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Another very interesting post - thanks Ellen! I'm afraid I'm a no-nonsense kind of a parent when it comes to bedtime, and I always have been. This is for a number of reasons. The main one is that my children need to have a decent amount of sleep, and secondly, because the evening is "my" time, they get my full attention all day.

Since birth till age 3 (ish) my three have gone to bed around 6.30pm, because by that stage they are exhausted (our days are fairly full-on), from age 3 (ish) onwards bedtime moves to 7pm. My daughter is 6.5 years now and she still goes to bed at 7pm. I know she doesn't go straight to sleep and that is fine, but she does know that she has to stay upstairs and can quietly read or play for a little while before she has to go to sleep. This makes her feel a little more grown up than the boys, but also keeps within the boundaries that we've set. I realise that things will need to change soon as my daughter's swimming lessons are going to be changing at some point to evenings, and they will only finish at 8pm, so this is something we will have to manage accordingly, although right now I'm not quite sure how :-)

Leigh
Ready for Ten Team