Sleeping habits
staceyraeme@...
I am looking for perspective and ideas around my son’s sleeping habits. My son (11) has always been a night owl and for the last year or more has been staying up after everyone else goes to bed. Lately he is often still awake at 6/7 in the morning. He says that he is not staying up all night on purpose. He has trouble getting to sleep on his own once everyone else is asleep but he also says he does not want to go to sleep before my husband, who is the last up, goes to be at around 11:30.
Sometimes he wakes us up (less often than he used to). He seems to forget that other people are sleeping and will be laughing loudly at youtube videos or will be walking loudly on his way to the bathroom. He sometimes gets freaked out about being the only person awake and then comes to wake one of us up to sit in his room so that he can get to sleep. This is a challenge for my husband and I who both really need our sleep.
His staying up all night puts him out of sync with the rest of the family and makes it difficult if he has anything to do in the morning or even early afternoon. I don’t feel that comfortable leaving him home alone for long stretches of time and I know he doesn’t like it so my daughter and I feel kind of stuck in the house while he is sleeping . Also there are lots of things he likes to do with us – swimming, going for picnics, going out for breakfast etc. that seem harder to arrange when he is not getting up until well past noon. I know lots of people in this group have had kids with schedules like this and I am wondering how you managed that as a family?
sukaynalabboun@...
I think it was Meredith who once suggested moving the time on the alarm back incrementally and over the course of days, to wake up earlier. This worked for us, but, our whole family had decided after a few years of all nighting, that we all missed things we weren't able to do because of sleeping in.
It worked because it was not a top-down decision, and we agreed to try the alarm. We also agreed to a few groggy days, kids could have coffee, whatever to help make the change smoother. Oddly, we are nearing the end of Ramadan, and in the same situation but for different reasons, and I was just thinking we will be moving the alarm up in a few days, anticipating their desire to go swim or whatever after the holiday.
Another idea is helping him to remember to be quieter or setting up space for him to softly come sleep in your room when he is tired. Your question seemed to be more oriented towards getting tired earlier, so that is why I focused on that ☺️
Sandra Dodd
-=-. He seems to forget that other people are sleeping and will be laughing loudly at youtube videos or will be walking loudly on his way to the bathroom. He sometimes gets freaked out about being the only person awake and then comes to wake one of us up to sit in his room so that he can get to sleep. This is a challenge for my husband and I who both really need our sleep.-=-
I would tell him that if he can’t stay awake QUIETLY, he must go to bed.
I know I would because I had that condition with my kids their whole lives so far.
He doesn’t “have the right” to stay up late—not historically, or legally, or morally. It’s a privilege you and his dad have chosen to offer, but privileges can and should (honestly, they can’t help it) have conditions. “You can borrow my car if….” if you don’t fill it with dead skunks; if you aren’t using it to deal drugs; if you bring it back… things like that.
You can stay up IF YOU CAN BE QUIET, if you don’t disturb people who are sleeping. There is nothing on earth unreasonable about that.
http://www.joyfullyrejoycing.com/#!if-then-contracts/c20zf
-=- I know lots of people in this group have had kids with schedules like this and I am wondering how you managed that as a family?-=-
With schedules like what?
I think your problem is not planning ahead. ANYONE of any age who has made a commitment to do something at a certain time should plan back eight or nine hours to get ready to sleep long enough to wake up. You’re his partner. You’re a team. If he’s not ready to go, your team has failed. Don’t lay it on him as though you were powerless.
Perhaps you went too far too fast, without understanding enough about WHY and what.
Anyone else reading here who has NOT gone too far too fast, read this and avoid that.
http://sandradodd.com/gradualchange
Anyone who already has gone too far too fast, perhaps have a meeting with that child, explain that, and say he’s taking advantage of your error, and perhaps you should start back with bedtimes. He probably won’t want to do that, and so he will likely be willing to negotiate changes. If he is UNwilling to negotiate changes, stop commiting him to do anything or to go anywhere.
Sandra
I would tell him that if he can’t stay awake QUIETLY, he must go to bed.
I know I would because I had that condition with my kids their whole lives so far.
He doesn’t “have the right” to stay up late—not historically, or legally, or morally. It’s a privilege you and his dad have chosen to offer, but privileges can and should (honestly, they can’t help it) have conditions. “You can borrow my car if….” if you don’t fill it with dead skunks; if you aren’t using it to deal drugs; if you bring it back… things like that.
You can stay up IF YOU CAN BE QUIET, if you don’t disturb people who are sleeping. There is nothing on earth unreasonable about that.
http://www.joyfullyrejoycing.com/#!if-then-contracts/c20zf
-=- I know lots of people in this group have had kids with schedules like this and I am wondering how you managed that as a family?-=-
With schedules like what?
