Sleep and older children

Banty wrote:

Well, it only works if *everyone* in the household is pretty much that way.
And, since the rest of the world is geared earlier, you can find yourself
catching the only straggling last activities of a local fair, and things like
that.

It's true that a lot of weekend events targeted at the preschool/grade
school crowd all happen in the morning so they don't conflict with
naptimes. But most of the things we do - now that the kids are 11 and
13 and long past the napping phase - start after lunchtime, late
afternoon, or not until 8 pm.

For example, in the warmer months we spend a lot of time boating on the
river or heading to the beach or other local swimming spots. Because
all of us are very fair and sunburn- prone, I don't like to go out in
the sun until after 2 pm anyway. We can get to the river for boating
within 10 minutes, or to the shore in under an hour, so it doesn't
require a lot of leadtime to get the gear packed and everyone out the
door after a late lunch. We might boat or swim from 2 pm until 5, come
home, get a shower, eat dinner, then head out on Saturday night to see
a play or dance performance, and those don't start until 8:00 pm.
Sure we could go out in the sun in the morning before 10 AM, or attend
matinees instead of evening performances, but as my girls put it,
"that's when all the families with crying toddlers go." :-)

On Sunday afternoon we might go to an open studios art walk or to a
street fair, but the ones we go to (geared for older families, not the
preschool/grade school crowd) generally start at noon and run until 5
or 6 pm. Even if we don't get there until 2 pm, 3 or 4 hours is plenty.
Same goes with mall shopping trips: who needs to spend anymore time
than that? And we don't attend church so there's no compelling need to
get up early. Sundays I do insist on "family only" time from about 5 pm
onward, and we usually have a quiet night with an early dinner, aiming
for a bed by 8:30-9 pm for school the next day.

In the summer when we're at my parents, along with all the cousins who
are around the same preteen/teen age range, the schedule is similar:
slow morning start. Nobody goes out on the dock until after 2 pm
because it's just too god-awful hot and humid. Dinner (usually cooked
on the grill) sometimes doesn't even happen until after sunset (i.e., 9
pm), when the last people are back from sunset fishing or a sunset
cruise on the boat. When the lightening bugs come out, the kids run
around barefoot in the dewey grass catching them. Or if it's raining
the kids might put on a play for the adults. Then after dinner the
adults chat on the porch until 11 pm. The kids might watch a video
after dinner, although more and more the kids are joining us on the
porch since the older they get, the more interested in adult
conversation. Then all the cousins sleep in the same room, so there is
late night giggling, whispering, and flashlight games.

During summer camp weeks, the kids' camp starts at 9:30 AM which is an
hour and a half later than school, so they can stay up later without a
problem - usually 10 or 10:30 pm. Getting them to bed is never a
struggle though because camp really wears them out.

When the kids are at their dad's, they must work around their 18 mo old
sister's schedule. It's true they grumble a lot about having to wake up
early because she comes into their rooms wanting to play, about being
stuck in the house while she is napping, or not being able to do
something because it would conflict with her nap or bedtime. I tell
them that's what it's like when there's a toddler in the house. It
really does make a difference with the family schedule and choice of
activities overall.

jen

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:
"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
sleeping until noon, he or she is missing out on a
significant part of family life. I think it creates
distance in the family. You don't get to do as many
things as a family because by the time one member
wakes up, it's too late. So I don't really care if
they get up at 7:30 or 8:00 on a non-school day, but
if they fall into a habit of sleeping until 11:00am
or noon because they're staying up until all hours,
I don't think that's okay. They're missing out on
a lot of family life that way.

Well, here's a case of "every family is different", because for my bunch
the family life they'd be missing out on tended to happen in the
evenings, when we might cook out on the deck and talk, or go for a walk
in the park in the cool of the evening, or hang out and watch the moon,
etc. Nobody considered the errands that might happen earlier in the day
to be primetime family life - it is definitely those evening hours that I
would have regretted missing.

We just do those things earlier in the day, when
we don't have cranky, tired kids to deal with. It's not
very relaxing or fun when they're sleep deprived.

