I’ve taken to grocery shopping late in the evenings, after the kids are in bed. Walking up and down the aisles, enjoying my solo jaunt and searching for much needed items like Spotted Dick and Ovaltine, I’m always surprised when I see people shopping with their children that late in the evening. Since my children go to bed between 7 and 7:30, I guess I assume that everyone does things in their house the way I do them in mine.
Both Carson and Ella get up between 6 and 7 every morning, regardless of what time they go to bed. They may as well go to bed early, I say. Personally, I cannot imagine my children going to bed any later than 8 since it’s an absolute MUST that I have my own, childless time in the evenings. I’m certain that without those two glorious hours before my own bedtime, I’d be a very disturbed human being, complete with glue eating and conversations with imaginary hippos.
So when I see people with their kids, especially young kids, at Meijer at 8:30 at night, I find it odd. And I wonder how they manage, parenting so late into the evening. Aren’t they tired of their kids? Don’t they know their kids should be in bed? Don’t they want their own time?
cue announcer’s voice, “The role of Judgy McJudgerson is being played by Jennifer today.”
Of course all this judging has made me rashy (I feel guilty when I judge others, please forgive me) and wondering when you all put your kids to bed. If you put them to bed after 8, why?
No judging from me, promise. I’m truly curious how everyone handles bed times. Also, no judging or superior parenting struts from anyone else…please refer to my comment policy in my right sidebar if needed.
I do a 7:00 bedtime too. I think sometimes people do late bed times because they work and that’s the time they get with their kids. It would suck to get home at 6 and put the kids down at 7.
The other night I was at the store at 10. There was a little girl maybe 2 crying and crying. The mom was scolding her. She rolled her eyes and said to me, “i don’t know what her problem is.” Umm, I think I do. She’s tired. At 10? What do you think the problem is?
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I ain’t judging either, I’m just saying… At 8PM, OK, maybe an emergency trip to the store without any other options, but when I see entire families in the WalMart at 1:30AM (my favorite time to do WalMart – I’m a night owl), entire families complete with VUB (very unhappy baby), it does make me scratch my head in wonderment.
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I agree. I put mine in bed at 6:30, we or they depending on my sanity that day, read until 7:00 and then lights out. I do all my shopping after that too. I do have friends who have to work and don’t get to see their kids until 6 so they keep them up until 8 or 8:30 but they don’t drag them all over town. That is not quality time, everyone is tired and cranky so what is the point. They put them down later and go shopping late or wait until the week end.
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We have an 8pm bedtime for our 1 year old. Any earlier and he’s up at God-awful thirty in the morning when this night owl mama doesn’t want to be up! It’s a pretty hard and fast bedtime unless we are out somewhere special (like Grandma’s house) but everyday errands definitely would not keep him up that late! I definitely agree that set bedtimes are important for kids.
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Used to be 7, but we’ve gradually moved to 8 and now 8:30. I liked the 7 best.
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Between 7 and 7:30. Any later and he just wakes up earlier (counterintuitive yes, but that’s the way it’s always been with SB). Given his tendency to wake up in the middle of the night and stay up, it’s imperative that he go down early.
I’m a nighttime grocery shopper too.
tulipmom’s last blog post..I Should Be Sleeping
We are 7-7:30 bedtime too for our 4.5 and 2.5 year olds. Any later and they lose it and that makes for a not so happy mom or they wake up before the crack of dawn.
My husband doesn’t get to see much of them at night since he gets home around 5:30-6 but he agrees with the early bedtime.
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My husband sometimes doesn’t get home until 6 or 6:30 and gets crabby when it comes bedtime for the kids. If he wants crabby, keep the kids up past their bedtime and watch the children AND me completely meltdown! He’s learned that early bedtime is best!
THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS
my daughter is up so freakin early that Im TIRED of her mug by 6 pm even if she isnt tired yet.
(she is, but if she werent? I couldnt care less)
that said people are always TELLING ME (?!) I NEED (!) to keep her up later.
sure.
you offering to baby sit?
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When my kids were little they went to bed around 9. Usually up by 7, but they napped in the afternoon. That was my heaven… naptime.
The baby goes to bed by 6:30 or 7 at the latest. Quinn (3.5) goes to bed by 7:30 or 8:00 at the latest. I’ll usually sneak out to go shopping after I put the baby down and am surprised by all the kids out there. I am never surprised by the crabbiness of those kids.
Also – sometimes I’ll sneak out and go shopping during nap time (1pm) and am amazed again at all the little kids (toddlers) out and about during that time. Isn’t 1pm Universal Naptime???
