№ 59
Holiday Bedtime for Kids: Drop One Evening Event a Week
To keep a child’s bedtime in December, count the evening events before you accept them, set a weekly limit, and drop one whenever a week goes over. For a child who goes to bed by about seven, our house limit is one late evening a week under three and two from three up, never two nights running. The goal isn’t a perfect month. It’s a bedtime that holds on most nights, which is what “regular” meant in one large UK study of children’s bedtimes. The parties stay. Fewer of them land on the same week.
December fills the evenings, not the days
I used to plan seasonal floor space for a big-box chain, and the rule there was simple: the space is fixed, so every new display pushes an old one out. December evenings work the same way. There are only so many hours between dinner and a young child’s bedtime, and the season fills them one reasonable yes at a time. The school concert, the office party with children welcome, the lights drive, the neighbours’ open house, the late family dinner, the recital, the church service. None of them is too much on its own. Together they can put four late nights into one week.
A child’s bedtime is set by the morning, not the evening. Work it out from the wake-up time, as in what time a baby should go to bed, and you’ll see why a late night costs so much. The morning doesn’t move. The child who was up at 6:30 is still up at 6:30 after a 9 p.m. concert. Betteroo’s guide to overtiredness notes that busy evenings push bedtime later, “but babies do not sleep in to compensate.” Older children often don’t either, especially in a month with an advent calendar on the kitchen wall. That end of the night has its own post: the advent calendar early riser.
What “a regular bedtime” actually means
The useful study here comes from University College London. Kelly, Kelly and Sacker looked at bedtimes and test scores for 11,178 seven-year-olds in the UK Millennium Cohort Study, published in 2013 in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (full text on PMC). Mothers were asked, at ages 3, 5 and 7: “On weekdays during term-time, does your child go to bed at a regular time?”
Two details matter for December:
- “Usually” counted as regular. The researchers grouped “always” and “usually” together, against “sometimes” and “never.” A bedtime that holds most nights, with the odd late one, was in the regular group.
- The pattern was about years, not weeks. Not having a regular bedtime at age 3 was linked to lower reading, maths and spatial scores at age 7, and the gaps tended to be larger in children who went without one at more than one age. This is an association in survey data. It doesn’t show that a busy December harms anyone, and I’m not claiming it does.
What it does suggest is the right target. You don’t need every night. You need most nights. The American Academy of Pediatrics says much the same on HealthyChildren.org: “all children thrive on a regular bedtime routine,” and its healthy sleep habits page advises keeping “the same waking time (both on weekdays and weekends).” Nemours KidsHealth’s sleep page puts it in four words: “Stick to a regular bedtime.”
Count the evenings before you count the gifts
This site counts presents per child. The evening calendar deserves the same arithmetic, done once in November before the invitations arrive.
Write down every December evening that would keep a child up past bedtime. Then sort each one:
| Kind of evening | Usual call |
|---|---|
| Your child is in it (concert, pageant, recital) | Keep |
| Once a year and they’d remember it (Christmas Eve, a family tradition) | Keep |
| Could happen in daylight (lights drive at dusk, a visit to Santa) | Move earlier |
| Adults’ party, children welcome | One adult goes |
| A second gathering of the same people | Drop one of the two |
| Open house with no set start | Arrive early, leave early |
Most families find two or three keepers a week and a few that only felt mandatory. The clearest case is the duplicate: the same cousins at two dinners, the same school families at a concert and then a party. Seeing them once is usually enough for everyone.
The weekly limit: one in, one out
Here are the house rules. They’re mine, not research, and they’re for a child whose bedtime is around seven.
- Under three: one late evening a week. Three to seven: two. Older children can usually take a little more.
- Never two late nights running. A late Friday is fine. A late Friday and Saturday starts Monday tired.
- When a new evening comes in, one goes out. It’s the same one-in, one-out rule this site runs on toys, applied to the calendar. If a third event lands in a two-event week, something leaves.
- The wake-up time holds. Even after a late night, get them up at the usual time and let them go to bed a little earlier the next night.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day sit outside the limit. Everyone is up late, and nobody is going to fix that, so don’t plan anything else that week.
How the calendar itself is kept, whether it’s a wall planner, a shared app or a Sunday sync, is thatsuburbanmomma’s ground; their family calendar system covers it well. The only number this post adds is the limit.
How to drop an evening without missing it
Dropping an event doesn’t have to mean missing it. Most can be shrunk instead.
- Split up. One adult goes to the office party; the other does bedtime. Swap next time.
- Go early. Arrive at the start, stay an hour, leave before bedtime. Most hosts are happy to see children at 5:30 and relieved to see them leave at 6:30.
- Move it into the light. In much of the US it’s dark by around five in December, so a lights drive can start at 5:15 in pajamas and still be home on time.
- Say no in one sentence. “We’re keeping bedtime this week, but we’d love to see you on the 19th.” No explanation needed after that.
On the nights you do go, keep the routine short when you get home. If it has already been trimmed to the four steps that earn their place, a late night only costs you the extra hour, not a fight over steps that only worked because everyone was rested.
What to do with the evenings you keep at home
A quiet evening in December can still feel like the season. Betteroo’s list of quieter things to do on the nights you stay in reaches the same conclusion as this post: “Protect bedtime on most nights and save late nights for one or two big events.” Two ideas on its list, a story read by the tree lights and one good moment named at tuck-in, cost nothing, needs no ticket and ends on time. A dropped party also often turns out to be the evening children remember.
The calendar can be trimmed. The bedtime it protects still has to fit the child. Betteroo builds a sleep plan around your own child's age, naps and wake-up time, so you know which bedtime is worth holding when December gets busy. Take the free sleep quiz →FAQ: holiday bedtimes
Is it OK to keep kids up late during the holidays? A few late nights are ordinary. The trouble is several in one week, because the wake-up time rarely moves and the lost sleep adds up. Keep bedtime on most nights and choose which late ones are worth it.
How many evening events a week is too many for a toddler? Our house limit is one late evening a week under three and two from three up, never two nights in a row. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day sit outside the count.
Should I let my child sleep in after a late night? Usually not. Keep the usual wake-up time and offer an earlier bedtime the next night. The AAP’s advice is to keep waking times the same on weekdays and weekends.
How do I turn down a holiday invitation for bedtime reasons? One sentence is enough: “We’re keeping bedtime this week, but we’d love to see you on the 19th.” Offering a daytime visit or an early hour keeps the relationship and the bedtime.