The age of the kids really does make a difference. Once mine hit the teen
years, though, we were all cranky and tired in the mornings, not in the
evenings :-) We're all night people, so for us this worked. I can see how
having a toddler would make a big difference, though.

Ericka Kammerer wrote:
Banty wrote:

I can definitely see where you're coming from. But I still find that in the
long run things get bogged down unless I set some kind of mid-morning start
time.

For us, anyway. I'm more of a laid back sort of
person who can be happy as a clam hanging around and not
doing much, but I have to get going because there's plenty
that needs doing around the home on weekends. My kids
are higher energy and want to be *doing* things. We
can't get in the "doing things" part if we start too late.
Also, they enjoy their activities, and they have significant
weekend commitments. Church and Sunday school takes up
Sunday morning, handbells takes part of Sunday afternoon,
and while Saturdays don't have any regularly scheduled
activities, for the next two months Saturdays will have
significant commitments for dance rehearsals or performances.
Also, music practice has to get done even on weekends
(they get to pick their day off from practice, but
they usually choose a weekday for that), and if they
don't get that out of the way in the morning, it's
hanging around their necks. Plus, there's usually some
homework that needs to get done over the weekend.

So, taking the whole morning to lie in even when
there isn't a specific activity in the morning just
puts everyone behind the eight ball. We could, of course,
choose not to have the activities, but the kids enjoy
them and certainly have the energy to do them. They
could probably cram in all the stuff they needed to do
for themselves later in the day, but not without
unreasonable demands on everyone else's schedule and
not without driving out family time. In fact, at the
moment they're both practicing and will do a bit of
homework after that before having time to play and then
off to rehearsals. Meanwhile, we have a number of
projects to be working on, and the kids have some
responsibilities around the house to attend to.
Guess what goes when the time gets limited? It's
almost always the responsibilities around the house
and the family time ;-)

I guess I'm not seeing what you're trying to illustrate.

Scenario #1: Everyone gets up the same time. There is no specific
morning activity, so everyone uses the morning hours to get what they
need to get done, done. Mom tackles the cleaning chores, dad runs to
get groceries, the kids complete their homework and practice their
instruments. No family time here - they're all doing things separately.
Then let's say that leaves them the rest of the day (say 1 pm onward)
for family time, but they go to bed at 8 pm, so that's 7 hours of
family time. During which, the toddler takes a nap and isn't with the
family, and the children might go off to be with friends, which isn't
with the family, so it's probably less than 7 hours in reality, but
let's ignore that for a moment.

Scenario #2: Teen sleeps in late, everyone else is up early. There is
no specific morning activity. Mom does her chores, dad gets groceries,
teen continues to sleep in. Teen wakes up at noon. Instead of tackling
what teen needs to get done (homework, instrument practice), after an
hour of grogginess, he joins the family for family time for the next 7
hours from 1 to 8 pm. Then after everyone else retires at 8 pm, he
tackles that stuff, because he prefers a later bedtime so he can make
up the hours he missed in the AM.

Unless I'm missing something, your scenario would only result in less
family time *if* the teen is not only sleeping in late but *also* going
to bed at 8 pm with the rest of the family.

Unless your chief complaint is that the toddler and the adults can't
get to sleep at 8 pm with a teen who is burning the midnight oil doing
homework, or practicing his instrument? Which I could understand, at
least the instrument part. This is one reason why our house rule is no
t.v., phone calls, or computer after 8 pm. That is different than
dictating someone's sleep schedule though.

I will add here that for a long time I felt I couldn't relax and retire
to my bedroom until my kids were all tucked in. I think that comes with
the parenting territory - when the kids are very young, you are
constantly on guard worrying they will electrocute or poison
themselves, or burn the house down if unattended.

This past year I'm slowly learning that it's okay if DD13 is still up
tinkering around the house with homework, or sorting her laundry,
getting organized for the next day, or taking a shower, or reading on
the sofa instead of in her bed, whatever.... and I'm nodding off to bed
already. It's her house too. As long as she's considerate of the rest
of us and not making a huge racket practicing her piano or watching the
t.v. or yakking on her phone or clanging dirty dishes into the
dishwasher, I think she should feel comfortable in her own house doing
her own thing in her own timeframe.

jen

Joy wrote:
The age of the kids really does make a difference. Once mine hit the teen
years, though, we were all cranky and tired in the mornings, not in the
evenings :-) We're all night people, so for us this worked. I can see how
having a toddler would make a big difference, though.