I also tend to judge other parents when I’m out – it’s so hard not to do and then I get that same guilty feeling.
I suppose what works for them works for them. Maybe their kids sleep ’til 9 or 10 the next morning…
I have two girls and they have always gone down early. My youngest is 11 months old and she is sleeping by 6:30pm. My oldest, who is 2 yrs old usually went down by 7:30pm. Lately, she is going down by 8:30. Though she still take a three hour nap in the day. I guess that’s what contributes to the change in bedtime.
Early bedtime is a lesson we had to learn the hard way – and it took WAY too long for us to learn it.
Jay is in bed by 7pm (and always has been – he has been the easy one). Miss E is in bed no later than 7:30. We had a rough few weeks sleep training her but it was so worth it and we are kicking ourselves for not having done this a LONG time ago.
Depending on the time of year, Charity goes to bed between 9-9:30 and 11:30 and midnight. When we’re home and she’s in school, she goes to bed about 9 or so and wakes up between 7:30 and 8:15. When we’re in ‘carny’ mode, OE & I are usually up til around 2 or 3, so her getting up that early would literally kill me, so she goes to bed closer to midnight and gets up between 10 and 11. She’s still taking naps though, and she doesn’t nap til about 4:30 or 5, so she stays in a fairly good mood til I mention the word bed. Now when we get closer to going to regular school, she’ll go to bed much earlier, but for now, it works for us.
My two were always in bed at 7.30 (unless we were out with family, and sometimes in bed at their place). But now they are 13 and 14 we try to do in bed by 8 and lights out by 8.30.
My boy (the 13yo) is usually first asleep, unless something is bothering him, then he lets us know when we go check on him at 9pm.
My girl has ALWAYS been a late-to-sleep girl – if she’s asleep before 10.30 it’s good. I blame her dad! When I was pregnant she would kick me at about 11pm, and so my sweet husband…how I love him…would poke her, so she would kick back…and so on… Even as a baby we would put her down at night and check on her an hour later so see these little black eyes looking at us out of the dark. She may go to sleep late, but she’s in bed with the light off at 9pm, and no complaints in the morning when she has to get up for school.
My 1.5 year old is no later than 7:30, usually 7. My 3.5 was 8, 8:30 at the latest, but he has now decided that he no longer needs naps, so he is now going to bed by 7:30 as well.
My oldest daughter will be 6 in June and baby sister just turned 3. We “start” bedtime at 8. Some nights they are zonked out by 8:30. Last night the baby was wired for sound and I swear she was awake kicking in her room at 9! But I don’t get them up until 7 a.m. Although I work, I get home by 1 every day but my husband closes his shop at 6 every night so we don’t mind them sleeping in until 7. That gives mama 40 minutes to get big sister ready for carpooling to kindergarten.
Now when they were babies they were asleep BY 8 p.m. and took two naps a day until age 2. Oh happy day!
On Sunday nights they are usually both wiped out and will often fall asleep about 7:30. Yee haw!
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Our bun in the oven is still cooking but I never ever ever understood the late bedtime. EVER. I remember being so angry when I had to babysit for this one family because the kids had a 9:30pm bedtime….I’m completely with you. IF you can’t end your day with a small slice of calm and sanity how can you be expected to get up and do it all over again?
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Q goes to bed between 8 and 9 most nights. He usually gets up between 7 and 8 and sometimes naps, sometimes doesn’t (he’s 3). Sometimes he doesn’t get to bed until 10 if we’re rushing around but those are usually Bad. Nights.
My reasoning behind this is mostly that he needs some quality time with his Daddy every night, and Daddy often doesn’t get home until 6. I like us to eat dinner as a family, which means we eat around 6 or 7 depending on when Daddy gets home. Then it’s bath and a bed ritual.
We’ve been known to haul the kids out at 7 for grocery shopping, but we usually keep it for the weekends. I don’t usually do full-on shopping on my own, just the occasional trips for an item or two.
And I, too, need kid-free time before bed. That just means that on late nights, I go to bed late. Jude won’t usually go down for his long stretch (haha, what long stretch?!) until 10 or 10:30 anyway.
It works for us.
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My son is also of the model that wakes up at 6 or 7 am no matter what time he goes to bed. We had a 7 pm bedtime before I worked, now we have an 8 pm bedtime because I get home at 6 and play/dinner/bath just takes two hours.
But listen to this! Some people’s children don’t wake up at 6 am every day. In my mom’s group, there are people whose toddler/preschooler age children will sleep until 9 or even 10 am. And so they are still getting 12 hours.
