Do you keep your young kids up later at Disney?

DD has always been able to sleep deeply anywhere, so we didn't worry about bedtimes on vacation. We are not rope droppers, but do enjoy closig down the park. Some trips we have been out until 2 a.m. and DD was fine. She is a night owl and a late sleeper though, usually doesn't wake up intil 9 or 10 am. And when she was little we always had the stroller, and she napped like a champ in that thing.
 
We definitely let our kids stay up later at Disney, but also don’t do fireworks every night. I do get annoyed when family members expect us to alter bedtimes and we don’t feel it’s best for our kids. We have had situations, not just at Disney, where grandparents want us to let the kids stay up for some reason and I’ve said no. They get upset and act like I’m being unreasonable, but I’m the one dealing with cranky and overtired kids that night and the next day! No one is ever going to bed at 6:30, but 8-8:30 is not unreasonable for young kids.

If I were the grandparent in the situation I would bring it up beforehand, politely, that I would love for the kids to see the fireworks at least one night. See what they say.
 
When my kids were that age, we were really strict about bedtimes. My kids were nightmares the next day if they stayed up too late. We pretty much stuck to bedtimes while at Disney. If there were early-ish fireworks one night, we might try to catch them one night, but that was rare. It just wasn’t worth it to us to keep them up and have them (and us) be miserable that night and the next day. On the other hand, my sister’s daughter could stay up super late and be fine. So I’d say, trust that the kids’ parents know their kids best, and let them make the decisions.
I agree that all kids have different needs. My daughter and our nephew are the same age and my sister-in-law acts shocked by what time my daughter goes to bed. She always mentions how late she lets her son stay up, as if there’s something wrong with my kid, lol. My daughter just requires a lot of sleep. She has always slept a lot, even as a baby. She was sleeping through the night at 5 months! Now my son, on the other hand didn’t sleep through the night until past age 2 and is an early riser. Everyone is different!
 
Absolutely not, every child is different....but, keeping small children on their at home schedule is best to avoid overtired fits/ meltdowns. DS is 10 we have been going a few times a year since he was 2.5......we had a good thing going as far as....it was easy to be flexible on bedtime/ wake up times, no naps etc. Then we had surprise DD19 months..... Disney has definitely changed for us. We have been on 5 trips with DD now, have not gotten to see fireworks with her once. Bedtime for her is 8 pm.We go back in July and November this year, we still won't be watching the fireworks with her. In my opinion, under 2.5-3 years need to be on a good schedule for everyone's sake! Maybe you all can take the 5 year olds one evening while other adults hang back at the resort to put the toddlers and babies to bed. I hope you have a great family trip.
 
Bedtime is flexible for us. On a daily basis, it's generally within the same 30 minute window. However, it may be later for any number of reasons, including going to a festival or special outing, vacation, etc. I look at the big picture more than bedtime. If I know it will be a late night, I make sure there is a long nap/rest period mid-day. I also make sure the next day starts at a reasonable time. If it's not a late night, we may skip a nap every other day (now that he's 4).

On his 3rd birthday trip we stayed for the fireworks. He fell asleep right before they started and missed the whole thing, but my parents and I enjoyed them. The next day we did MVMCP and he shocked me by staying up until 11pm (but couldn't care less about the fireworks).

Next trip he was almost 4, we did late nights 3 out of 5 park days with no real trouble, although we were traveling on our own so getting him and his stroller onto the bus after he fell asleep was a struggle.

When we go back he'll be 5, and I have early mornings planned almost every day. So we're only doing 1 late night, which is our last night so I don't care if he's cranky the next day, lol.
 
We do it on the night before our off day, We normally have a off day a few days in or a waterpark day. So the kids stay up really late and we all sleep in the next day. My kids loves the fireworks at Disney but it was really hard to get them to the car... its not like you are parked right outside the gate. they were asleep before we pulled out of the parking lot
 
I agree that all kids have different needs. My daughter and our nephew are the same age and my sister-in-law acts shocked by what time my daughter goes to bed. She always mentions how late she lets her son stay up, as if there’s something wrong with my kid, lol. My daughter just requires a lot of sleep. She has always slept a lot, even as a baby. She was sleeping through the night at 5 months! Now my son, on the other hand didn’t sleep through the night until past age 2 and is an early riser. Everyone is different!
I have relatives like this, but then they act like I’m so lucky that DS sleeps all night. He does & some of it’s luck, but some of it is sticking to a routine which she never did. There are advantages and disadvantages to both ways. The downside is we miss events like fireworks. The upside is on a regular weekday, I can get a lot done once he is asleep by 8.
 


As a parent, I would give it a try one night so they could see the fireworks. My kids have always been troopers and done really well staying up later if needed on vacation. With that said, we do not go park commando. If we're staying up late, we're sleeping in. And we like midday nap/pool breaks as well. My kids would also pass out in the stroller if/when they needed it. My advice to you would be to make a friendly suggestion in advance, but not in a guilt trippy way. More like, "I think the kids would love to see the fireworks once. How about we keep them up on [insert day here] and sleep in and take it easy the next morning?"
 
Yes?

Last trip was 4 and 2.5 years old. We roped dropped but really really took it easy. Lots of shows, breaks, character meals and sat down an hour before fireworks and waited for them to start.

