Bedtimes… Yours and there's

My husband likes to go to bed at 10pm as he is up at 5am; I like to stay up late 11 or 12 midnight and get up about 7pm.  Our 17 year olds go to bed anywhere from 10pm to midnight, one is up at 6:30 am and the other I have to drag out of bed, so we are all a bit different.  I also have trouble with getting to sleep, mind way too active, and I think it stems from way back when the twins were born and premature – I was up every 2 hours to feed 1 oz of food, that took about 45 minutes to an hour, so then I would have an hour to doze before I had to do it all over again – that went on for nearly 3 months food increasing a little each month – 2 of those months my husband was away and I had the duty all to myself – I think after that the sleep pattern was shot!!  I was already adjusting to the time difference from the UK and then when the girls came, that made it all worse.  Since then, I sleep none too well.  My husband sleeps like a brick as do the girls thankfully.  I do love it when I do sleep though.

Thanks for the hint CJWagner, I have not tried the eye pillow, however I regularly use lavender and aromatherapy for many other things – it does not appear to help with the sleep for me, though I know it does for others.  I will try the eye pillow though, so thanks for that.  Blessings…Linda

We don’t have a “set” bedtime right at this moment. We have some wiring issues in the house and with hubby’s medical issues right now we don’t have the $$ to fix it so we have one window a/c unit in the livingroom. BTW we live in TEXAS so it’s super HOT and HUMID. We are all sleeping in there and our days are spent in there as well. It gets REALLY old sometimes and everyone gets a bit cranky. Soon we will be able to get the electrician to come and fix it. I can’t wait!! When that does happen, Bedtimes for my girls ages 5 and 9 will be 8:30 and the boys ages 12 and 13 will be 9:30. We have ALWAYS had to drag the boys out of bed. Right now it’s 9:30 and the girls are starting to stir but the boys are out like a light. I’ll be getting them up in a minute to get their things out of the livingroom and get dressed.

Interesting topic.  My boys are 6.5 and 7.5.  We start getting them ready for bed around 7pm and then in bed usually by 7:30.  In the summer it can be a bit later sometimes.  They are usually up by 7am.  We’ve had them on an early bedtime for a few years now.  Actually up until a year ago it was 6:30 get ready then 7 lights out.  My husband and I have always valued our time together in the evenings so it has been important to us to get the boys in bed early.  And I’m usually up by 5am, so we go to bed early ourselves.  I also think that my boys tend to need at least 10-12 hrs per night of sleep to be well rested.  Unfortunately for us when the boys are up later they don’t sleep in later in the am… I’m not sure why… but they still get up early!!  So getting them to bed ontime is important.  We moved a couple of weeks ago and have had many late nights to bed, it has showed in their behavior/attitudes.  So I’m working hard at getting them to bed ontime now. 

Ahh sleep. i missed this post earlier(must have been sleeping!) so I am bumping it up for the new ones, it is so interesting. One thing I have observed now that I can look back with grown children, is that their sleep patterns are the same now as when they were small. My eldest is now almost 26, living on his own and he is still a night owl. He loves to sleep in the mornings and he stays up really late. Now this boy when he was small would sleep like a rock, anywhere, anytime:) He was hard to wake in the am no matter if he went to bed at 7, 8, 9,or 10. And this was from birth! My dd who is now married has always needed to sleep-early bedtime, usually early up. She is now exactly the same and finds being married to a shift worker a bit daunting, but she knows she needs to sleep or the world suffers,lol. My other three each have their own cycles. I tried SO many times as they were growing to get them on a regular sleep/wake cycle but it never worked. They were who they were. They would get up when asked, but the early birds were chipper, the night owls grumpy…Now I am a night owl, but my dh needs to be up and out at 6 and he is NOT a night owl. Our difficulty always has been that he is ready for bed by 10 at the latest, and he wants the house quiet and me ready for bed then too. Easier when the kids were small, not so easy now. He doesn’t get the stay up thing with teenage boys and doesn’t get why I feel I need to stay up to say goodnight to them. We go back and forth on this. THankfully our youngest at 9 is like her dad. She wakes early and so she goes to bed at 9 with a story and a chat. The 14yo, not so much.Now that summer is over and school starting I have told him he needs to be in his room, ready for sleep at 10, no later, and if he can’t sleep, he can read for half and hour. I am hoping it works, but this kid will stay up til midnight, then get up at 7 with no seeming ill effects…good thing, if he will be working his whole life:)

The oldest one now works for a ministry organization in the downtown east side of a large city and guess what his main job is? Night Desk clerk!! God is good – all the time:)

Heidi