I relearned my lesson about going to bed on time this weekend. On Friday night I picked Henry up from daycare at 6, then we went out for burritos, then we got a copy of the Wizard of Oz, then we got a new pair of shoes, then we played at the children’s museum until close at 8. We drove home a 1/2 hour all the while Henry was clutching the Wizard of Oz in his hot little hands asking about the story. So we got home and started the movie at 8:45 pm (and he’s 3!). He stayed up for the whole thing and let me tell you, the next morning at 6 am he was a grumpy, grumpy kid. The rest of the weekend was catch-up sleep. Whoops!
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7-7:30 is our bedtime here…if it reaches 8 or 8:30pm I leave the house and let dh deal with the mess. My kids can’t handle the late bedtime and neither can I.
What gets me is the parents who take their kids out to eat at 8-9pm at night. That’s crazy. Who wants a sugar filled kid at 9:30-10pm at night?
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My four year old twins go to bed between 8-9 each night. They sleep until 8-9 the next morning so I do not think I could get them down any earlier. They still take a pretty good afternoon nap which I wouldn’t trade either.
About a month ago, I thought we should skip the nap and put them down earlier…it was a mess.
It just works for us.
We like to have our family time in the evenings and my son needs daddy time. He’s typically in bed by 8:00 (he’s not tired before then…somedays I wish he was!). Now, he is 3 1/2 and has just eliminated the nap within the last few months. 8:00 bedtime is on a non-nap day (which is typical lately), but if I’m fortunate enough to get him to take a nap, then that affects his bed time that night, which would then be around 9:30.
I’ve definitely been out with my son at 8:30, or so, on a nap day if I have to go to the store with him. Or if there’s a special event once in a while we don’t avoid going because we might get home a little past bed time. Some women who are out grocery shopping with their kids at 8:30/9:00 may not have a choice. They work a full-time job, husband could be out of town or they are a single parent. Could be a plethora of reasons. I don’t necessarily agree with young kids out VERY late though (like after 10), which I have definitely seen before, but we never know what their situation is.
I agree with the me time, if I didn’t get it (and occasionally I don’t) I’d go nuts. But I do have to confess, that although we have a pretty strict 8pm lights-out rule on weeknights, we’re often lax on non-school nights.
You would never, NEVER, catch me taking my kids grocery shopping past their bedtime, though. That would make me completely insane, it’s bad enough when I have to take them fully awake!
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My girls are 9 and 5 and both go to bed at 8:00pm. The older one is allowed to read for up to an hour IN BED. If she comes out trying to talk with us she is sent to bed and her lights are turned off for her. This rarely happens. When the little one can read, we are in for some major trouble!
We have always put them to bed early for the same reasons you do. I too play the role of Your Honor the Judge when I see people dragging around tired kids after bed time.
Oh and 7:00am is blissfully sleeping in around here.
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We’ve had a 7:30-8 pm bedtime and I stick to it no matter what. If I keep her up any later for whatever reason, she ends up waking up EARLIER and that is SO NOT cool!
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I am exactly like you. My kid wakes up no later than 7 regardless of if she goes to bed at 9 or at 7, so I choose 7. Now that it’s light out longer it’s between 7-7:30, but no later than that. The last few hours of the day that is “my” time is precious! & I also cringe when I see people out with kids past 8 pm and wonder how they do that. You’re not the only McJudgerson.
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OY!
I had a friend once who went grocery shopping with her kids (2 and infant) anywhere from 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM. And then she wondered why she was so burned out, and why her boys had trouble sleeping through the night. “But they sleep in with me…”
Seriously?!?
Seriously.
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Depending on the time change, my twin 2yr-olds are in bed by 7-8. Our 10yr-old is in bed by 8:30.
I also shop once they go o bed, but I actually hate that. I’m tired, I still have to unload the car when I get home, and then put everything away before I go to bed. Yucky. But, it’s easier to get all my shopping done without the two of them fussing through the whole store.
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Aren’t they tired of their kids? Yes
Don’t they know their kids should be in bed? A wee bit critical there…
Don’t they want their own time? Absolutely
Most nights my kids are in bed between 8 and 9. However, there have been days where there were things we had to do and it has kept them out past 9. Girl scout meetings that end at 8:30 and I need to grab milk and bread on the way home, dinner out with grandparents that inevitably go late. Especially now when it doesn’t even start to get dark until 8:00 it seems our days go later. You might find me at the grocery store at 9:00 with three kids in tow just ready to pull my hair out. It’s not often but I can completely understand how it happens. We’re not all perfectly organized and scheduled.
