Staying Up Late

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

There are different approaches parents have about allowing or not allowing their young children to stay up late Fri. night when it's past their usual bedtime, for havdala, YomTov night.

I think children of all ages need their sleep! Actually, I've read in Sleep books by experts in the field, that we ALL need a proper amount of sleep or we are not functioning optimally (or worse). And although we know that babies sleep much more than, let's say, 6 year olds, and we keep on moving the bedtime later as the child gets older, the Sleep books say that teens need AS MUCH sleep as say, eleven year olds!

So what do you do about those occasions I mentioned in the first para.?

I favor putting the kids to sleep, even if that means missing kiddush and havdala if their bedtime is 7-7:30 and kiddush/havdala will be taking place 9:30-10:00. It depends on how late they would have to wait up. Half an hour, fine. More than that ... Confused

Posted: Mon, Jun 06 2005, 3:03 pm Post subject:

I would rather they go for naps then miss out on Kiddush, seder, etc etc. So yes I'm all in favour of sleep question is how and when.
And when ones kids gets home at 5:00pm one wants to spend as much time w/h them that they can but if they have supper do homework and have to be in bed by 7:30 then what did you see or share w/h your child. As they get older if they r boys they go for minyan etc so ones has much less time to talk etc.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 11 2004 Posts: 19241

you know, Motek, I used to agree with you. but licht bentchen, kiddush, challah, the whole shabbos, is the highlight of Mendels week. he waits all the time until its finally shabbos again. every game he plays he imagines is either "bentching licht" or "kiddush."
a few weeks ago I noticed that instead of coloring with his crayons he chose two tall ones and stood them up, and before I knew it he was bentching licht. he makes towers out of lego and then waves his hands over them, covers his eyes, whispers something, and then uncovers his face and says something out loud to me which I assume is "good shabbos."
he waits all week for his chance to hold his becher and "make kiddush."
before every bite of challah, he is careful to dip it in "salt."

I just cant imagine letting him sleep through it unless he is irrational or unreasonably tired. I put him in for a longer nap on friday, and he goes to sleep a bit later than usual. on shabbos he also takes an extra long nap so he can stay up for havdalah (really so he can have a bath- my meshugas, dont ask. Smile

)

when shabbos is coming to an end, he waits and waits for havdalah. he loves holding the bsamim and urges us on to get down the candle, the matches, the becher, and even stands under where my husband's hat is hanging and says "hat! hat!" until we get it down for maariv/ havdalah.

how can I take shabbos away from him?

Posted: Mon, Jun 06 2005, 4:01 pm Post subject:

Posted: Mon, Jun 06 2005, 4:15 pm Post subject:

My children are not in school yet so we are not on a school schedule. It is number one importance to me and my husband that the children be there for EVERYTHING, cleaning for Shabbos all the way to Havdallah. This does often create a challenge for me but it's worth it.
_________________
TMS 10/01 ERS 12/03 BMS 1/06 BSS 5/08 YYS 2/11

Gold Member Joined: Mar 23 2005 Posts: 1748

My kids love and look forward to Shabbos. However, nowadays, licht bentsching is around 9pm and they can get really cranky (my 4y.o will not take a nap). What has been happening lately is: I feed them before l.b., they bentsch licht with me, then we usually lay down and sing Shabbos songs. Most of the time, they fall asleep. If not, they are more than welcome to join us at the meal. Either way, they get to experience the kiddush, challah, etc. on Shabbos day. One of these days we may start doing early Shabbos so the kids can participate (I think dh's shul started an early minyan this yr).

We do the same thing with havdala - I tell my 4y.o. that I will save her grape juice for the am if she falls asleep before. My sister tells me that her son's rebbe rewards his students for making havdala on Sunday morning (he is in 4th grade!) because they have school the next morning and havdala can be well past 10pm.

Posted: Wed, Jun 08 2005, 10:22 pm Post subject:

My community does early shabbos (with no option to do shabbos late) but they only start after shavous. The past few weeks have been way to late for my kids to stay up but after shavous they will be able to join us again.

Currently our city does not follow day light savings time so all winter we are with eastern and all summer we are with central. Next year the governer implemented that we should start being on daylight savings time and is making us be on eastern time. This is really terrible for the jews because we won't be able to make havdala until 10:30 pm on some shabbosim. Even our early shabbos won't be that early - 7:55 so our meals can't start until 9:30ish. I don't think I will be able to let my kids stay up for meals next summer unless something changes real soon. We are trying really hard to get our county on central time, but it's not likely that they will let some areas be on central and some on eastern.

Platinum Member Joined: May 22 2005 Posts: 13796

Wow! 10:30 for havdallah.

When my older kids were young, if they didn't nap, they went to bed when it was around their bedtime, regardless of when kiddush or havdallah was. I have to say that gets harder as I have older kids and young kids. Right now I live in a community that makes 'early shabbos' at 7 PM once daylight savings time begins. That helps. I have been feeding the younger ones early, then they get kiddush, hamotzei and maybe soup and off to bed. It has been working reasonably well.

The seder, I made an exception. My 2 1/2 year old stayed up until maybe 10 but my 6 year old stayed up for the entire seder, both nights! That would have never happend when my older kids were that age.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

RG - it's no problem to have a child that's aged 1-3 stay up late because they are usually still taking naps, so as you said - they can nap longer

the problem starts when children are past nap-taking age

Posted: Fri, Jun 10 2005, 9:26 am Post subject:

our kids are in bed between six and seven no matter what but they do bentch licht before they go to sleep though. as for kiddush and all they have it on shabbos by day. if they don't go to sleep on time they are cranky as anything the next day so it is not worth the headache for themselves.

when my mother was in england two years ago in the summer she said that shabbos didn't go out to close to twelve don't know how people there function.
_________________
Please say tehillim for Elezar Menachem Mann Ben Rochel