I think your problem is not planning ahead. ANYONE of any age who has made a commitment to do something at a certain time should plan back eight or nine hours to get ready to sleep long enough to wake up. You’re his partner. You’re a team. If he’s not ready to go, your team has failed. Don’t lay it on him as though you were powerless.
Perhaps you went too far too fast, without understanding enough about WHY and what.
Anyone else reading here who has NOT gone too far too fast, read this and avoid that.
http://sandradodd.com/gradualchange
Anyone who already has gone too far too fast, perhaps have a meeting with that child, explain that, and say he’s taking advantage of your error, and perhaps you should start back with bedtimes. He probably won’t want to do that, and so he will likely be willing to negotiate changes. If he is UNwilling to negotiate changes, stop commiting him to do anything or to go anywhere.
Sandra
alohabun@...
<<He has trouble getting to sleep on his own once everyone else is asleep>> &
<<He sometimes gets freaked out about being the only person awake and then comes to wake one of us up to sit in his room so that he can get to sleep. >>
Maybe that would meet his need to be near you when he is tired and ready to sleep without waking one of you? (Assuming he can quietly come into your room and settle on the mattress/blankets.)
<<Sometimes he wakes us up (less often than he used to). He seems to forget that other people are sleeping and will be laughing loudly at youtube videos or will be walking loudly on his way to the bathroom.>>
My 14 yr old son often stays up late and occasionally talks loud or laughs without realizing how loud he is. I think that is because he has headphones on and is unaware of how loud he is sounding. I know he isn't doing it on purpose or that he doesn't care. However, the rest of the family still needs their sleep. Especially my husband because he needs to function well at work. Therefore, we made it clear to Li that he could only keep staying up and communicating aloud with people online if he kept his voice way down.
One thing I do that helps Li is to remind him that we are going to bed and to remember to keep his voice down/quiet. I think he does this quite well now.
Li is conscientious about being quiet. However, he can forget or not realize the level of his voice on rare occasions. If ever he's a bit loud for Jim (because Jim is more sensitive to noise than I am), I go into his room and remind him that we are sleeping and can hear him. If that ever happens, one reminder is usually all it takes and he says he didn't realize he was loud and he apologizes in a quiet voice.
There was one night that I remember when he was very loud and even though I got up and reminded him to be quiet (a couple times), he wasn't. That night, Jim and I decided to turn off the internet. But typically Li is very quiet.
Li wants to make it work. And it's so rare that he's even loud after we go to bed. I think it helps the most to get the reminder to be quiet right before we go to bed. Like Sandra wrote though, it's a privilege. We don't have to let him stay up. If he gets too loud, we can turn the internet off and tell him to go to bed. I want to help as best I can to make it work though.
Laurie
Sarah Thompson
Is it specifically staying up with your husband that he wants to do? Are they hanging out in the evening? Because our house is very small and my husband goes to sleep early and REALLY needs his sleep to function (and is easily disturbed), we have found that it doesn't work for the kids to stay up late because even the lights and the bathroom and their whispering disrupt his sleep. What we do instead is that he usually plays a couple of video games with the kids before he goes to bed, and then they stay up on their tablets while he is getting ready for bed and reading his book (I'm usually in bed at this point, reading). They finish up one last video and then get ready for bed and come in and say goodnight and turn off the internet. Then they get into bed together and close their door and stay up reading until they are ready to sleep. It's usually pretty smooth.
Sarah
Sarah Peshek
=-=Also there are lots of things he likes to do with us – swimming, going for picnics, going out for breakfast etc. that seem harder to arrange when he is not getting up until well past noon.=-=
You say these things seem harder, but are they really harder? I don't know of pools or picnic locales (around here or anywhere that I've traveled) that close at noon. Many restaurants serve breakfast all day. If it is truly harder to do these things, what can you do to make it easier? If it's not actually harder, but you have the perception of difficulty, how can you look inside yourself to see what is influencing your thinking?
=-=my daughter and I feel kind of stuck in the house while he is sleeping .=-=
Are there morning-specific things that your daughter wants to do? If so, hopefully you can find someone to help make that happen, be it by picking her up and taking her where she needs to go or by hanging out at the house while your son sleeps and you take your daughter out yourself. Or maybe it's just more of a general antsy-ness on her part to get started on the day? If going out daily is important to your daughter and also works well for your son once he's up, maybe you could try to have a plan that you'll indeed go out some afternoons. That way your daughter knows that an activity outside the house is coming up later that day sometimes.
Or maybe you like mornings best yourself. Taking your last paragraph as a whole, it sounds like you personally do not like him staying up so late and sleeping so late. Maybe that schedule somehow doesn't match your own preferences and this influences your expectations of your son. Maybe you have voices from your past playing, telling you that sleeping past noon is lazy or wastes time or is somehow not socially acceptable. But it sounds like your son doesn't see it that way. He prefers what he prefers. To make unschooling as great as it can be, you can make choices every day to make life as in sync with everyone's preferences as possible.
Sarah Rae Peshek
staceyraeme@...
