How late does your 3-4 year old stay up on cruises?

[Florida_cruisers]

My son goes to bed between 8-8:30pm at home so I am not sure what I am going to do on our cruise...

[smoothy]

for both DS6 and DS4 10:00pm 8-()

 

It was great for the nights we wanted to see the show, do shopping, have a peaceful cuppa at the cafe.

 

That was the time the normal programming for the day ended. One night the club called to let us know that our younger one wanted to go back to the cabin to go to sleep at about 9pm, but other than that day they begged to stay in till closing. We had no problems with getting them up in the morning for excursions etc.

[Julienatul]

My 3 yr old goes to bed at home around the same time but this last cruise she stayed up until 10-10:30. She loved the shows every evening.

[MNmomof4]

Our kids now stay up on a cruise about 1-1.5hrs past their regular bed time at home. There is so much to do that they dont want to miss. They dont fuss and so tired that they fall asleep right away

[sbhdmh]

We did a 12 day Baltic cruise this August with our very social 4 year old. Her schedule went right out the window. At home she is normally in bed by 7:30. On the cruise? Hahahaha! Dinner ended at 8, kids club brought them to the show each evening and then to the disco for dancing after the show. (We sailed on MSC - a more European approach to things.) We were lucky to get her to sleep before 10:30 once or twice. No naps and she still got up early every morning. It helped that the sun was up before 5 each morning and it stayed light until 10 at night. After 12 days we had a very tired little girl but oh so happy! The first night home she was asleep by 6:30 and got right back on schedule after sleeping 12 hours a night for the first couple of nights.

[cruiseaholic76]

My son usually goes to bed by 9 but when we went on our first cruise with him this past Jan he was up till probably midnight lol. He's like me he can stay up late and still be up early. We'd try and give him a nap in the afternoon but now he fights his naps so we'll see. We plan on going on a cruise this Nov.

[bandtw]

Our 4 year old is usually asleep by 8:30 at home. On our last cruise we went to pick her up at AO and she didn't want to come. She stayed until 10:00 almost every night. She loves it!

[Florida_cruisers]

ok, I guess then staying up in a little late won't be too bad as long as he takes a nap in the afternoons (usually 12-2:30pm), especially on sea days.

[crusinmama06]

ok, I guess then staying up in a little late won't be too bad as long as he takes a nap in the afternoons (usually 12-2:30pm), especially on sea days.

 

This should be just fine. My kids have always gone to bed between 7pm and 8pm at home, but on the ship, it's 10pm. Even when they were 3/4, they stayed up till 10pm. That's when all of the action dies down. :)

[jinjo75]

On our last cruise, our son (then 2.5 years old) would nap very late (about 3 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.), because we did a lot of excursions in the mornings. As a consequence, he was VERY awake in the evenings... :p He would go to bed when we went to bed, which was around 11 p.m. and sleep until 8 or 9 a.m. Perfect!

 

On our next cruise, I'm not sure what to do. He stopped taking naps quite a while ago and goes to bed at around 8 p.m., very tired, and sleeps his 12 hours. I could try to wake him up early in the mornings and try to get him to nap in the afternoons. But to be honest, I'm not that keen on getting up at 6 in the morning... ;)

 

Oh well... we will just have to wait and see how it goes. With all the excursions and activities, maybe (hopefully!) he will nap again in the afternoons! :)

[sas80]

Both our children went to bed at around the same time they do at home (@ home it's 7:30pm) They usually get 10 to 11 hours of sleep each night. We always hire a sitter from 7:30 to 10:30 on our cruises.

 

We find that they tend to wake up at the same time in the morning, regardless of what time they go to bed. If they don't get that 10/11 hours, as a norm, they just get cranky and moody (and we don't like dealing with them) so we try to maintain our home schedule when cruising. It also maintains the "routine" and we all know that kids thrive on predictability.

 

It's funny when I see parents dragging their kids into daycare in the morning and their kids are just in absolutely terrible moods. They ask me if my son is always this happy in the morning. They assume it's DS's personality being different than their own child's. My intuition tells me that that their child probably just needs more sleep.

[brenderlou]

A nap is a must of cruises!!!! Last couple of cruises, our 4 yr old would take a late afternoon nap (2:30 - 3:00) and sleep a solid 2 hours and then would be on the go until 10:00 when it was bed time but probably didn't fall asleep until close to 11:00.

She is also an early riser so every morning she was up by 7-7:30 and on the go, full throttle until nap time and then going full steam until bed time.

She is now 5 and we are going to do the late day nap again on our upcoming cruise.

[jagwebb]

My daughter is 3 and we just got off the Freedom on 10/4. She is a good sleeper and needs a solid 10 - 11 hours of sleep at night but will sleep longer if possible. She usually goes to sleep at 7:30 pm at home. On the cruise, she would go to bed around 10:30 pm. and wake up around 9:00 am. She will sleep later if she goes to bed later. We would take a nap late afternoon for about 2 hours and she was good until 10 pm.

[cb at sea]

Whether you do a nap or not, your child will sleep like a rock---a combination of the sea air, the activities and the motion of the ship---it's like magic!