When is your 9-12 month old bedtime?

[capital]

Barbwong, I think that is very interesting about the impact of culture, and true.

My children (age 2 1/2 and 9 months), both go to bed around 7:00 pm, one right after the other. My 2 !/2 year old was going to bed later, at 8:00 pm, until he stopped napping in the afternoon, then went back to going to bed at 7:00. I didn't stop his nap to get to go to bed earlier, believe me! I really missed having that time to myself in the afternoon at first. He sleeps thru the night and wakes up at 7-7:30 am. My 9 month old gets up at 5:00 or 6:00 for a feed, then back to bed until 7-8 am, ususally 8:00 am He takes 1 moring nap and 1 afternoon nap for 1-1.5 hours. I like it this way, I like having my evenings to myself, as it is the only time I get to myself. I also think ealy bedtimes are important to get enough sleep.

As far as culture goes, I am Canadian, so I agree that earlier bedtimes are more common here. I have one friend who's child goes to bed at 9:00 pm, and that is considered late. I also think it has a lot to do with employment. When I went back to work when my oldest was one, I had to leave my house at 8:00 am at the latest, he went from 2 nap/day to 1 nap/day when I first started too, so he was completely out asleep at 6:30 pm. We started our bedtime bath and routine at 6:00 pm. It was hard because I didn't finish work until 5:00 pm, then had to pick him up from the dayhome, rush home, make supper and feed him, all before 6:00 pm. I was happy when he was older and could go to bed at 7:00 again.

 

[barbwong_130]

I worked outside the home when my first two children were young. I found the fact that they went to bed around 11:00 pm a very good arrangement.

It meant that I had around seven to eight hours each working day with my child ? which helped our relationship. My baby sitter also liked the arrangement as the baby would sleep quite a lot during the day thus making it easier for her too.

It also really helped me maintain my milk supply. I would feed in the morning before leaving for work, express two or three times at work and feed lots of times between 6:00 pm and 11:00 pm in the evening. I was happy to wake and feed during the night too as this meant less expressing during the day.

One of the advantages of having children in Hong Kong is that we are influenced by people of different cultures. This allows us to see that there is no one right way to bring up children but in fact lots of right ways.

This is why it is important to do what suits your family best and not worry too much about what everyone else says. You will always be able to find someone who disapproves of the way you do things but also to find someone who agrees with you.

Best wishes,
Barb

 

[jane01]

I have mixed views on this.

Barbwong - I'm not totally with you. I agree that there are some cultural differences in bedtimes/sleeptimes. Maybe I'm biased having experienced early bedtimes myself. However, in favour of an early bedtime:
* Fits in better with playgroup/school/activities/etc - doesn't matter what sort of culture you have, school is still 9'ish to 3'ish. That doesn't allow a 6 year old an afternoon nap. Which leads me to my next point
* HK children (and adults for that matter) obviously aren't getting the right amount of sleep over a 24 hour period. They are constantly falling asleep on public transport/in the office/etc. They are sleepy on the 8am ferry from DB. How can you function at work at 9am if you're sleeping on the way to work? They might be used to it, but it doesn't mean it is good for them.
* Personally I feel that once children are no longer babies they function better on a big block of sleep. They can only get this if they go to bed early. No scientific basis for this belief, just my opinion.

On the other side, time with parents in the evenings is important. Perhaps parents should finish work earlier to spend time with their children before bed? I don't have any magical answers.

For us 7pm is bedtime.

 

[barbwong_130]

What school did/does your pre-school children go to?

Mime went to the local Chinese kindergarten between the ages of three and six years old. This was a full day school from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm. All the children had afternoon naps between 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm. This is standard in full day Chinese kindergartens.

Believe me when your six year old sleeps for two hours in the middle of the afternoon they are easily able to stay up longer in the evening.

At the time when my second child was in kindergarten my elder daughter was in afternoon primary school going from 1:30 pm to 6:30 pm every day. She hadn?t even had dinner by 7:00 pm and couldn?t have gone to bed at that time. She also went to bed between 10 pm and 11:00 pm but she rarely got up before 10:00 am

Just because it is possible for your family to have early nights don?t assume it is possible for everyone. The school system for the local Chinese schools here is not the same as the International schools.

Barb

 

[barbwong_130]

One of the biggest problems for anthropologists is how to deal with the basis they bring with them from their own culture.

