The 7 O'Clock Bedtime: Early to bed, early to rise, makes a child healthy, playful, and wise [Paperback]

Inda Schaenen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2001

Are children hardwired to stay up late, scarfing down cookies and soda and surfing the Internet? No, says Inda Schaenen, who advocates a no-nonsense, nurturing approach that will help you get your kids into bed by 7 o'clock -- and help you make a saner life for yourself.

Most kids today are overscheduled, and consequently they're often wound up and active until late in the evening. But when kids are exhausted, bedtime becomes a struggle and everyone loses.

The solution? Put your kids to bed at 7 o'clock and reap the benefits:

Your kids get the rest they need to grow and learn.

You set a daily pace that allows kids to be kids.

You get a much-needed break in the evenings.

The whole family thrives under less stress.

In this revolutionary book, Inda Schaenen helps you restructure your children's daily schedules from dawn till dusk, suggesting dozens of lifestyle changes that will reduce crankiness, improve school performance, and give you back control of your life. You'll learn why your kids need a 7 o'clock bedtime and, most important, how to make it happen. The book includes a detailed timetable; advice for dealing with vacations, school breaks, travel, And illness; and quick and healthful recipes. And Schaenen's wise, reassuring tone will inspire you to make this important and beneficial change.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

You think parents don't get enough sleep? Inda Schaenen argues persuasively in this slim yet thought-provoking book that parents who have to wake their kids up every morning can't be the only ones suffering from sleep deprivation. She points to substantial pediatric evidence that sleep deprivation is a serious problem for children, with consequences ranging from grumpiness to (according to some experts) the exacerbation or even creation of disorders such as ADHD. And she insists that none of the activities consuming evening time are as important to a child as adequate rest.

For most of the book--including a final section full of recipes and tips--Schaenen is wearing her Mom hat. She details the daily mechanics of getting children to bed by 7:00 and talks at length about exceptions. The regime she follows, and recommends to parents, isn't easy: she plans the after-school snack for as close to 3:00 as she can get it, allows after-school play until 4:30, has dinner on the table at 5:00, starts the bathroom routine at 6:00, and settles in for storytime from 6:15 to 6:45. By 7:00, she's saying good night.

Of course many working parents may find her routine impossible. But Shaenen's main point sticks: if mornings are tense, you should be thinking long and hard about what family restructuring is necessary to ensure that your children are getting the rest they need. And, as she points out, the moms and dads who get an hour or two of downtime each evening are happier, saner, better parents. --Richard Farr

About the Author

Inda Schaenen is a freelance writer and fulltime mother of three children, ages four, seven, and ten. She and her family live in St. Louis, Missouri.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks; 1 edition (May 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060988894
• ISBN-13: 978-0060988890
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #575,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Read for Every Parent...., July 8, 2002

By 

Susan Trexel "almond_cakes" (Near the great state of Idaho) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The 7 O'Clock Bedtime: Early to bed, early to rise, makes a child healthy, playful, and wise (Paperback)

