Another Example From The School Of The Bleeding Obvious ?

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23223751

Not putting your kids to bed at the proper time isn't good for them apparently...well, well, well ...who would have thought of it !

[emmie]

wish our neighbours would take heed, for no reason i can explain their young children are often up and around at 11pm, midnight sometimes, bonkers.

[Sharingan]

Oh there goes my brain I never had a bedtime...

[anneasquith]

young children require 10/12 hours of sleep per night to function properly. my advice , unplug every electrical device after dinner.( obviously not the fridge/freezer. :)

[friedgreentomato]

Well annea, I had a tv etc in my bedroom but I was aware that bed time was bedtime and that the TV etc was turned off.

It has more to do with bad parenting than electrical devices!

[ummmm]

Shar....but you are home schooled so don't have to be up and out early.

Bed time was one thing I was very strict on. Not just for them, for us as a couple.

[emmie]

little children need good sleep, if not they are cranky and will be dozy in the daytime, so how would any child be awake, aware if they had 4/5 hours sleep. i don't know how the neighbours children fare at their schools, but it must be difficult.

[Sharingan]

But all the really interesting people used to turn up at 9 o'clock onwards for supper and drinks, I would have really hated to miss that. lol, but yes you do need enough sleep when you're little, otherwise you get very rat tailed in the morning. However, aren't kids who don't have set bedtimes / early bedtimes likely to come from more chaotic households anyway and thus maybe struggle a bit more with some aspects of school? I'm not really sure how you can 'factor that out'.

[emmie]

the dad works, he gets home late, the children are up and about, they eat late as i recall, so i don;t know whether it's chaotic, just their way of life,

[AlwaysConfused]

I can be quite lenient, but not when it comes to bedtime. Children need routine.

[friedgreentomato]

children always ate at 5 in our house, dad came home at 6 and we spent an hour with him, then it was up to our respective rooms to read, do homework etc, lights out at between 8-10 depending on our age (at 16 it was 10).

No arguements etc that was the way it was.

[Sharingan]

It could be, my parents never had a set bedtime for us as long as we behaved, and I did because I used to like staying up and chatting to the visitors about things. I learned a lot simply talking to so many diverse people, and even some quite little kids need less sleep than others. I can sleep for years, but Rivkka sleeps maximum of 4 or 5 hours, although whether that's to do with her injury or not I don't know.

[Gromit]

There are so many other factors in this which make the conclusions unbelieveable.

Some childrens (and adults) natural pattern cannot be set by a clock. We are programmed to be awake in daylight to maximise our ability to gather food.
So in summer when darkness isn't until 10pm, our bodies fight sleep.

Also, another problem is children being woken too early. Familes where both adults work and rise at 5am and wake their children, are also depriving them of sleep.

[youngmafbog]

Good job Noo labour are not in power or I could see another law to control the masses coming in!

I dont think this is anything new and every child will be different, humans are not clones.

As for the tv etc in the room, I simply wired one of our particularly will-full child's room to a separate mcb. Plays up, mcb gets flicked; no tv!

[emmie]

small children wake early, they need decent sleep, so if they go to bed at a reasonable hour, no distractions, apart from a bedtime story, then if they wake at 5am they have done pretty well, if asleep by 7/8pm as you get a little older that will change.

[Gromit]

Children of primary school age are recommended 10 hours sleep. If you put them to bed to sleep at 7pm, they will wake at 5am.

[jno]

the sleep children need doesn't have to be all at once. Those in Mediterranean countries seem to cope ok with having a siesta then staying up late (as do their parents).

[AB Editor]

Interesting point that the effect seemed to be cumulative. So the more often they had a night of short sleep the worse they got.

[jim360]

Well perhaps this was "obvious", we still needed to check it. The number of old ideas that turn out to have no substance is surprisingly high -- for every study that says "what you thought all along turns out to be right" there are two more "actually what people thought turns out to be totally wrong". So this wasn't a waste of time really.

[Octavius]

Generally my girls go to bed at 7 (when I get home) and are up at 5am (when I get up). They get an extra hour or two on Fridays and Saturdays or special occasions, but they are quite ready for bedtime and often tell us that they are going to bed.

Not really sure this makes them the brains of Britain but certainly leads to a more harmonious routine.

[LoftyLottie]

What is the proper time? My son never needed much sleep from birth and if he went to bed early he would lie awake and just get more and more awake and irritable. He went to bed when he was tired and slept well, and we all had a much more contented life.

He excelled at school, especially in Maths, English and Science.