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I tend to monitor and adjust based on the kids and their needs as they get older. They are 9 and 14 now. At this point, they can pretty much stay up as late as they want. If they turn into jerks, it will get adjusted. At 6, neither of them could handle being up past 10.
No matter what, their chores have to be done by a certain time. If their sleeping in interferes with that, there will be consequences.
My mother relaxed some with the hours. Actually, I think 9:00 was my earliest bedtime during school, anyway. It didn't benefit to force me earlier because I was a bit of a night owl, and I still got enough sleep. During summer I was up until about 10.
It wasn't my intent. I apologize if it came off that way. When I wrote that I was thinking about 2 specific people in my life that makes me want to slam my head into a brick wall.
One has a toddler who "doesn't take naps" and is hyperactive and a huge handful. The toddler never has really taken naps because the mom hates to be at home or follow schedules so she never set up a schedule so her kid could take naps. And then she complains about what a handful the kid is. I say nothing She said I was "just lucky" that my kids took naps when they were little when I tried to explain how I set up their sleep schedule.
And a neighbor who lets her 5 year old stay up all night in the summer and then complains about what a nightmare the kid can be in the summer and how much she hates the summer. And acts like I am a monster for having a bed time routine, like I am ruining my kid's summer. And this mom is just hates bedtime...which I get. If it isn't a solid routine, its a pain.
So if it came across judgey, I might have been flavoring it by that. But I wasn't really picking out any specific person here. And people can of course do what they want. Learning about sleep for me has been awesome. I don't even have to fight my kids at bed time. They both love to get a good nights sleep now. I used to have to face bed time with a glass of wine in my hand LOL
All kids are different. My son thrived with a set napping and bedtime schedule. My daughter just didn't. She needed very little sleep. It is sometimes the luck of the draw. Not all kids need the same amount of food or formula or time to learn to walk. Not sure why sleep would be any different.
Yes. With oldest she is left to go to bed BEFORE midnight and she is told to go to bed at around 10ish....Son is asleep by 10 at latest. Youngest wife puts to sleep in our bed and transfers her at around 9. During school year. 9 pm is bed time period.
All kids are different. My son thrived with a set napping and bedtime schedule. My daughter just didn't. She needed very little sleep. It is sometimes the luck of the draw. Not all kids need the same amount of food or formula or time to learn to walk. Not sure why sleep would be any different.
Yeah after raising 4 kids and fostering 3 kids, I never figured that out...cause I am that stupid.
But I will say the majority of kids who "need very little sleep" are actually chronically sleep deprived. That is in the research I posted, I think. Sometimes its an excuse. The need for sleep, in healthy sleepers is in a fairly narrow margin.
Still, I am not an idiot. And...I have been very open and honest in my posting. It isn't my fault if some people feel challenged by non-judgmental posts.
My kids both went to bed later and got up earlier in the summer. The whole family surfs and we mostly hit the beach at dawn so if it was remotely decent we got everyone out of bed and to the beach well before 6. They would go to bed later as well without a specific bed time. But summer also brought the return of naps on the afternoon and everyone would fight over the daybed on the porch. We always tried to do the switching back gradually the last couple of weeks but it never worked so they mostly just had a tired first day or so. They lived and all have good sleep habits as adults now. The only thing that put a wrinkle on the family schedule or lack there of, is when my sister was diagnosed mid teens with bipolar. She cannot nap ever or even sleep for more than 6 hrs a night or she begins to slide into a depressive episode. For the first few months after she was diagnosed either the hubs or I would skip summer naps with the other kids to do something with her. But summer is the easiest time to deal with her sleep needs, winter and 13hrs of dark always makes everyone want to sleep more than she should.
I did when the boys were little, there was no bedtime in the summer....ever.
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She said I was "just lucky" that my kids took naps when they were little when I tried to explain how I set up their sleep schedule. 