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I hate shopping at night too, but it’s less evil than going with the kids!
I totally agree with you Jennifer. I often find myself judging parents like that too. (I’ll tell you a funny story in a minute.) Zachariah goes to bed between 7:30 – 8:00. No later than 8:00! When he was a baby is was 7:00 in bed. Now he sleeps around 12 hours a night (give or take a little certain days), and he still takes at least a 2 hour nap during the day. Naptime and bedtime are my saving graces. I need that time for me.
One time we had kept Zachariah out a little late in the evening. We’d gone to dinner then stopped at a store for some quick shopping. Zachariah was in a great mood, so we figured why not this once. (He’s a pretty flexible kid most times.) Anyway, my husband noticed several families with young kids/babies out, many of the kids being extremely grumpy. He looks at me and says “Why do they have those kids up so late? It looks like they need to be in bed.” (He isn’t usually so judgemental about parenting, so that surprised me that he even noticed.) Then he looks over and realizes that we still have Zachariah up. It’s not a common occurance for us, but what does that look like to other people. Maybe they were in the sam boat as us. Funny!
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Like you, I need that me time in the evening. My son goes down around 7 and my daughter (*) goes to bed at 8:30. My husband gets home at 9:30 so I have a full hour of alone time and it is a god send.
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My 28 month old is going to wake up between 6:00 and 6:45 no matter what so I like to do an early-ish bed time (7:30 give or take 15 minutes) . . . if he goes to bed much later, he will either get up at the same time or earlier.
For now, the early bedtime means only a little bit of time with daddy each evening and no eating dinner as a family during the week. However, with this plan, there’s time for daddy/son time in the morning and daddy/mommy time in the evening.
Our second son is due in early July, and I already nervous about the first several months before the baby can go to bed early because I’ve gotten so used to a couple of hours to myself each night. I guess I’ll survive though!
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My son goes to bed at 8 p.m. It’s just when he gets sleepy. I never tried to put him to bed earlier because he doesn’t seem tired. Since I don’t get home until 5 p.m. I wouldn’t want him to fall asleep earlier, although if he did get sleepy at 7 p.m., that’s when I would put him to bed.
anne’s last blog post..Magic Moments
It depends, but lately it’s been between 6pm and 7pm. He’s definitely in his room by 6:30pm at the latest. Some nights he decides he’s over the day and wants to go to bed early, and hey, who am I to deny my lovely little one more sleep? (and more time for my husband and I do to…well…you know…Okay, I’m not going to lie – watch recorded TV shows cause we’re pathetic).
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Since I’m with the kids all day and see them all. day. long. I NEED that time in the evening. They go to bed between 6:30 and 7:30 generally, depending on how naps, dinner, baths, etc go.
Plus, no matter WHAT time I put them to bed they get up between 5 & 6:30 AM every. day.
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Between 7:30 and 8:00 with almost never an exception, although Grandma and Grandpa tend to ‘bend the rules’. I just can’t for the life of me understand why someone wouldn’t crave some peaceful night hours. But then again, I guess some kids are just night owls…
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This topic is running rampant at our house currently. Our one year old is in bed by 7, 7:30 AT THE LATEST! She is a raving B if she’s not in bed by then! Seriously, no one wants to deal with her. And she’ll sleep until 8 the next morning.
Our son…..well, he’s 3 and he apparently believes he’s in charge. Up until he got really sick and ended up hospitalized he was in by 7:30 or 8 each night. Since then we’ve had so many sleep issues that it has just been easier to keep him with us downstairs but now it’s getting old. He has bad night terrors and horrible memories of the hospital etc. But he seems to be outgrowing them. We’re back to enforcing an 8:30 bedtime. He naps at school and that actually keeps him going into the evening. We could either fight with him at 7 and put him down and let him scream for an hour because he’s just not ready or we can wait until 8 and have a pleasant going to bed experience where he actually falls asleep quickly. Although he sounds like your little ones, regardless of what time he goes in, he’s up at 7 every morning!
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When my youngest was a baby, hubby didn’t get home from work until 7-8pm due to a project, so she stayed up until 10pm and had daddy time. If hubby couldn’t make it home, we would get in the car and go meet him near the office for dinner, sometimes at 9pm. I would stop and get stuff at the store on the way back, but my kid CRAVED stimulation, so the grocery store was like Disneyland.
However, she WOULD sleep until 9 or 10am in the morning, so that TOTALLY worked for me. When school started, we of course had to curtail the late nights and 8pm became the norm.
