No, children sleep through the night the same as any other sim (if they don't have pressing needs). It's elders who will get up before 6 if they're fully rested. But because, as you mentioned, children seem to get tired faster than older sims, sometimes it happens that they've conked out after school and gained full energy before midnight. Midnight to 6 is the magic time that all sims (except elders) will keep sleeping even if their energy bar is full. If any sim gets a full bar before midnight (or after 6) then they get straight up (and then get their sleep schedules out of whack, because you can't make them go back to bed if their bar is full).

I actually like that beds give different energy amounts. Makes it more realistic and gives sims something to save up for.

If my sims wake up in the middle of the night, we go Downtown

If they don't, I may wake them up myself and take them Downtown anyway

(Because - why not)?

I rarely use the trash compactor or dishwasher and when I do it's usually always been the older/ silver ones and not the colorful ones from the later EP. However, in my recreation of Goth Manor the newer black ones looked better. To my dismay I found out that the sims didn't compost waste from the trash compactor. Charity thought there had been a fix made for it so I googled ... and she was very correct! LordDarcy at MATY to the rescue. So for anyone else who didn't know... here's the fix link
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...ic,11717.0.html

There's an updated version for AL/M&G here (the original has a text blurb about it)
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...ic,12894.0.html

Is it different than this one on MTS then?

https://modthesims.info/d/299597/st...lly-usable.html

they look to be the same ... so I'd say yeah they're the same :P

Judging by the "date changed", they're the exact same files as the (AL) MATY ones.