Allowed them to nap in the stroller as we just walked around. I had my daughter sleep in my lap as we sat in front of the castle before fireworks.

We also never do more than 2 park days in a row.
 
I have never put my kids to bed at 7, that is dinner time in our house. When they were very young their bedtime was 9. At Disney it was whenever we got back to the room. We are a night owl family, and we followed a leisurely pace at WDW so the kids were never run ragged and miserable by the time the fireworks started.
Obviously the parents know best, but it's vacation and I don't think playing by ear when it comes to bed time is a bad idea.
 
I did :) but like others it was not every night and followed by a more chill day and if the day didn't turn out well and I thought it best to call it a night we would try again another night. I would be a bit put out however if people in our traveling party tried to influence my decision - luckily my family is always willing to split when our plans didn't match up.
 
My son was 2 the last trip he hardly ever napped ever at disney. He naps at home usually. The latest we successfully kept him out was 830 after that it was all down hill.
 
We are going to Disneyworld next month with 17 ppl - aged 81 down to 4 months. All of my grandkids (5 of them) are my two son’s children and I have very little (virtually no) say in decisions such as bedtime. The oldest two granddaughters are 5 1/2 and almost 5. They both have sisters that are 2 1/2ish. I believe that all of the kids will be put to bed by 7pm every day that they are there. They will never see the fireworks.

A little family history here - all of my adult children (who will be on this trip) went to Disneyworld with their grandparents when they were 5, and all stayed in the park until the fireworks almost every day of their trip.

Do you extend your kids bedtimes for a special occasion like this?

At Disney the routines/bedtimes go out the window. We're open-close type ppl. We do this with our entire party which has been as young as 7 weeks up through mid 60s ...every year. Never been an issue (when they'retired they just nap in the stroller). I can't imagine sticking to bedtimes and never seeing nighttime entertainment at Disney.
 
When we are at Disney we don’t follow our regular schedule at all. All 4 of our kids have gone when they are around 6 months old and frequently thereafter, and while we didn’t stay until closing we stayed out late and did what we wanted to do. The only caveat is that we are not park commandos, and usually don’t do park days 2 days in a row. At home they went to bed around 9 from a young age, we are barely home and settling in by 7:00 let alone ready for bed! I guess I’m a selfish mom, I’m not ending my Disney days at like 5:30 to be able to get the kids back to the resort and ready for bed- no way! Plus I’m a night person, so even when I get up early I still awake and ready to go at night. They have all taken it well, with only a few times of unusual crankiness.
 
when we did our big family trip last year, we had 16 people of all ages-I think one of the fams with young kids (2-9) never saw a night show or fireworks,and the other fam (1 yo) stayed late some nights. My point being I like the fireworks so I stayed- each fam group left whenever they wanted to and we were all happy.
 
Oh I forgot to add when mine were young I totally went wherever,whenever at Disney- they slept in their stroller just fine.
 
We have taken young kids multiple times to disney. My oldest is only 5 (I have two others behind him) and he's been to Disney 4 times already!

My kids have a bed time at home of 8pm. Its really rare that they are up past 830p except on weekends. I love the fireworks and other night shows and so do my kids so we work our day with that in mind. We get up early for breakfast (my kids are use to getting up at 6am so no biggie) then we go hard in the parks until lunch time. After lunch we go back to the room and take naps (if its humid and super hot the adults shower too HAH). We then try to go back after dinner time, sometimes a little earlier and dinner in the parks but we plan a good 3 hours to nap and relax at the resort. After we go right back out to the parks and stay until close.

The kids don't seem to mind staying out late, there is so much going on they're pretty stimulated, our big issue was nap time. If we didn't get back in time for nap my kids lost their minds in the park which meant trying to leave carrying kids surfboard style through the park.

My kids don't sleep well in the stroller, they'll cat nap but we wanted really good naps so we could stay out late.
 
I do, but she’s more of a nighttime person. Getting her up some mornings were not fun. But she’s great at staying up late.
 
My kids can hang. So yes we throw the schedule out the window! Our last trip we had a 7, 5, and 2 year old that made it all the way to midnight one night. We did have down time at the hotel most days which helped tremendously. And we let them sleep until they woke up several mornings as well. My youngest would fall asleep in the stroller sometimes and we’d just plug on.
 
We are going to Disneyworld next month with 17 ppl - aged 81 down to 4 months. All of my grandkids (5 of them) are my two son’s children and I have very little (virtually no) say in decisions such as bedtime. The oldest two granddaughters are 5 1/2 and almost 5. They both have sisters that are 2 1/2ish. I believe that all of the kids will be put to bed by 7pm every day that they are there. They will never see the fireworks.

A little family history here - all of my adult children (who will be on this trip) went to Disneyworld with their grandparents when they were 5, and all stayed in the park until the fireworks almost every day of their trip.

Do you extend your kids bedtimes for a special occasion like this?

My child is 11. He stays up as late as 11:30 on Saturdays. His normal bedtime is 7:45 during school months. On New Year's Eve, he made it till 12:15 I believe New Year's Day. He said he's looking forward to staying in MK till 1am on EMH evening. We shall see! My son is also an early riser. He can go to bed at 11:30 and be up by 7am or even 6:30 the following morning. (I hate that he can do that!!) :rotfl2: On our MK evening, we will be sleeping in the next morning. It's our checkout day anyway, so that will work out perfectly!
 

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