The National Sleep Foundation recommends that kids aged six to thirteen sleep for 9-11 hours per night. That sounds about right to me. I’ve got three kids in that age range, and they all get about eleven hours of sleep per night.If we reduce that to ten hours, they’re a little sluggish in the morning. Nine hours means that I better drink some tea the night before because I’m going to have to soothe my throat for the yelling that will ensue in the morning.Just kidding. I don’t yell. Or do I not drink tea? One or the other. I don’t remember.Anyway, my kids go to school most of the time. They have weekends off. And some holidays. And some random days in April for some reason. So usually they’re asleep by eight o’clock since I wake them up at 6:45. They’re well-rested, they’re not crabby, and they get to school on time. So we must be doing something right.However, they only go to school 180 days a year, which means there are 185 days a year in which they don’t go to school. So 185 nights a year are not school nights. And really, if you’re a kid, is there anything better than hearing, “It’s not a school night?”“Snow day,” is probably a little better, but those words lose some of their magic since you have to make them up.And for the Baker kids, “It’s not a school night,” translates to “There’s no bedtime.”Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. My kids have no school. So Sunday wasn’t a school night. So they didn’t go to bed at eight o’clock. In fact, as I write these words at half past midnight, the three youngest Baker children (aged twelve, ten and six) are yelling and laughing as they sprawl out while playing Minecraft.I just asked all three of them if they were tired and two answered “No,” and one answered, “Not at all.” That might have something to do with the fact that none of them woke up before ten o’clock this morning.This is standard operating procedure for my kids though. They were born to two night owl parents. I love to sleep. However, my neverending love for sleep is much stronger in the morning than it is at night. So I often find myself staying up later than I should. I’ve become used to operating on a less-than-ideal amount of sleep.However, I compensate as well. One night last week I slept for ten hours because the night before I only slept for four. As much as I enjoyed the ten-hour night, I’m more likely to repeat the four-hour night.But my kids’ sleep amounts are more consistent. Regardless of what time they go to bed, it’s a pretty safe bet that they’ll get their eleven hours of sleep.So during extended breaks from school—such as the seventeen-day Christmas break we just enjoyed—breakfast becomes lunch, and mornings are extremely quiet.There are numerous reasons for these late nights. Most of them relate to having night owl parents.First, there’s probably something in my kids’ genes that drives them to stay up late and wake up late.There’s no more overrated band in the history of music than The Doors, but amongst all of their melodramatic, crappy music, they did manage to write one decent line: “The day destroys the night/ night divides the day.”As a generic, blanket statement, the night is more interesting than the day. Since my kids are products of two people who recognize that truth, it only makes sense that they’d take advantage of any opportunity to experience more of the night.Second, since I’m up late most of the time anyway, I take advantage of any opportunity to let my kids stay up late. For if they stay up late, they’re going to wake up late. And if they wake up late, then I get to wake up late. If I made them go to bed early, they’d wake up early, and I have zero interest in waking up at six-thirty on a Saturday morning.I’ve got four kids. I know that most “experts” talk about the importance of routine for kids, and I agree with that for the most part. But through experience I also know that my kids like staying up late, they’re able to transition back into a regular sleep schedule rather easily, and we have tons of fun staying up late that we might not ordinarily have.Many things are funnier at midnight than they are at seven o’clock in the evening. I don’t know why. That’s just the way it is. If my kids never stayed up late they’d think I was an idiot. I need their delirium to let my genius sink in.So they’ll stay up late tonight, and they’ll sleep late on Monday, but they’ll go to bed at regular time Monday night. Maybe they’ll be a bit tired on Tuesday, but by Tuesday night they’ll be wiped out, ready for bed, and back into their “regular” schedules.I don’t anticipate these non-school nights ever changing. They like staying up late, and I like hanging out with them. They know school night bedtimes are non-negotiable, and they know that if we have to wake up early on a non-school day they may have to go to bed earlier than they expect on a non-school night.Otherwise, I say let them stay up. They’ll be stuck with adult responsibilities soon enough. Until then, they’ll make enough good memories from those late nights to make up for any sleepy days they experience.And in the end, it’s the good memories that matter.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Why Are Parents so Dumb?PREVIOUS POST: Writer's Block Doesn't Exist