Hi! I’m Dana Obleman, creator of The Sleep Sense Program. If you’d rather read than watch, I’ve transcribed the text of this video below.

My husband and I have this little private joke between us, because when we go out and I see a child up in the evening, the first thing I do is look at my watch. He constantly teases me about checking my watch every time I see a child up, when sometimes I’m out at night without my children.

I do notice when children are up past what I consider a reasonable hour. The other night we were out for dinner and I noticed that in the room there were several children with groups of adults. The youngest looked like she was about one and a half, maybe two years old and she was still in a high chair. That leads me to looking at my watch wondering why those children are there at 9:00 at night instead of in bed or at home with a sitter. My husband asked why it bothered me so much, and when I looked over again the little girl was asleep in her high chair.

I just think it’s unfair really to do that to your child and I told my husband, to imagine if I took him out for dinner after a long day when he was so worn out that he could not resist the urge to put his head down on the table and go to sleep, in the middle of dinner.

I would never do that to him. If he told me he was tired and didn’t want to go out for dinner and instead wanted to go home to bed, I would respect that. I wouldn’t drag him around to complete exhaustion. So I don’t know why some people don’t offer that same courtesy to their children. Of course you want to go out and you want to see your friends and you need to have a life, and I agree with all of those things. I just think in that case you should get a sitter or have a family member or a friend come over and watch the kids.

I know not everyone has the luxury of having family nearby, but you could have your friends over to your place or something like that. There’s always a compromise to the situation. I agree, you need time on your own but having children with you when they’re clearly exhausted and should be at home in bed, is not fair to the child. Nor is it fair to take a child out and expect them to behave when they’re tired or to be quiet while you have adult conversation or to just even have an inside voice.

I have three little ones and it’s exhausting taking them out for dinner and keeping them well behaved and using inside voices and so I just would never subject my friends to that. If you were meeting friends who also had children, you could go at an appropriate hour so that you can be home before they’re all beside themselves with fatigue.

I know that not everyone is going to agree with me. Some people might think it’s totally fine and acceptable to take their kids out late and I’m not even saying I don’t do it on a rare occasion. Maybe once a year, my children get to stay up past bedtime. I just don’t do it often because I don’t think it’s honoring their need for sleep and I pay the price the next day with tired children. Then it takes them a couple of days to get themselves back on track if they’ve missed their normal bedtime. I really don’t do it often at all. I get slack from my friends sometimes for not bringing the kids to the outing but I need to practice what I preach and I think that sleep is just as important as everything else in life. I like to honor that for my children and for myself.

So, that gives you something to think about, I hope — and sleep well!