Mum divides opinion after admitting she puts her son to bed at 4.30pm

A mum has divided opinion after revealing that she sometimes puts her 18-month-old toddler to bed as early as 4.30pm if he hasn't had a nap during the day.

Danielle Mitchell, also known as the TikToker @living.transparently, posts videos of her life including raising her son and discussions of parenting issues.

One of her recent videos has caused a bit of a stir after she revealed that from time to time she'll put her toddler to bed much earlier than usual, and sometimes even as early as 4.30 in the afternoon.

She explained that when she picks up her son from daycare she gets told if he's napped during the day or not, and if he hadn't she was 'not doing that overtired nonsense' by keeping him awake until bedtime.

Danielle said she does this 'every single time they tell me he doesn't nap at daycare' because if he's tired and cranky 'there's no point trying to keep him awake' as he'll sleep worse than if he goes to bed when he needs to.

While her son's normal bedtime is around about 7.30pm, the TikToker believes putting her son to bed early is the right approach and said she had 'legitimately put him to bed at 4.30 before'.

This approach really split opinion with the almost two thousand people who decided to weigh in on the matter and say whether they thought the mum was right or wrong.

There were some who thought that whatever the reason being put to bed at 4.30 was just too early, with one person describing early bedtimes as 'crazy' and another saying their 'child would be up at 3am' if they did that.

Someone else said trying this approach for themselves had backfired as their child was 'up an hour later and we didn't go to bed till gone midnight', and a second agreeing that trying an earlier bedtime had 'always backfired on me'.

However, there was plenty of support for Danielle's approach to her son's bedtime as one said their child being overtired meant 'more night wake-ups for us'.

Another who saw a sleep specialist for their child said their motto was 'sleep begets sleep' and said putting their child to bed earlier rather than later really helped with sleep issues.

There were lots of people in agreement with Danielle that getting their child to bed when they were tired was more important than hitting some point in a set routine, even if it made their kid exhausted and cranky.