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Do you let your kids sleep till they wake up?
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Those of you who allow them to sleep late: how do you handle those mornings when you MUST get up and out of the house (in other words, you have to comb hair and feed them and make sure they don’t look like homeschoolers (*L*))?
My husband is a farmer, from a farmer’s family. He’s been getting up at 4 am (or earlier) since he was 12 – he’d do morning chorese before going to school, and do afternoon chores when he got home. In bed as soon as he could; he didn’t do homework – he was too tired. He has a great personality; he’s got great common sense; and he’s not dumb – so he passed through school okay.
Now our girls are getting old enough to help – the oldest is 9. Neither I or my husband want to deprive her of sleep (esp. since we go to bed so late anyway), but she’ll soon be old enough to be a great help with calves and whatnot.
How do we do that? We want her to learn to get up early (for a job, etc.) and yet she does need sleep – she’s a child! I’m a firm believer in the children needing uninterrupted sleep – I don’t think a nap in the daytime replaces those brain chemicals and whatever all happens during long sleep.
What’s your advice?
(I hope I didn’t high-jack the thread!)
Karen, I don’t know if you read my post, but we have chickens and dogs that require attention early. My children always get up no later than 7 or 7:30 and get in bed by 8:30. My son is the main chicken-farmer; he makes sure that they have water and food prior to going to bed, that way he doesn’t have to get up earlier than 6:30 or 7pm.
I would say that she is old enough to be getting up early due to assisting the family on the homestead. My opinion is that it will make her a good citizen as an adult and productive throughout the day – she will develop a very good work ethic as a result, too.
Put her to bed early and give her an alarm; her body will adjust. She may need a nap later in the day – especially during the transition period – but not too late so it doesn’t interfere w/bedtime.
I must admit, I’m a little perplexed by what seems like a view that if a child wakes up early, then they aren’t getting the sleep that they need. I would agree if the child is allowed to stay up late then that’d be the case, but not if the child goes to bed at a reasonable hour.
Also, remember, in their future, they will have days that they stay up late for whatever reason. They have to be able to get themselves up, never-the-less for obligations such as college, job, family, etc.
I think that sleeping late should be the exception to the rule and be considered a treat (or during sickness, the standard is different).
When my children have growth spurts, they don’t sleep in later, they go to bed earlier.
If they are not up by 7:30 then I wake them up. Our day goes smoother if we can just get up and get going with things. 2 days/week we have to be someplace by 9am and church on Sunday is at 9am. Our youngest is usually up at 6:30 and I am usually up no later than 6am (sometimes 5:30am). Kids in bed at 8pm and I am in bed no later than 10pm.
If everyone sleeps in they tend to be grouchy and it just feels like we are behind from the beginning of the day.
I agree with Rachel – while there are exceptions to the rule, I also think sleeping in is a “treat” vs the normal. I talk to the kids, they know what is on the calendar for the next day and if I am going to have to wake them up and they do not get grouchy about it. I gently wake them and remind them why they are getting up and they roll out of bed ready to go. They average 10 hours/night and we always have some “down time” during the day so while they rarely sleep, they get time to just relax.
@Karen – is there another meal during the day that you could make as the family meal instead of dinner so late? My friend’s husband is gone from 10am – 10:30pm for work (yes an odd shift) so breakfast is their family meal, since he is never home for dinner. It took some adjusting but it works really well. I have relatives in South Dakota (generational farmers) and their famiy meal is lunch since dinner and breakfast are at strange hours, so lunch is any where between 11 and 1pm and that is when they have their family sit down meal.
I think that each family’s situation will depend on each family’s schedule. I understand that animals need caring for and farm chores have to get done, but that is simply not our family’s situation. (Actually, I WISH it was our situation because that’s what we’ve always dreamed of!) For our children, going to bed at 10:30 every night and waking up at 7 or 7:30 would just not be enough sleep. My children obviously NEED 12 hours of sleep each night, and this would give them 9-9.5. A rest time in the afternoon might give them another opportunity for sleep, but I am unable to take naps, and my children have gotten to the point of being able to read in bed, but not able to take a nap. I think they’re getting enough sleep at night that an afternoon nap is not necessary for their bodies.
We don’t consider waking at 8-8:30 “sleeping in”. This is our family’s “normal”. Sleeping in would be waking after 9:00, but is not treated as a luxury. We encourage sleeping! If we do need to get up earlier than usual for any reason (which is extremely rare), we simply think ahead and put the kids to bed earlier, say 7 or 7:30. When the time changes, it will be that much easier to get them in bed earlier.
We do have to wake our kids for church sometimes, if I am scheduled to be on the praise team that week. In those cases, we adjust accordingly and put them to bed earlier. When I sing, we have to be at church by 8:30, so we wake the kids at 7:30, and they drink a smoothie in the car so that we don’t have to cut into their sleeping time by waking them earlier for breakfast. We rehearse at church for an hour before the service, so they have an hour to drink their smoothies or eat a muffin if I packed one for them. On these days, they go to bed at 7:30, so they’re still getting 12 hours of sleep.
