We've had different bedtimes for different situations:
- Before preschool started it was around 10pm-11pm in the summer. After preschool started it was around 7pm (aka I was shooting for 12-13 hours of sleep time).
- When kiddo started school... he didn't come home until 430 (ugh) so to have any real time with him at all I bumped bedtime to 9pm (1 hour of transport from school & to and from activity, 1 hour at the activity, 1 hour for dinner and 1 hour for bedtime routing -stories, bath, teeth, etc only left us 30 minutes for playtime... which shortened his sleep to 11-12 hours... but having that "freetime" as short as it was, was very important to me.
- When in Rome, his bedtime is between midnight & 2am. In Rome we nap for a few hours in the afternoon (along with everyone else), and don't have dinner until 10pm. If we're playing in the piazzas with other kids for an hour we make it home around midnight. Do chores, bathtime, and bedtime.
- Homeschooling kiddo is in bed typically between 9 & 10. Exclusions = in the winter when we're in bed around 6pm-7pm... because we get up at 5am to be on the mountian... and anytime we have a latenight activity. We do a lot of theatre/opera/observatories/dinners that have kiddo to bed around midnight. Also, any time he's tired early he goes to bed early, or if we have an early appointment.
The THEME with all of these is that it's "what works". HE gets his 11-12 hours, and *I* get my personal time after he's in bed.