It’s 10 p. m. , and our 3-year-old is kicking up dirt around the playground like a hurricane, showing no signs of being ready for bed.
He’s not alone — the swings and slides are packed with kids his age running around under the streetlights as parents and grandparents watch. This was on a recent vacation to the Greek island of Crete and not a typical evening activity for us. But it did make us feel better about being relaxed about our little one’s bedtime, given how many of his peers were still up.
Our travels around regions like the Mediterranean, Europe, and Latin America have exposed us to cultures where children are commonly at the dinner table at 9 p. m. , opening our mindsets beyond the strict “in bed by 7” mindset you often feel confined to in the US or UK.
Enjoying a nice family evening out when we’re away, without feeling pressured to return home early, does mean bedtime is often 10 p. m. or later.
But it also means we can enjoy a walk and a meal without looking for a restaurant that’s open at 5 p. m. — which can easily kill your vacation vibe — and leave you feeling resentful that you’re in your room early while others are just starting their night.
On that same Crete vacation, I recall sipping wine at a bar at 10 p. m. , with our son happily munching on nuts and potato chips.
Experiencing some semblance of nightlife as a parent to a young child can be the gratification you need. Back home in England, sure, on a working weeknight we like our son to be in bed by 8:30 p. m.
and often have him in bed earlier on a Sunday so we can all be rested for the week. But we feel so much freer and less stressed having a flexible schedule, which means we can enjoy a late night when the opportunity arises. For example, we were at a recent family birthday party until 11 p.
m. on a warm summer evening, complete with fairy lights and a backyard DJ, and our son was dancing with the best of us. We save on babysitting fees and don’t have to consider the parental guilt of leaving our child while we have fun socializing.
It’s not a perfect setup, of course. On a late-bedtime night, we find ourselves going to bed as soon as our son shuts his eyes, cutting out the alone adult time that advocates of an early bedtime benefit from. And to ensure the evening is meltdown-free, it’s important our son takes an afternoon nap, and we know, as much as we’re desperate to hang on to this ritual, that he’s growing up and this can’t continue forever.
As he inches closer to turning 4, getting that nap in is becoming less of a daily occurrence, so we’re having to be both more strategic and more flexible about our evening plans based on whether we think it’s going to be a nap day or not. Two consecutive nights on a recent family break to Majorca, Spain, couldn’t have been more different. On a Saturday afternoon, our son declared he wasn’t tired, so forcing a nap seemed like more effort than continuing to lay by the pool watching him splash around.
By the time our 7 p. m. dinner booking rolled around, he’d fallen asleep in the taxi.
Luckily, our table had soft seating we fashioned a bed out of, and we took advantage of the unexpected “date night. ” A nap came more easily the next day, so we enjoyed a leisurely tapas dinner about 8 p. m.
and some impromptu sightseeing around the nearby cathedral and castle — it was just as fun as the night before. I know things will change again, as our second child is due to join us within a matter of weeks, by which time, you might find us all in bed by 7 p. m.
All I can say is, enjoying the moment, going with the flow, and acknowledging that you’re still a human despite having children are three of the most important parenting lessons we’ve learned. .
From: insider
URL: https://www.insider.com/my-toddler-sometimes-goes-to-bed-at-10-pm-2022-10