But it also gets back to whether it's fair to have teenagers accomodate
all the time for toddler siblings. I think in a family with teens and
toddlers, you do have to find a fair balance, one that recognizes that
teens and toddlers are different.

Sometimes family time might mean dragging your teens to an early
morning event involving clowns and other preschool-appropriate
entertainment. But sometimes family time might also mean getting a
babysitter for the toddler, so the rest of the family can attend an
event that starts at 8 pm.

(But then again, whatdoIknow, my kids are close in age!)

jen

In article , Joy says...


"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
sleeping until noon, he or she is missing out on a
significant part of family life. I think it creates
distance in the family. You don't get to do as many
things as a family because by the time one member
wakes up, it's too late. So I don't really care if
they get up at 7:30 or 8:00 on a non-school day, but
if they fall into a habit of sleeping until 11:00am
or noon because they're staying up until all hours,
I don't think that's okay. They're missing out on
a lot of family life that way.

Well, here's a case of "every family is different", because for my bunch
the family life they'd be missing out on tended to happen in the evenings,
when we might cook out on the deck and talk, or go for a walk in the park in
the cool of the evening, or hang out and watch the moon, etc. Nobody
considered the errands that might happen earlier in the day to be primetime
family life - it is definitely those evening hours that I would have
regretted missing.

Those errands are family life, too, and need doing. And have their own
experience and bonding to them.

Unless you've designated a family errand-runner who gets to be tired and worn
out during those wonderful evening plans you have.

Banty


--

In article , bizby40 says...


"Banty" wrote in message
...
Well, it only works if *everyone* in the household is pretty much
that way.
And, since the rest of the world is geared earlier, you can find
yourself
catching the only straggling last activities of a local fair, and
things like
that.

Well, as I told Ericka, I don't agree that the earliest riser gets to
dictate the schedule for the whole family. And the "early to beds"
will miss out on things too, like the night games of baseball,
fireworks, star-gazing on a balmy sunny night, and things like that.

It depends on the age, degree of independance, etc. Like I said, for us it
means waking my son at 10:00 am during long breaks. That's "dictating", but I
dont' think its unfair dictating. If he's up all hours, I can't monitor what
he's doing at all. And also our meals get all mixed up if he's up at 1:00, an
hour and a half past my lunchtime, wants breakfast, etc. If he's up at 10:00,
lately he gets breakfast and is hungry enough for lunch later with me.

If I let him sleep on and on, we're not doing a darn thing together.

I *do* think there's a need for a long sleep in and recuperation from the week
especially for a teen, and especially since we both have night owl tendancies.
So I split the differerence pretty mcuh.

Banty


--

Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Joy wrote:
"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
sleeping until noon, he or she is missing out on a
significant part of family life. I think it creates
distance in the family. You don't get to do as many
things as a family because by the time one member
wakes up, it's too late. So I don't really care if
they get up at 7:30 or 8:00 on a non-school day, but
if they fall into a habit of sleeping until 11:00am
or noon because they're staying up until all hours,
I don't think that's okay. They're missing out on
a lot of family life that way.

If a teen is sleeping late, I think they probably need the sleep and
getting it would IMHO take precedence over 'family time'.

I also tend to think that your premise that if you allow teens to
sleep late they will miss a significant part of family time to be a
false dichotomy because I suspect that the reason for the sleeping
late is because the teen doesn't want family time rather than that
they are inadvertently missing it. .

Well, here's a case of "every family is different", because for my bunch
the family life they'd be missing out on tended to happen in the evenings,
when we might cook out on the deck and talk, or go for a walk in the park in
the cool of the evening, or hang out and watch the moon, etc. Nobody
considered the errands that might happen earlier in the day to be primetime
family life - it is definitely those evening hours that I would have
regretted missing.

