Thursday, August 5, 2010

Today's the Day and Some Thoughts on Sleeping

This is it. No more swimming. Today is all about getting ready for school. After breakfast, I am cleaning up the school room once and for all and taking pictures. I'll share them soon. THEN, with my ultra organized area around me, finishing up the planning will be easy, right? Well, it will be prettier, that's for sure.

Our old school room ready to go one year. So pretty!
Then, after lunch, I am going to Carrie's house and we are going to plan. She has good ideas and also is farther along in her planning so I'm going to go suck her ideas. Why should I have to do all the work? No, what works for one family won't work for all families...but I want to get some good ideas and have someone to bounce ideas off of.

Since we are kind of busy Friday and are going to dinner on Saturday....I really need today to PRODUCTIVE. VERY.

Now. I want to talk about sleeping. I have several teen friends on Facebook and I am just amazed that in the summer they have turned into bats. They are nocturnal, I'm telling you. I asked sweetheart's friend yesterday what time she had gone to bed the night before (her teen sisters are on FB so I had a good idea). She told me: 2am. THEN, of course, they sleep all day the next day. And eat breakfast at 4:00 in the afternoon. She's only 10 so I suppose she went to bed "early." Her sisters stay up all night. Like every night is a lock-in.

Little Bit and Sweetheart ready for bed at a hotel last Spring Break.
They are not the only ones. I have a lot of friends whose kids sleep until 10 or noon in the summer. Ug. Can I just say that I HATED the day after lock-ins when I was in high school? That is the grossest feeling. I hated how I felt after sleepovers too. The last (and one of the only) sleepovers that Sweetheart ever went to was when she was 7. It was a birthday party and I naively assumed the mom would call "bedtime" at some point. I figured it would be late but....oh dear. At 1:00am we got a call from Sweetheart/the mom. Something was hurting. Do you want me to come get you? No. Put a cold rag on it. Are you sure you want to stay? Yes. From what we can tell, we guess it was like 3:30am before she fell asleep. And needless to say, church was the next day. Those girls (15 or so of them) dragged into church and the mom fed them donuts before church started. Half of them fell asleep in church, Sweetheart (of course) got a big headache but I refused to let her sleep all day. We just let her have a nap and then be miserable. We put her to bed early, but I wanted her to remember the miserable feeling so she would better understand why she was NEVER doing it again. She told me, through tears, "But Mommy, nobody put me to bed!" It was sad, I'm telling ya.

My kids have been sleeping until 8 or 8:30 these last 2 weeks. Most of the summer Sweetheart was up at 7. Little Bit usually gets up by 8 and that is when they have both gone to bed at 9. Anyway, I mentioned something about how my kids have been sleeping too late and then I said 8:30 and several people looked shocked at me. But at church last night several parents agreed with me--8:30 was too late and their kids had been sleeping that late too.

So what do you think? Do your kids bounce out of bed at sunrise no matter what or do you all turn into bats in the summer or somewhere in the middle?

14 comments:

  1. My boys are put to bed between 8 and 8:15 and then I get them up at 6:30 so they'll take a nap (hopefully!!!). This lets them have good sleep and my and hubby to have time to ourselves. Love the pictures! I'm thinking of making our guest bedroom into a school room but Jacob won't start school for another...oh 2 years..hmm. = )

    ReplyDelete
  2. No bats here. But I've never been a bat either. Even when I was in high school. But I've always been a napper. Even back then. I remember when I was in our high school drama and everybody had afterschool jobs so our drama practice started at 6am. Every school morning. Not a thing for me. But I napped when I got in and then went off to work after school. Then to bed by 10 or 10:30 (by my own doing). But my husband? He'd be nocturnal if he could. Working nights didn't bother him much.