The way you were brought up and live your life feels normal to you and so it is often difficult to see that other ways of doing things is just that different ways of doing things. And even if we can understand that different cultures do things in different ways it is difficult for us to really believe that this different way is just as valid as our way of doing things.

I recently went to hear a lecture about Australian Aborigines. During the talk I was told how European anthropologists believed that the Aborigines killed unwanted babies. They had no evidence for this other than the lack of babies and toddlers within the family groups. But these anthropologists came from a society where mothers had babies every one to two years and so couldn?t imagine how Aborigines could only have a child every six years if they weren?t killing the unwanted ones. Looking with the knowledge we have now about how breastfeeding spaces children, especially when coupled with so little protein in the diet, it is likely that the Aborigine mothers just never got pregnant as much as their European counterparts.

It was common place in medieval Europe for people to wake in the middle of the night and get up for a couple of hours. This effectively split the night into two sleeping halves. These people managed to carry on their lives normally. I believe that there was a lot more manual work then and so you would have thought they needed their sleep more than we do today.

Please don?t get me wrong ? I don?t think there is any problem with early nights for children. It is just that it doesn?t suit every family?s lifestyle. I don?t like people telling me that my life style is unhealthy just because it is different. It implies that I?d knowingly do something that was bad for my children. And that I don?t notice if my children are healthy or not.

 

[capital]

The way you were brought up and live your life feels normal to you and so it is often difficult to see that other ways of doing things is just that different ways of doing things. And even if we can understand that different cultures do things in different ways it is difficult for us to really believe that this different way is just as valid as our way of doing things.

I think that is true, As I stated before I am in favor of early betimes 7:00 pm and that is what I have my children do, on the otherhand my husband who grew up in hong kOng and went to the afternoon shift of school, always sleeps in if has the chance, always goes to bed late, he is always (my opinion) chronically tired as he can't sleep in because of work, as soon as his head hits the pillow he is asleep, which in my mind is a sign of chronic sleep deprivation. But I gave up trying to get him to sleep MY way a long time ago. We never go to bed at the same time, but I am certainly not going to change my sleep habits for him, so I guess I can't expect him to change for me either.

I do worry about when we go to hong kong though, as I know he will not want to be home at 7:00 pm every night for the children to go to bed, and his family with think it nuts too. (His mom sleeps until noon everyday!!) we went on a trip recently and of course the children went to bed late most nights, and napped little, as they do not nap well out of the house! They were grumpy, cranky, over tired, terrible behavior with my 2 year old! It was really hard, and there wasn't even a time change to deal with!!

 

[jane01]

Barbwong - I certainly don't mean to tell you what is best for your family. Obviously your routine works well for you and your family are the better for it. There is no question that some of us are night owls and others aren't.

I have just tried to make the point that I don't think it is normal or healthy for children or adults to be sleepy soon after they wake up and throughout the day. To me that is a sign that they are chronically sleep deprived and it can't be good for them.

 

[sunrays]

I find what you have to say very interesting Barbwong and I do agree that we tend to view what we are used to in our culture as "right". I always assumed children went to bed early as this was how I was brought up and thought it cruel to keep them up late into the evening. However, I am becoming more open to the idea of structuring the day as you outline so that we can be together as a family in the evening. My husband was brought up in this way, with a nap in the afternoon so for him early bedtimes are an alien idea. At the moment, we have time to decide how we will structure naps as she is only 2 months old!!

Interseting thread ladies!

 

[carang]

i have a feeling that if you asked the same polling question on a chinese website, the responses would be heavily skewed towards late nights for the toddlers/babies.

 

[mrs.duarte]

barbwong:
I'm with you. I think is the working hour in HK, which is making people go to bed late. Before I had my baby girl, I was a hair -dresser. This is a long hour job, some time I have to work over 12-14 hours a day(6 days work). But if you are hair -dresser in AU, Canada or Uk.... you don't have to work that long hour as in HK. I means it's not just my job is long hour, I talked to my clients, a lot of people finish work late in HK.
I quit my job after I had my baby. But I'm working at home and my working hour is after my baby go to bed till 3-4 am in the monring everyday. My baby go to bed like 11pm, but she doesn't get up till 10am usually. That is good for me, so I don't have to get up that early. For now, this is my life style. May be I will change the bed time in the future, it's all depends on my family schedules. Or when she goes to school, then she would be going to bed early.