@Karen, I agree w/ sarah2106…could your family meal be another time than dinner? That would get your kids to bed earlier (and maybe you too!) and would make it easier for the 9yo to be up earlier to help with chores. I don’t think there’s anything magical about dinner being the family meal; any meal shared as a family is an investment into the family’s relationships, and breakfast or lunch could just as easily do the job and create more of a “normal” schedule for your children, if that’s what you’re seeking.
I agree, a 10:30 bedtime while waking up at 7 or 7:30 wouldn’t be enough sleep at all. I’m someone that requires a lot of sleep myself; at least 7-8 hours.
I also suggest considering changing your “family meal”, along the lines of what the South Dakota family does. A little history/cultural perpsective may help.
In the south, we always called the mid-day meal “dinner” and the evening meal “supper”, since the mid-day meal was always larger among the rural communities (which was the majority of the south). Calling it “lunch” and making the evening meal “dinner” and the largest is a more modern development down here. So, if you switch your largest meal and make it the “family meal”, then you’d be historically very consistant (even if you’re not in the south currently, as I bet our pioneer ancestors who moved west behaved similarly).
Karen, I hope you find a way to do what works best for ya’ll.
We eat breakfast around 8:30 or 9:30 ish; “dinner” around 2:30 or 3:30ish; “supper” after the barn work is done (7:30 to 9:30ish). We are definitely NOT normal!!! *L*We actually try to eat all of our meals together. Our four are close together in age, and when they were really little, they needed help – so it was “crowd control” that made all of our meals together-time. Now I find that the girls will not eat as well when Daddy’s not at the table! They’re “not hungry,” etc. They also don’t like to go to bed until he’s in the house and prepping for bed. I’m thinking I need to instigate some new habits. I’ll need time to think & pray on this!
Thank you all for your advice, opinions, etc. It’s so interesting to see how we all live so differently and yet we all have the same goal!
I generally don’t wake mine. However, this year we are doing a co-op on Monday that requires us to be out the door by 8:15. Next year my 2 oldest will be attending an early morning religion class starting at 5:50. As much as I HATE waking them this early, they need the spiritual instruction and the chance to interact with their peers. (They will be 14 at the time). We’re finding that if we do wake up earlier, instead of sleeping in until 9 or 10, our days are much more productive and there is less stress about not getting stuff done, or done in time. We just adjust at bedtime since they normally need 12 hours of sleep or it’s grumpville. My husband always contends that ‘in the real world’ people have to be at work at certain times (or college classes) and so sometime during the teen years they need to learn to wake up early and be cheerful and productive throughout the day.
My DS4 inherited my husband’s and my love for the early morning (I know – we are weird!). I can remember watching my blinds when I was too young to tell time and as soon as the sun would hit the 12th blind I knew it was 6:00 and time to get up. My son is the same way. He is up every day at 6 and plays and reads in his room until our “official” wake up time of 7:00. I get up at 6:30 and get dressed and have a quiet time before walking out of the room. I like to think our day gets progressively less structured as the hours progress, but it *always* starts at 7:00 and follows a very repetitive routine from there until about 10:00am. I’m hoping this structure will help us as we move deeper into homeschooling in the coming years.
I love morning routines (always have!) and my children do too. That’s what we do now, but we’ll see what happens as 2 more children get older and start entering the picture more.
Yes, they sleep until they’re done. But they are 6 and 2, so still young and growing. We have missed things or been late for things, so be it. In the event I do need them to wake up, I try to open their curtains about 30 minutes prior to when they need to be up and let sunshine wake them naturally. And rarely, very rarely, I have picked them up asleep and put them in their carseats asleep. But all that said, they are usually up with the sun, or at the latest 8:30am. Today my daughter got up at 10 till 10am, but… she had awaken in the night for something, and she may still be recovering from something that gave her a fever over the weekend.
@Lindsey, I just wanted to say “thank you” so much for your original response to this post. It was so affirming and so well written. A few years back I responded similarly about when our day got started and was really shocked by the response of the forum members. I think one person even intimated that my children would have a hard time holding down successful jobs with their lack of “early rising”! It was absurd logic.
My children can and will wake whenever needed, but I find no reason to institute some rigid schedule on them when it is unnecessary. This idea that children are somehow not persons just like you and I – able to adjust, able to understand the importance of being on time to appointments, able to wake up when needed and not when it’s not – is so silly. If they have good “rails” laid down there is no issue in behaving appropriately regarding waking times. I just wanted to say how refreshing it is that some new voices are on here with new ideas regarding sleeping and daily schedules.
Claire, thank you for your encouragement. I’ve been part of this forum since 2009, and over that time we’ve had our share of people who are very set in their opinions and very quick to let us all know. I’ve just learned that for this forum to be successful, it must be a place of respect and grace. All of us are different (which is what makes God so cool!). Think of how boring life would be if we were all alike! I love getting responses that challenge me to be a better mom/wife/homeschooler, but don’t make me feel defeated. I hope and pray all my responses are filled with the same grace I have been given in the 4+ years in this amazing group of ladies.
We eat breakfast around 8:30 or 9:30 ish; “dinner” around 2:30 or 3:30ish; “supper” after the barn work is done (7:30 to 9:30ish). We are definitely NOT normal!!! *L*
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