As a pediatrician, I put my kids to bed very, very early and many people think it's kind of controversial. As a general rule of thumb, we try to get all of our kids, ages seven all the way to 15, starting to lay down or get ready for bed around 7:30 p.m. This most often allows us to get the littles to sleep around 7:30 and get the bigger kids ready to go to sleep between 8:30 or so.
Now, we do this because we recognize the importance of sleep. A large majority of children in the United States are not getting enough sleep. Look at current sleep guidelines endorsed by sleep specialists and the American Academy of Pediatrics. We see that, especially our late elementary and middle schoolers who are starting to go to sleep at 8 or 9 o'clock, there's no way they're going to get that 9, 10, 11 or even 12 hours of sleep that many of these children need.
A lot of parents say, 'Well, my sports don't get over until 7 or 7.30. Then we have to eat dinner and homework.' No, sleep comes first when we can make it come first.
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