Parents weigh cost of later school night bedtime to cheer the Blue Jays as a family

TORONTO — By the time Blue Jays fan Suzanne Jangda and her two kids arrived at school Thursday morning the yard was empty and students were already inside. They were late.

The morning had been a scramble and “hard for all of us,” said Jangda, because they had stayed up later than usual to watch the Jays trounce the Seattle Mariners in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.

“I am a big Blue Jays fan and turning my kids into them, too, is my mission,” said Jangda, who was anticipating another late school night for Thursday’s game, and a more manageable Friday night game as the series continued from Seattle’s T-Mobile Park.

Wednesday’s game ran nearly three hours long, but she had let the boys watch until the fifth inning, about an hour after their usual 8 p.m. bedtime and long enough to catch George Springer’s homer.

That was after the four- and seven-year-olds powered through a sluggish Tuesday, thanks to a later night Monday watching the second game in the best-of-seven series.

“It doesn’t happen all the time. Embrace it if you can,” Jangda reasoned in a late afternoon phone interview.

By early evening Thursday, it was clear Jangda’s kids needed to catch up on rest.

“Turns out my kids are definitely showing TIRED,” Jangda said by text in a 7 p.m. update, about an hour-and-a-half before Game 4’s first pitch.

“So I’m going out to a bar to watch with friends tonight, and making them go to bed at 8 like usual. Without me at home watching, they won’t be as sucked in.”

Like many baseball fans with school-aged kids, Jangda found herself weighing the value of cheering on the Jays’ championship bid as a family against the likely prospect of weary days.

Parents keen to share their Blue Jays fervour with their children should be ready to adjust accordingly, agreed Lisa Fujimoto, a mom of two and Toronto elementary school teacher.

As an ardent Jays fan herself, she’s grappling with the same challenges as her 12- and nine-year-old boys each push bedtimes well-past the norm to catch playoff action.

“We all have Jays fever big-time right now,” she said, suspecting adrenalin keeps her boys alert for class.

“I really think the excitement has been bringing them through their days, partially,” she mused, adding that any sleep deficits are offset by extra-early bedtimes on non-game days.

It helps that they’re a bit older and better able at recognizing their own physical limits, Fujimoto added, but she’s also imposed some rules.

Homework must be done first and lights are out as soon as the game ends. As a result, she said her boys are busy when there are lulls in gameplay – that’s when they shower, put on their PJs, prep their school backpacks and lay out the next day’s outfits so they’re ready in the morning.

“It’s really motivating for them,” she said.

Fujimoto hadn’t noticed if the kids in her split Grade 1 and 2 class are any more bleary-eyed than usual because of MLB playoff excitement, but noted that Jays chatter has infiltrated classroom discussions. Since every child is different, she advised parents to be guided by their own kids’ cues as to whether they can handle a disrupted schedule, and by how much.

Elisha Muskat described her nine-year-old son as “obsessed” with the series but still sent him to bed at his usual 9:30 p.m. bedtime Wednesday because of a cross-country meet the next morning.

That didn’t stop him from yelling out every five minutes, asking her for an update on the score. He finally fell asleep at about 10 p.m., she guessed.

“He’ll reluctantly fall asleep, waiting for updates from the next room,” Muskat chuckled.

Muskat expected to let her son to monitor Thursday night’s game through MLB.com.

“We don’t have a specific marker, but if we were in the seventh inning and we had a big lead or if we’re in the sixth inning and we were down by 10 runs or something like that, then I’d be like, ‘OK, bedtime,’” she said.

“But if it’s a close game, I think it’ll be a late night.”

Jangda said she planned to let her kids watch Friday’s game, expected to be an earlier matchup starting at 6:08 p.m. ET.

She’s keen to give her son the same memories she has of watching the Jays clinch the World Series title in 1992, when she was seven-years-old.

“To able to see that is huge. It’s amazing. I wouldn’t want him to miss that. Because I remember as a kid watching them in the World Series,” she said.

“I don’t think I could dare put my seven-year-old to bed in a World Series game. There’s no way. Why would I do that?”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2025.