Beating the bedtime battle

I am constantly surprised at how late Turkish children stay up at night, even on school days. Our living room overlooks the street and it is not at all unusual to hear children playing or talking outside at 11 p.m. and even later on any given evening. This seems to be quite the norm in Turkey, even though it is something new to foreigners moving here. My son, sensing the injustice of having to retire early while others his own age and often younger are allowed to be staying up much later than he does, sometimes tries to use delaying tactics to grab just a few more minutes of playtime before going to sleep. Searching for his beloved stuffed bunny that he curls up with in bed is one of his favorite ploys. As he slowly searches for the runaway rabbit, he takes the opportunity to become sidetracked while playing with toys in the hopes that I will forget about bedtime. When the hare is finally located, usually in a slightly suspicious hiding place that makes me wonder if he was purposely planted there in order to justify a house-wide search party, it is time again for settling in for the night. But he isn't aware of the fact that these diversions have already been factored into our bedtime routine, so even with delays he is asleep in time to ensure a good night's rest.

Not too long ago my son and I went after dinner to the home of one of his school friends. I drank tea and chatted with the parents while the two boys played in the garden. Even though they were having a great time together and expending pent up energy, as it neared 8 p.m. I told him that we would be leaving soon because it was almost bedtime. The parents were surprised to hear this and asked me about our evening routine. As I explained our nightly rituals to them, they shook their heads in wonder. "Our son would never agree to go to bed so early," they said, "He is usually up until about 11 p.m. We wait until he falls asleep and then we put him to bed." Laughing, they added: "Maybe he should come and spend the night at your house over a weekend and see what it is like to have stricter rules. Perhaps if he saw Ali Adem going to bed early he would do it too." I have heard the same thing from other families and it does seem to be the norm here to let children stay up as late as they want.

While I do know American families who let the children set their own bedtimes, I think that it is more the norm in the United States to have an established bedtime, especially on school nights. Studies indicate that children need more sleep than adults if they are to be alert and engaged in learning at school. From my own experience with my son I have found that he functions best if he has at least 10 hours of sleep a night, which also seems to be the amount recommended by experts. On the rare occasions when he has been allowed to stay up past his bedtime, I have noticed that he is not as energetic the next day and is more prone to having a shorter temper as well as shorter attention span.

While I do try to enforce his nighttime curfew, there are exceptions to the rule, but only when there is no school to get up for early the next morning. On Fridays and Saturdays we will sometimes stay up a little later to watch a movie together, or go to a concert or other cultural event. My son knows that these are special events and not something that will happen with any regularity.

Soon I know that he and his friends will be old enough to begin having sleepovers at each other's homes on the weekends. I wonder just how well he will adjust to very different bedtimes while away with his friends, yet still have to adhere to his own set ones at home. And it will be interesting to see what his friends think of our enforced early bedtimes. I suspect that once the word gets out there may be several parents wanting their children to come and stay over at our house in the hopes that their children too will learn to go to sleep early and wake up refreshed and ready for another day of adventures.