We are friends with another couple whose daughter’s regular bedtime is 9pm or later. She is five, the same age as our kiddo, who goes to bed at 7-7:30pm. Both of our friends work pretty long hours and get home around 7:30 at night or even later and to spend some time together as a family they moved their daughter’s bedtime later from the time she was pretty little. Obviously you can’t do this with all kids, but she is great about it and sleeps a bit later in the morning than most kids I know, until about 8am or so.

I’ve thought about doing this. On a really great day, I get home at 5:45 and hang out with my daughter until she goes to bed. It’s not a ton of time, but it works, especially when we do something fun, like dance around in the living room or play a game together. But on less-than-great days, when there is a ton of traffic or I am late getting out of the office, the time we spend together feels too short. If her bedtime were later, we’d have more time together.

But our daughter a strong internal clock that works well when she goes to bed on time — when she goes to sleep later, she ends up waking up earlier than usual, feeling tired and cranky. I’m waiting for her to grow out of this at some point, but for now, even though she stays up later on some weekend nights if we are out doing something fun, we don’t make it a habit.

Here’s a guilty confession on this topic of bedtimes: Even though on days when the commute gods conspire against me I don’t get as much time as usual with my daughter, I like having a few hours of quite time after she goes to bed at night. I catch up on work (which I try not to complain about, because I work for a company that lets me leave the office at 5pm, a rarity in my line of work), get some cleaning and cooking done, eat dinner with my husband — most of the time this means finishing leftovers while standing in the kitchen, but I don’t mind — and maybe even zoning out a bit while watching Top Chef.

At the end of the day, I know that our daughter needs her sleep and we try not to interfere. Sure, we have to deal with some friends giving us a friendly hard time about having to leave a get together early so she can get to bed, but that’s fine. I’d rather be the uncool mom of a well-rested kiddo. We know our share of kids who, I’m pretty sure, would benefit from a bit more structure around their bedtimes and a little less coolness from their parents, who let them stay up way too late.

Have you adjusted your kids’ bedtimes so you can spend more time together at night? Do you let your kids stay up late on weekends or do you stick to a pretty regular bedtime? (I’m sure this varies with age, so share please, in the comments!)