We just do those things earlier in the day, when
we don't have cranky, tired kids to deal with. It's not
very relaxing or fun when they're sleep deprived.

If kids are cranky at the end of the day it is more likely to be
because they were NOT allowed to sleep in the morning, or because they
missed their nap. With young kids you would not be allowing them to
set their own bedtimes, so it ought not to come up as any kind of a
problem. You just get them to bed earlier.

This is only a family problem if the younger members of the family are
of an age to set their own sleeping and waking schedule, and by that
time they will be pretty close to adults and you should be able to
approach them on a different level than you did when they were little
children.




grandma Rosalie

In article ,
Banty wrote:

In article .com,
shinypenny
says...


I guess I'm not seeing what you're trying to illustrate.

Scenario #1: Everyone gets up the same time. There is no specific
morning activity, so everyone uses the morning hours to get what they
need to get done, done. Mom tackles the cleaning chores, dad runs to
get groceries, the kids complete their homework and practice their
instruments. No family time here - they're all doing things separately.
Then let's say that leaves them the rest of the day (say 1 pm onward)
for family time, but they go to bed at 8 pm, so that's 7 hours of
family time. During which, the toddler takes a nap and isn't with the
family, and the children might go off to be with friends, which isn't
with the family, so it's probably less than 7 hours in reality, but
let's ignore that for a moment.

Scenario #2: Teen sleeps in late, everyone else is up early. There is
no specific morning activity. Mom does her chores, dad gets groceries,
teen continues to sleep in. Teen wakes up at noon. Instead of tackling
what teen needs to get done (homework, instrument practice), after an
hour of grogginess, he joins the family for family time for the next 7
hours from 1 to 8 pm. Then after everyone else retires at 8 pm, he
tackles that stuff, because he prefers a later bedtime so he can make
up the hours he missed in the AM.

Oh! You have the teen going about his chores, practicing his instrument,
doing
his homework, when eveyone else is in bed!

Someone - pick me off the floor! Bwaaaa haa haaaah!

May strike you as odd -- but some do. I had one daughter who frequently
did chores late at night after everyone else was in bed, and my son
would get up VERY early to do his.

I used to do my homework late in the evening in order to sleep in on
Saturdays.

It may be uncommon, but kids *who take responsibility for their own
homework* may well do it very late at night or very early in the
morning.

Of course there are also kids who DON'T take responsibility for their
own homework for a multitude of reasons.


Unless I'm missing something,

A teen in your house, apparently. (At the least, *my* teen, and the ones I
know!)

your scenario would only result in less
family time *if* the teen is not only sleeping in late but *also* going
to bed at 8 pm with the rest of the family.

Unless your chief complaint is that the toddler and the adults can't
get to sleep at 8 pm with a teen who is burning the midnight oil doing
homework, or practicing his instrument? Which I could understand, at
least the instrument part. This is one reason why our house rule is no
t.v., phone calls, or computer after 8 pm. That is different than
dictating someone's sleep schedule though.

Oh, don't worry, there'd by no instrument practicing, and the 'til -3am study
sessions wouldn't be TOO much of a problem for the family, as they'd only
take
place the very morning of the test or project completion date!


Really, for some things it does help for other family members to be out and
about, even if they're not all doing something exactly *together*.


I will add here that for a long time I felt I couldn't relax and retire
to my bedroom until my kids were all tucked in. I think that comes with
the parenting territory - when the kids are very young, you are
constantly on guard worrying they will electrocute or poison
themselves, or burn the house down if unattended.

This past year I'm slowly learning that it's okay if DD13 is still up
tinkering around the house with homework, or sorting her laundry,
getting organized for the next day, or taking a shower, or reading on
the sofa instead of in her bed, whatever.... and I'm nodding off to bed
already. It's her house too. As long as she's considerate of the rest
of us and not making a huge racket practicing her piano or watching the
t.v. or yakking on her phone or clanging dirty dishes into the
dishwasher, I think she should feel comfortable in her own house doing
her own thing in her own timeframe.

