AITAH for asking the teenagers on our family vacation to be quiet for 10 minutes so my 6-year-old could fall asleep?

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We’re currently on a big family vacation. There are about 14 kids ranging in age from 6 to 22, and my 6-year-old son is the youngest.
My son normally goes to bed pretty early, usually somewhere between 7:30–8:30. Unfortunately, when rooms were assigned, my husband, son, and I ended up with a bedroom on the main floor directly next to the living room, which is obviously where everyone wants to hang out at night.
The house we’re staying in also has two huge balconies with plenty of patio furniture and space for everyone to hang out.
The first night, everyone stayed up until around 1–2 AM and was extremely loud in the living room. Because our bedroom is right there, we barely slept. We mentioned the next day that maybe once it got late, everyone could hang out on one of the balconies instead so the people sleeping downstairs could actually sleep.
That didn’t go over very well.
After that, we tried to compromise even more. We weren’t asking everyone to stop having fun at 8 PM or be quiet for the entire night. We literally asked for about 10 minutes of quiet when we put our son to bed. Once he’s asleep, he’s OUT. We told them after those 10 minutes they could talk, laugh, play music, whatever. We just needed enough quiet for him to actually fall asleep.
Even that became a problem.
Several of the teenagers complained about having to be quiet, and it somehow turned into a huge family argument. Now we’re being told that my husband and I are ruining everyone’s vacation and ruining their fun by expecting people to accommodate our son’s bedtime.
From our perspective, we’re not expecting 14 kids and young adults to go to bed at 8 PM because we have a 6-year-old. We completely understand that they’re on vacation and want to stay up late and have fun. That’s why we’re only asking for 10 minutes. There are also two huge outdoor areas where they could hang out during that time.
But apparently the rest of the family thinks we’re the ones being unreasonable because everyone shouldn’t have to change what they’re doing because our child goes to bed earlier.
So… AITA for asking everyone to keep the noise down for literally 10 minutes so our 6-year-old can fall asleep, or should we have just accepted that this is part of traveling with a big family?

Posted Aug 10, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

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