...even if you never actually set up your life around a 7 o'clock bedtime. This book was loaned to me by a friend, and I enjoyed reading it. It is easy to get through, not heavy and burdensome, yet gives a lot of good food for thought in child rearing. Actually, if you are an informed parent, a lot here is stuff you probably already know, like TV is bad for children, children need a diet with less sugar and salt, children need to have time to BE children instead of rushed from this lesson to that club...you get the picture. Yet even though I have read this all before (I am a stay at home mom of a 19 yr. old, a 10 yr. old, and a 4 yr. old) over the 19 years of my parenting career, I feel every time I read it, I NEED to hear it again, because as a parent it is easy to drift from the ideals we want for our children.
I recommend all parents read this book. We need to be aware of how our culture and society today is very negative against childhood and so much that we accept as normal is NOT good for children. It takes effort to order our lives so that our children can enjoy their childhoods as children, not as mini teenagers or mini adults.
I can't say I totally agree with the 7 o'clock bedtime concept. I do think she is right in that children need much more sleep than we realize or give them. I do think this works well with babies, toddlers, with children up to the age of 7 or so. However it will not work for all people, especially those who have one or more parents who do not work the usual 9 to 5 hours. I think you could still have your children go to bed at 8 or even 9 and still benefit, especially if your children can get up later in the morning, or if they take a good nap in the day.
The author speaks of the importance of routine in the life of a child, and this is VERY important, no matter what bedtime you exactly use. Routine has a calming effect on children, and they feel safe and secure in routine.
I enjoyed the suble humor of this author; she wrote honestly and not like she was the super perfect mom none of us can ever be. I cheer her for being so honest as to admitting that at times she has served cold cereal for dinner! I have done that on rare occassions! I like her emphasis on simplicity as well.
At the back of this book, the author has a very good list of other parenting books to read. Some were ones I have read; I think anyone reading this book would do well to go on and read others in her list. Parenting takes much effort on our part, and we need to be informed. We can't trust society or the fact that "everyone's doing it" as a model to follow for our parenting. You owe it to your children's well being to read this book and others.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved this book!, July 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The 7 O'Clock Bedtime: Early to bed, early to rise, makes a child healthy, playful, and wise (Paperback)

Ever since I read this book I have found myself recommending it to all my friends. Those friends who I have lent my copy to read have since gone out and bought their own.

I liked the principle enourmously and her gentle approach to it. I found the book to written differently than most parenting books with their air of authority and lofty advice. This book gets down to the nitty gritty. The style of writing was more like an old friend writing a letter to you, sharing what worked for her. Sometimes the writing would wander off the subject a bit, but it was that personal aspect that appealed to me when I read it.

Ah ha! But what was it about you may ask. It is about how to get kids into bed by 7 o'clock (you probably geussed this much already) and explores the practical way of scheduling the early evening to accomplish this. It also covers the benefits of the early bedtime and tailoring the schedule to fit different situations, i.e. vacations and sleep overs. The people who will most benefit from this book are people with school age children or children who have to be somewhere at a certain time in the morning. However, I have a toddler and I have started slowly implenting the earlier bedtime with a view of 'starting as we mean to go on'. As an attachment parent, I liked her references to nursing and as part of a tv free family I especially liked her views that tv is overstimulating.

I would put this book in with my top ten parenting books.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Take what works and leave the rest, May 2, 2007

By 

MamaG - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The 7 O'Clock Bedtime: Early to bed, early to rise, makes a child healthy, playful, and wise (Paperback)

I subscribe to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach to bedtime and sleep. The reason I got this book was that things were in need of some fixing in our home. Bedtime was creeping later and later and I was becoming resentful.

Schaenen's overall theories that children need more rest, parents need more rest, and bedtime can be viewed as the beginning of nighttime rather than the end of the day are all valid and helpful. I am also in agreement with her that children need to have unstructured playtime everyday, preferably outdoors, that television, video games, and computer are simply unnecessary for children, and that nutrition plays an important role in healthy children and sleep habits.

Her emphasis on family ritual and routine were also useful.

What I did NOT like about the book was Schaenen's endorsement of the Ferber method of sleep training for infants and young toddlers. It doesn't fit my parenting philosophy at all. We follow an attachment parenting approach in our home, and share a bed with our infants. Rather than setting Schaenen's book aside as another book contrary to my beliefs, though, I decided to overlook our philosophical differences about family bed & night nursing, and use the good pointers about getting my children off to bed earlier and more restfully.

I also appreciated the candor with which she shared anecdotes from her own family. I always enjoy books in which the author shows their own family life rather than just proclaiming what everyone else should be doing. It's always comforting to see a glimpse into another family's real life.

In summary, I will use many suggestions from this book regarding getting my kids off to bed in a timely manner. I will choose to overlook the recommendation to sleep train my infant.