Dad allows his 7-year-old daughter to stay up all night after she constantly resisted her 10 PM bedtime, cries from exhaustion during her after-school activities: 'My wife questioned my parenting technique.'

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
Nov 28, 2025 8:00 PM EST

Sleep hygiene is developed extremely early in life. My parents insisted that I go to bed by 8 PM every night until I was in 4th grade. I remember thinking it was absurd because everyone else in my class stayed up until at least 9 PM on school nights. Sometimes, I'd be going to sleep when it was still bright outside, and I'd dream of being able to stay up late enough to watch Project Runway with my parents when it aired, instead of watching it after school the next day. 

I might have complained about it then, but I am still reaping the benefits of going to bed early and getting up early. Even as a grown-up who doesn't have to get to the office until 10 PM, I make sure I'm home in bed by 12:30 AM at the very latest on weeknights. Getting a good night's sleep is more important to me than basically any party or late-night social engagement, no matter how silly that may sound to those insomniacs out there. Sleep hygiene is much more about establishing good habits than it is about discipline, and the earlier you can develop those habits, the less of a problem sleep will be throughout one's life. 

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  • Girl sitting inside car
    via Joseph Gonzalez

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • The dad in this story tried an unconventional method to instill good sleep habits in his 7-year-old. He let her stay up until all hours to see how bad it actually made her feel, and although his wife might disagree, he thinks his method of parenting has taught an age-appropriate lesson his daughter won't soon forget.

  • Am I the bad guy for teaching my daughter the importance of sleep?

    Just like any other kid, my (7 yo) daughter HATES bedtime. If it's ever 9:59 and we tell her it's bed time then she will make a huge court case about how we are depriving her of one minute of her life.
    via u/Satan-PostRehab
  • I always let it go but this week when I told her it's bed time at 10:05 she protested. Essentially she didn't understand why she had to go to bed while the rest of us adults stayed up later. It's unfair that we get to enjoy the rest of our night while she has to go to bed early.
    via u/Satan-PostRehab
  • I mean she's not wrong, it definitely makes more sense for me to go to bed early as well since all of us wake up roughly around the same time but I needed her to understand the consequence of the trade off between sleep and early mornings.
    via u/Satan-PostRehab
  • So I told her okay...she can stay up as long as she wants. Hell, if we go to bed she can keep watching tv all night till the next morning.
    via u/Satan-PostRehab
  • Her eyes glimmered and she did her little victory dance before sitting on the sofa and enjoying her little win. My wife protested saying that she'll be too tired for school tomorrow and I said "that's the point".
    via u/Satan-PostRehab
  • School girl sleeping on desk at school
    via Getty Images (Unsplash+)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • I went to bed and woke up at 7am, sure enough my daughter slept on the sofa probably about 2 hours before I woke up. Understandably, getting her to wake up and get ready for school was a battle that neither of us enjoyed. I dropped her off at school and picked her up again after work, she was DONE with the day and slept in the car on the way home.
    via u/Satan-PostRehab
  • Once we got home she tried to go to bed and I told her she can't because her swimming lesson is in an hour so she needs to get ready for that. She cried but I still forced her to go with her mom.
    via u/Satan-PostRehab
  • She came back just barely able to make it through the day and tried making her way up the stairs again. I told her she forgot about her homework and she started crying again.
    via u/Satan-PostRehab
  • A person writing on a piece of paper
    via Evgeni Tcherkasski

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
     

  • My wife said we should let her sleep but I was firm on my stance that if we let her off the hook right now then she will never understand the consequences of her decision. Delaying responsibilities due to factors within your control isn't okay and I don't want her learning that it is.
    via u/Satan-PostRehab
  • I helped her with her homework and by the time it was 8 she was already in bed. The next night when it was 10 she didn't even protest, just started walking up to her bedroom and declined when I asked her if she wanted to stay up with us.
    via u/Satan-PostRehab
  • I thought the mission was a success but my wife questioned my parenting technique and said it was border line neglectful & manipulative. I disagreed but after a few conversations with friends and family I'm slowly starting to doubt myself...so reddit AITA?
    via u/Satan-PostRehab
  • Marmot Mountain NTA at all...Although we have different parenting techniques, yours worked. I made my kids go to bed at 8. And yes, they had tantrums, but hey, that wore them out! As they got older (9, 10) I made them a deal: they could stay up until 9 ( to watch DragonBall Z) as long as there were NO PROBLEMS getting up and ready in the morning. If one of them was late or not ready in time the next morning, that night they went to bed at 8. It was interesting that at 6:30 am I didn't have to ye
    via u/Marmot_Mountain
  • twelvedayslate This is my thing. OP, that bedtime is way too late. You're running into issues because she's overtired.
    via u/twelvedayslate
  • Disneyhorse My kids are almost 14 and their bedtime is finally 9pm (was 8pm pretty much forever). We get up around 6-7am. My own bedtime is 10pm at the latest. Good sleep habits are important... if you regularly get lots of sleep those random late nights aren't bad at all. My kids are NEVER irritable either.
    via u/Disneyhorse
  • [deleted] This thread is so interesting. One of my friends (whose entire career is working with young kids/teens) decided to let kids go bed whenever they like. But the deal is they have to not only get up, washed and dressed without issue but ALSO had to stay on top of their homework. That was from around the age of 8. The kids ended up regulating themselves. In fact the 11 year old sometimes goes bed after her mum and is doing great in school!
    via u/[deleted]
  • International-Bad-84 That great for your friend but I'm a teacher and I can tell you for absolute sure that most kids don't do well with unregulated bedtime. Also most kids lie about homework being done. Not to say your friend's kids are, I also have a friend who did this with her daughter and it was completely fine. Just to say that I wouldn't give it as general life advice. Some kids thrive with a lack of structure and their parent should absolutely recognise and respect that, but most kids do
    via u/International-Bad-84
  • Halleaon NTA, but 10 is way too late for a 7 year old to be staying up. The national sleep association recommends a child of that age getting to bed by 8 at the latest, Hell, I think when I was that age my bedtime was 7:30, a child her age needs 9-11 hours of sleep per night.
    via u/Halleaon
  • Satan-PostRehab OP You know I hear you, 10PM is indeed on the late side and I think this is a consequence of never really setting an official bed time when she started going to school. By the time we wanted her to sleep earlier she had already been going to bed at 10 for a few years and shifting the bed time this late seemed difficult since she was already complaining about it. Seemed harmless as well since she wakes up with a lot of energy and it seems enough for her. If it ever proves to be a
    via u/Satan-PostRehab
  • annang It has proven to be a problem. It's the reason she has such trouble winding down for bed. You're just not making the connection.
    via u/annang
  • Lex-tailonis “I thought the mission was a success but my wife questioned my parenting technique and said it was border line neglectful & manipulative." You didn't cut her finger off you just kept her awake. I say bravo! And I'm impressed it only too one cycle. NTA
    via u/Lex-tailonis
  • fairiefire It's one day. She didn't die. NTA choices have consequences.
    via u/fairiefire
  • Staring AtStarshine You didn't start out this way, but YTA. I don't think this is a bad idea necessarily, sometimes kids have to learn the hard way, especially when "because I said so" doesn't cut it. But jesus christ man, you made your point. The first time she started crying should've been the end of it: she understood what you were trying to do. That's when you should've sat down and had the conversation to make sure she saw why it's important she gets enough rest every night. This didn't bec
    via u/StaringAtStarshine

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family drama mother fatherhood bedtime bad parenting parenting good parenting dad family daughter mom sleeping Parenting Fail parents Father Parenting FAILS
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