I do *some* of that - especially on Saturday nights. I'll go to bed and let
my
son stay up a bit. But, if he's slept until 1:00 pm that day, he'll be up
until
3! I don't really feel comfortable with that. If he's up at about 10:00 am,
he
tends to go to bed anyway soon after I do. If I let him sleep in past that
all
summer vacation, we really would be soon leading separate lives.

And if I let him read on the sofa late at night, I'll have a six-foot
grumpy-sleepy hunk and said sofa to tiptoe around all the next morning. Nah
-
uh. So if he's doing that and it's past 11 pm I chase him into his room.

Banty
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

In article . com,
"shinypenny" wrote:

Joy wrote:
The age of the kids really does make a difference. Once mine hit the teen
years, though, we were all cranky and tired in the mornings, not in the
evenings :-) We're all night people, so for us this worked. I can see how
having a toddler would make a big difference, though.

But it also gets back to whether it's fair to have teenagers accomodate
all the time for toddler siblings. I think in a family with teens and
toddlers, you do have to find a fair balance, one that recognizes that
teens and toddlers are different.

What I'm remembering from that time (teens and babies/toddlers in the
house -- I was one of the teens) was my parents being VERY conscientious
about NOT imposing the tot schedule on the rest of us -- but somehow we
all managed to have time together. Quite a bit of it, as a matter of
fact. Family dinner time was pretty important, early enough for the
small ones (and my dad...he HATES a late dinner time) and we managed
days at the beach and such often enough. The TV wasn't on a lot, so
evenings were spent playing games together (often with extra teens).
One of my favorite photoes is of my three brothers and a neighbor boy
playing poker, with my then about six month old brother in his infant
seat in the middle of the table. (He always enjoyed being the center of
attention!)

It was at that point, however, that Mom stopped waiting up for us when
we went out in the evening: she couldn't, since she had to get up with
the little ones in the morning. Instead, she set an alarm clock in the
bathroom for the last curfew of the evening, and the last teen in was to
turn it off. God help us if it woke her up!

Recently, she asked us if we ever turned it off for each other, so one
of us could stay out too late. We didn't. It never occurred to us: I
think we all understood that this was a technique that allowed Mom to
sleep, and if we screwed with it, she'd either have to start making US
be home by her bedtime, or she'd have to stop sleeping. (Mind you, we
didn't THINK about it in those terms, it just never occurred to us to
cheat on the system.)



Sometimes family time might mean dragging your teens to an early
morning event involving clowns and other preschool-appropriate
entertainment. But sometimes family time might also mean getting a
babysitter for the toddler, so the rest of the family can attend an
event that starts at 8 pm.

So are mine, but my family of origin is spread out: four born between
1952 and 1957, and two born in 1968 and 1970. Looking back, I can't
believe how well it all worked out! The little ones came to my
brother's baseball games and such, as the little ones got old enough for
school if we were living at home we attended their events, we went to
things like the 4th of July fireworks as a family (and ALL enjoyed it)
-- but there was also less structured stuff for the little ones back
then: no play groups, no preschool, no classes -- just family and
friends and a bazillion relatives.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
bizby40 wrote:

Nonetheless, I still don't buy that if the family are on different
schedules, everyone must accommodate the earliest riser. I think
the late risers can get up early now and again if there is a
reason, the early risers can stay up late now and again if there is
a reason, and no one needs to artificially dictate anyone else's
schedule.

Everyone has to bend and accommodate special
occasions. I still contend that if you've got, say, a teen
who habitually gets up at noon and the rest of the family
on more of a 8am-10pm schedule, you're missing out on a
lot of family time.

The thing I keep getting from you that you might not be intending is
the idea that getting up and going to bed early is the "right" thing
to do. That if it works for everyone that it's okay to shift
schedules, but that the early riser has, well, sort of the veto power,
and the late risers need to accommodate them instead of the other way
around. I just don't agree with that. In Ben Franklin's time, "Early
to bed and early to rise" may well have made a man healthy, wealthy
and wise, but times have changed. Nowadays we can work into the night
if that is our preference.

I just think there needs to be consideration given for all
preferences, and compromise on both sides.

Bizby