    And we haven't slept until 8:30am since before kids. Half my day's over by then. And I wouldn't change a thing!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. My kids are up with the sun, but they are also in bed between 8 and 9pm every night. If they have someone sleep over they get to stay up until 10, then I put them to bed! My oldest is almost 10.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Melodie--it's never too early. It will just have to change with your needs. Tiany had a great "school room" when her boys were all little. http://homeschoolblogger.com/tiany/715922/

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have been letting the older kids sleep in till around 8:30 this summer. But no worries, my three year old is up at the crack of dawn!

    Next week we will be easing back into our routine of the kids getting up at 7.

    ReplyDelete
  6. No bats. Dark it too compared with evil, biblically speaking, so why allow the children to be up until all hours outside of supervision, only to then sleep away the light of the day?

    ReplyDelete
  7. We are not early morning people, our wake up time is 8:00 even during school days. But nothing about our routine changes for summer.
    I believe that kids need routine and they go wacky enough with out school to keep them busy without changing up their bedtimes, too.
    Now, I have no idea what their sleeping habits will be as teens. I'm a believer in not making rules until we are at "the bridge".

    ReplyDelete
  8. Spesamor, I agree....but here's the thing. I'm not sure i buy the whole "teenagers require more sleep" research that I've heard cited. I think teenagers actually require more work! My Mama and Daddy both grew up on a farm and I'll tell you, they did NOT get to sleep in until 10 just b/c they were teens. Need more sleep? Go to bed earlier! :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. We are more the late night family I suppose. I don't feel it is late, but my early-to-bed-friends do. =) The littles go down around 10-11 ish, the teens hit the bed between 11-12ish. My girl is ALWAYS up by 7, and the boys wake (for the summer) about 8:ish. We started school this week, and since we don't begin til 9, it is working out fine. and selfishly, I like my early morning hour to myself. =)
    btw... our sleep-overs are extremely limited; just a choice we make. =)
    great post Brenda,
    ~Sheri

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh I pray someday my kids will sleep past 6/7 am...I love your school space! YOU GO GIRL!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I don't really have late risers, but on the occasion that they sleep really late I let them. I figure their bodies must need the extra rest. We do let them stay up ultra late on rare occasions. I don't see the harm in letting have the occasional day of sleep after a lock-in or something. Those are memory making times and if we let them rest afterward they will have good memories of the time and not memories of feeling horrible afterward. Sleepovers are EXTREMELY limited for my kids as well, so it's not like this is a common occurrence, but when we do allow it I want their memories of it to be as fond as possible.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Brenda, I had the *exact* same conversation with DH last night! The boys were talking about how they couldn't wait to stay up later as they got older, and DH laughed and said "yeah, then you'll be sleeping in until noon!" and I said "Ummm... no." lol! I do believe that teenagers need extra sleep to accommodate all that growing, but I also agree that extra work and earlier bedtimes are the solution, not becoming night owls and then sleeping the day away. I never did that as a teen, and I survived just fine. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  13. We're a night family, my dh has worked swing or night shifts most of our married life. Our kids stay up til 10 or later most nights so they will sleep until 8-8:30 in the morning. I have one early riser but he fends for himself until the rest of the family is up, of course I don't have any littles anymore. When dh worked swing I got most of my stuff done from 9-11 p.m. after I put the little ones to bed and before he got home.

    I've always been a night person, in jr high and high school I'd come home and nap and then wake at bedtime to be up til 1 or 2 or even later. I had 0 hour classes all 4 years of high school, evening rehearsals, and worked 20 hours a week after school. If I get the 8 hours I'm supposed to have I feel sluggish, I do best at 6 hours of sleep, maybe 7. I shoot for 10 hours for the kids but the older ones are starting to need less and we're trying to find a balance so they aren't up too early and waking up dad. Once they are up the noise level raises exponentially- I don't think boys have volume control.

    ReplyDelete
  14. 5 Boys, I'm all about changing the family schedule to go along with dad's work schedule! Sounds like it works out perfect for you! :)

    ReplyDelete

I don't get to talk to a lot of actual grown-ups during the day, so your comments make me really happy! :)