I’m just sayin’. Don’t judge too harshly. We have no idea of their circumstances and why they are out. It might be better for us to have them in bed, but it might work out differently for others.
And shopping alone at nights is THE BOMB. I actually know what’s in the food I’m buying because I get to look at labels and stuff.
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Oooh…prepare to gasp, woman.
Dylan goes to bed between 8:30 and 8:45 most nights. Zach, between 8 & 8:30. Anytime I’ve tried to put Zach down, after a normal nap day, before 8 he wakes up at 4 or 5, which just DOES NOT work for me. Dylan likes to spend time with us in the evenings, and since DJ is gone for most of the day, that leaves us with a late bedtime.
Of course, this is all dependent on the activities of the day. If we missed naps, bedtime is earlier. If we’re out and about, it’s later. Shocking I don’t have a better system in place, isn’t it?
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Joining the nation of judges to agree that bedtime (7:30 for toddler, 8:00 for School Ager) is the source of all sanity.
But what bugs me is my neighbor who does not do bedtimes and knows that I do, will bring their kids over to my house with them AFTER 8:00!!! What’s up with that???
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Bedtime for my lil guy is usually between 7-7:30. Although there area plenty of nights that he’s in before 7:00. I’m like a lunatic if he’s up later than 7:30! No matter what time he goes to bed, he’s up around 6:30 am. But I have noticed the later he goes to bed……..the crabbier he is in the am. That boy needs his sleep and his mama needs her quiet time!
Mary’s last blog post..VICTORY
Hmm… I wrote about shopping with kids today too. I can’t stand going with all three of them.
I need my alone time at night and the kids go to sleep at the latest 8pm.
How else can a mommy be sane?
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I used to scowl at people who had their kids out late, too, until I had one. She happens to be the kind of kid that needs precisely 10 hours of sleep at night if she is to take any sort of nap. If she gets less, she won’t nap at all. If she gets more, she cuts her nap from 2 1/2 hours to less than an hour. I know it doesn’t make sense, but what about kids does?
Anyway, she wakes up at 7:30, so if I back things up 10 hours, she doesn’t go to bed until around 9:00 (asleep by 9:30). Honestly, I’m glad about the whole thing because I don’t pick her up from daycare until 5:30, so it’s nice to get some time with her before we all go to sleep.
I still scowl at my SIL who keeps her kids up until after midnight all.the.time. Sure, they sleep in until 10 or 11, but what are they going to do when they start school?
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My first comment! I’ve been reading your blog for a while now, but have never commented before.
My 1 year old is in bed every night by 6pm. If she’s not, I know she will either wake up really early, or wake up numerous times during the night. So I strive to make it 6 every night. My 3 year old goes to bed between 7-7:30, but when she was a baby, she went to bed at 5pm! Everyone would look at me funny when I told them that, but it was the same deal…if she went to bed any later she wouldn’t get a good night’s sleep. She’d sleep solid from 5pm-7am every day, as long as she was in bed by 5.
I know a lot of people have made comments to me before about me putting my kids to be too early, but it works for us and that’s all that matters!
My kids go to bed around 9pm. My eight year old gets up around 8am and my two year old around 9am. We do late bedtime so we can have enjoy the evening as a family.
We homeschool, so I have to get me time in different ways. I go work out alone as soon as DH gets home. My toddler naps for about two hours starting at 2:00. I spend that time resting, reading, or working on my own projects. Oh, and I absolutely refuse to do weekly shopping with children. I usually do that on Saturday morning. I hate shopping and adding kids to the mix is hell.
I often get a little judgy myself wondering if kids who go to sleep early miss their fathers (or whichever parent works) during the week. On the other hand, I understand that most of them have to wake up at the crack of dawn to go to school.
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I strive for 7:30, but with summer and longer light, it’s creeping into the 8/8:30 range. Which ticks me off. I need “me” time also.
They share a room, so they sneak in some play after they are (supposed to be) tucked in. I let them get away with that a little because I want them have fun together, and the idea of snickering and giggling when they are supposed to be sleeping will be good memories as they grow up.
But, my almost two year old falls asleep in his lunch every day…
We do 8:30. I would do earlier but I work so I would never see the little guy. As long as we stick to the schedule he is okay.
But I agree. WTH is up with the late night shoppers with kids? If I try to take Bean shopping at any time after 6 it is HELL.
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Between 7 and 7:30…I experimented with putting Alex down later but he still gets up at the same time (between 6 and 7am) so I thought…why? I work full time and try to pick him up by 4 but then spend those 3 hours with my full attention focused on playing and reading to him so I don’t feel bad when he goes to bed that early.
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