Thanks for all the ideas. I was feeling a bit stuck and needed to see things from some new perspectives.
A few weeks ago I did have a brief conversation with my son reminding him that staying up was a privilege and that if he couldn't be quieter then he needed to go to bed earlier. That did help a lot - I don't think he has woken us up carelessly since. He has woken us up when he wanted help getting to sleep. I don't mind that as much - I don't want him lying in bed getting stressed out about not being able to get to sleep - but it is not sustainable for my husband or I to be up in the middle of the night very often.
His staying up all night started after that conversation. Some nights when he has been quiet and not woken us, one of us gets up at 6 or 7 to see that he has not yet been asleep. My son says that he does not really want to or plan to stay up all night. He tries to turn off the computer or ipad at 2-ish to go to sleep but then feels restless and uncomfortable. When he can't get to sleep, if he doesn't come to wake us up, then he ends up turning on the ipad and watching videos and next thing he knows the sun is up and the birds are singing outside his window (that happens between 4 and 5 here nowadays) and that keeps him up too. The next day he is not up to doing much of anything until late afternoon and then he often has trouble getting to sleep the next night because he has slept in. It doesn't work great for any of us - although I am trying to see how to think about it more flexibly... When we have plans in the morning (which is rare) I do remind him and we talk about what time he needs to get to sleep. But I guess I don't follow up by helping get to sleep at that time.
My son has always had trouble getting to sleep. His dad was like this when he was a kid and I was always a night owl - staying up to read by the bit of light that came into my room from the hallway. When he was going to school and he had to get up in the morning we found various things that worked but they took a lot of energy. It was never smooth or easy. When we started letting go of bed times, I didn't feel like we went too far too fast. But I guess it is true that we stopped helping my son get to sleep kind of abruptly. We just drifted into him staying up later than all of us. He likes to have an hour or two alone after everyone is asleep to catch up on videos and sometimes play games, but he still seems to need support in getting to sleep most nights.
A few weeks ago I did have a brief conversation with my son reminding him that staying up was a privilege and that if he couldn't be quieter then he needed to go to bed earlier. That did help a lot - I don't think he has woken us up carelessly since. He has woken us up when he wanted help getting to sleep. I don't mind that as much - I don't want him lying in bed getting stressed out about not being able to get to sleep - but it is not sustainable for my husband or I to be up in the middle of the night very often.
His staying up all night started after that conversation. Some nights when he has been quiet and not woken us, one of us gets up at 6 or 7 to see that he has not yet been asleep. My son says that he does not really want to or plan to stay up all night. He tries to turn off the computer or ipad at 2-ish to go to sleep but then feels restless and uncomfortable. When he can't get to sleep, if he doesn't come to wake us up, then he ends up turning on the ipad and watching videos and next thing he knows the sun is up and the birds are singing outside his window (that happens between 4 and 5 here nowadays) and that keeps him up too. The next day he is not up to doing much of anything until late afternoon and then he often has trouble getting to sleep the next night because he has slept in. It doesn't work great for any of us - although I am trying to see how to think about it more flexibly... When we have plans in the morning (which is rare) I do remind him and we talk about what time he needs to get to sleep. But I guess I don't follow up by helping get to sleep at that time.
My son has always had trouble getting to sleep. His dad was like this when he was a kid and I was always a night owl - staying up to read by the bit of light that came into my room from the hallway. When he was going to school and he had to get up in the morning we found various things that worked but they took a lot of energy. It was never smooth or easy. When we started letting go of bed times, I didn't feel like we went too far too fast. But I guess it is true that we stopped helping my son get to sleep kind of abruptly. We just drifted into him staying up later than all of us. He likes to have an hour or two alone after everyone is asleep to catch up on videos and sometimes play games, but he still seems to need support in getting to sleep most nights.
Sandra Dodd
An iPod with audio books (or an old phone with audiobooks) might help. If he can listen to something soothing in the bed, and fall asleep, it would be quiet in the house, but he’d have a voice and a story, and even if he doesn’t fall asleep, he would be resting.
Or a long playlist of quietish soothing music. I have one myself, called “sleepy stuff” but that had something that sped up or got loud (I forget what) so I have a sublist called “sleepier stuff” and I’ve used it for a few years, when I’m away from home, especially, and maybe have just switched time zones, and when I close my eyes and that’s playing, it’s more like being home. So it’s possible that there are songs that would reminde him of being younger, happy, or maybe just new and peaceful.
Sandra
Or a long playlist of quietish soothing music. I have one myself, called “sleepy stuff” but that had something that sped up or got loud (I forget what) so I have a sublist called “sleepier stuff” and I’ve used it for a few years, when I’m away from home, especially, and maybe have just switched time zones, and when I close my eyes and that’s playing, it’s more like being home. So it’s possible that there are songs that would reminde him of being younger, happy, or maybe just new and peaceful.
Sandra