One of the things I am noticing and more now is that when we let our children stay up past their normal bed time we are not benefitting them at all.
I have to constantly be the parent that makes the bed time a firm time because my husband thinks he is being nice and the extra time is worthwhile to let our 3 year old stay up. The problem is that it only takes about 30 minutes past the normal bed time to make the night go downhill fast.
If we let our daughter stay up then she ends up crying herself to sleep with a tantrum because she is so overtired you can’t reason with her. I hate having her go to sleep like that as it makes me feel awful all night. It does not need to be this way if we put her to bed at her normal time. There are still nights we may have a few problems but the heavy tantrum can be avoided if we don’t let her stay up.
I also have to make sure that we do not stay out for more than 1 night in a row because if I keep her out late, like at my in-laws etc and she does not get to bed in time, it makes for hard days. I do find that I have to constantly defend myself to my family members but it is so worth it for me to have a happy child at home. It is not like we won’t go off our normal schedule when we need to, but I am not going make a habit of it and help my child be tired and moody all day long.
