odd question.
It is also a little bit of joke among our friends because we will be hanging out late and our little boys will just fall asleep on our laps. They stop when they are tired and we are not restricted. My kids will sleep anywhere.
Especially during the summertime you will find my children playing late into the evening catching fireflies. Childhood is too short to stress over perfect bedtime routines.
I only have 1 so far, but he is extremely alert and has a hard time going to sleep even at home- so, I kinda time my errands around his naps, but absolutely not our social life. We have some friends with 3 children who are on a strict schedule, and it’s annoying. When we have them over we have to eat at 5, which my husband has to leave work early to manage, then they leave by 8. Idk, I also think it makes children entitled when everything revolves around them. I’m a big believer in rest and order, but not… precision.
I disagree. We don’t follow a strict routine for the sake of it, but for our own sanity. Our kids are completely out of sorts when they’re way off the routine. It blesses us when they know what to expect, have food at regular intervals, and good sleep. We’re not obsessive over it, we’ll stay out later to spend time with friends or family, but there’s a cost to our household when we do. Just to add another perspective!
I think there's room for both. I live in southern Spain, and we have a pretty rigid routine during the school year. Occasionally, on the weekends, we'll stay out late for a dinner or family party and they go with our flow (or fall asleep in a stroller, which is also fine). When summer hits, though, things change. Telling a 4-year-old to go to sleep at 8pm while the sun is still very much up (tonight it'll set at 9:44pm) is not an easy task. We adjust and recalibrate and figure out a new routine that works better for us. I think the rhetoric online about anything related to child sleep is so extreme -- you must do one thing or the absolute opposite -- when really, you just need to find what works best for your family, regardless of what country you're in.
I always hated going to bed early enough for a "room halo" as a kid. Thankfully I didn't have to do it *every single day* to the point of missing out on the last meal of the camping day (10 pm deep fryer stuff) or something
Getting divorced when my son was still quite young highlighted why exactly we were not meant to be together. My ex-husband's household is run with military precision. Bedtime is 7pm and not a minute later. Calories in, calories out. Exercise is a religion and children talk about 6-pack abs before they can run. There was no room for spontaneity and joy was most certainly not on the menu. As my son got older, living in that atmosphere caused enormous unhappiness so he lives with me full-time now. Common sense and balance will create more well-rounded humans any time. That is a hill I will die on.
I find it so ironic and American to obsess over circadian rhythm, bedtimes, routines etc. when seasonal rhythm & relaxed bedtime is the most natural to our bodies & circadian rhythm.
My low sleep needs child has never gone to bed at 7:30 😆 Actually she recently did and her body obviously treated it as a nap because then she was awake for 90 min at
At 10pm. Never again!
I just wrote an article about how I have felt imprisoned by my sons sleep schedule and it's almost as if Substack sent me this article in response! I really needed to hear this!
My children are all grown now. But when our first was born, all ideas about bedtime went right out the window from day one. She was a night owl, through and through. Continued to be a night owl her entire childhood. We homeschooled, so bedtime and wake time didn’t matter. My mother started nagging, “How’s she going to get up when she gets into the ‘real’ world.” Turns out, just fine with an alarm clock. She also works night shift. I also had an early to bed kid and another night owl. (From what I can tell, no one was cognitively harmed by staying up late.)
This really puts it into perspective about how wonderful childhood can be✨
It must be my French ancestry because we rarely go to bed before 10. Homeschooling helps in that way. My husband gets home late, I value eating as a family so we rarely eat by 8. Then there are evening chores and winding down. Occasionally, I suddenly decide to be strict about lights out at 10, but it usually doesn’t work.
Agree homeschooling completely helps the freedom of bedtime routines. I have children who fall asleep all at different times. Just this Friday night my kids and all of their friends were playing till 11 pm. No, that is not every night, but they have the freedom to do so!
I wish I’d read this when my kids were little! I really needed to chill out.
Ugh me too
I learned valuable lessons living in a third world country with minimal electricity. You don't need to live by a watch, you go to bed when it gets dark and you get up when it's light, and hospitality to those around you is a way of life.
This honestly seems quite similar to how things are done where I live in the Midwest in the US for the most part. I think the part of these conversations that people forget is that American parents don’t necessarily do these things because we are insane, we do them because there is zero support for us here. The people I know that are strict about bedtime are strict because they have to get the kids to daycare or school or camp so they can go to work in the morning and staying up until 9:30 or 10:00 makes that nearly impossible. The French way sounds delightful and I feel lucky that I see a little similarity!
My daughter is two and a half and sleep used to be our number one concern. From sleep regressions when she was younger to her refusing to do it anywhere but with me. I live in New York, so of course I bought the camera with the breathing belt tracker and I have the sound machine (both travel and stationary versions) 😜but the one thing that helped me keep my sanity was bedsharing. I figured one of the perks of being a SAHM is that I don’t need to rush. So I lay with her, and sometimes I get my own nap in which is glorious! Sometimes I sneak out to get things done around the house or write. In the winter everyone settles before 9 around here, but now that we are enjoying fairs and festivals and outdoor events, we are all going to bed closer to 11 some days, including my toddler.
Thank you for writing this! People think I’m crazy when I tell them my toddlers bedtime in the summer is between 9 and 930 and that’s only if we’re not doing something that requires us to be out later. He sleeps in until 8 AM and sometimes he takes a longer daytime nap but I’m not rushing home to put him to bed at 7 PM when the sun is still blazing