We’re homeschooling. And one of the benefits of that is that when Olivia has a late night, or isn’t feeling well, she can sleep until she’s fully rested in the morning. We don’t normally start school until around 11, actually. Our whole day is probably a few hours off of the normal American routine. 🙂 She gets up around 9, eats around 10, and we do school at 11. Of course, it’s just kindergarten, so it doesn’t take long. And I break it up so there’s a section for the afternoon when the boys are sleeping as well.
But lately, as I see the school bus drive past at 8am every morning, I wonder if I should be building in her the discipline of rising early to do her work. I mean, when she does finally leave to go to school, whether it be middle school, high school, or college, she’ll have to get up early. And when she gets a job. And when she has children of her own. And I want her to be prepared for that.
But, thus far, it has always been my practice to let sleeping babies lie. That way I get more time to myself. To write blog posts about whether or not I’m doing the right thing in letting my sleeping baby lie. And also, to do last night’s dishes.
So my question is this: do you let your babies sleep as long as they want? At what age do you start waking them up?
you forgot to mention that your kids stay up later than most kids too… If they went to bed at 8ish then waking her would make more sense, but since your family stays up so they can have daddy time then I don’t think it’s as big of a deal. Eventually I think it would be good to get her used to waking up around 8, but not until Josh is actually home and they get daddy time!
I’d never wake up a kid, of course, my kids are up by 7:30 every morning though!
My kids are ALWAYS up with the sun, so the idea of a child that sleeps in is so beyond my comprehension! lol! I agree with taking into consideration their bedtime. I don’t know what the recommended hours of sleep is for her age, but I would just go off of that. I grew up with a friend who was homeschooled and always slept late, and now she’s a mom with three kids, homeschooling, and all of her kids sleep late so…. it’ll be fine. 🙂
I second Jes’ comment! Up until recently, we had a similar situation with my husband coming home from work around 9-10 PM, and keeping baby up so they could see each other! My other thought is this: She’s only five. You still have thirteen or so years to help get her up earlier, so I wouldn’t worry. 😛 Perhaps once she’s doing schoolwork that takes up a more significant part of the day (who likes doing math at 5:00 PM? Not me!).
I’m totally jealous. A kid that sleeps past 6:30? sign me up. stick to the schedule that works for your family
I have no real experience but it’s my understanding that kids generally don’t sleep more than they need too, so it would almost have to be a shift in schedule so she would naturally wake up earlier. As a kid I had trouble sleeping and waking up at 7am on the weekdays was horrible for me (still is actually), I was always sleep deprived and slept in on the weekends. I think that getting enough sleep is much more important than being on a regular schedule. In my case I never got used to regular schedule anyway 🙂
I’ve always had early risers, too! I was raised to be awakened every morning, but we were also an early to bed kind of family. Now, I do wake up my girls (7 and 9), but not my son (4). He probably won’t start being awakened for another couple of years. Of course, he almost never sleeps past 6:30 or 7:00, so it fits perfectly with our family’s schedule, which by necessity starts early in the day.
I think the cool thing about homeschooling is that you can fit everything to adjust to family scheduling while still letting them get their full night’s sleep. In my opinion, getting adequate sleep is much more essential than starting the day at a certain time. There are MANY more years ahead to teach our kids to adjust to a schedule that fits with social expectations!
that is why we homeschool, isn’t it? keep the schedule fun, convenient and worthwhile. Don’t mess with what works.
She is only 5, let her sleep. No big deal at all.
I’ve tried it both ways…honestly……
Right now we do the same as you. School fits into our life. One of my kids has medical issues. she can’t sleep half the time due to her meds. So we have late nights and late mornings and we just make it work. The benefit of homeschool is you CAN do that!
I say drop the guilt and do what works for you 🙂
Besides, all those kids on the school bus are sleepy and wish they were home too!
I wake her up if she’s still sleeping at 7.30. On occasion I’ve had to wake her earlier and start dressing her for an early start. She’s been a lot more respectful of MY sleep ever since I’ve done that.
Peaches is on a very work orientated day. She’s at nursery by 8 every Monday to Thursday. I don’t foresee any problems with getting her up and out for school. However I don’t think you’ll have a problem either. The fun of early school years will see her waiting by the door asking you to hurry up!
I let mine sleep until they started school or when there is somewhere we have to be at a certain time. I don’t have the home schooling experience, so I don’t know what I’d do then.
I don’t have school aged kids yet, but I definitely plan on letting them sleep as long as they want, for as long as I can (my son is two and goes to bed at 7pm and wakes up about 7:30 – 8am).
There are an increasing number of studies out there that indicate that kids are actually at a disadvantage because of early school times. And when school districts have been confronted with this information, they still don’t change their schedule because it works better for parents who need to get to work. Schools that have changed their start times to later see a big improvement in testing scores, overall grades, alertness and IQ. The book Nurture Shock talks about this as well and names some of the studies but it’s on loan to my dad, or I’d give that info to you 😉
So I think you should do what’s best for your family. Also, I think people in general have a tendency to see late sleepers as lazy, and that it’s a reflection of character. But some people just have a different clock, and that doesn’t mean they aren’t hard workers while they’re awake.
I think as long as it is working for you, it’s fine. Children generally sleep the amount that they need, they love life, so they’re not going to laze around in bed just because they don’t feel like getting up . . . if she’s sleeping that late it’s because she needs her sleep. If you were to start waking her up earlier, you’d need to put her to bed earlier or add to/reinstate a nap. When I was in college I kept all kinds of odd hours, based on my class schedule, work schedule, and roommates’ schedules (one year I had a roommate who worked Midnight to – sometime in the morning, so she slept in the afternoon/evening. Rather than trying to quietly study while she slept I chose to go to bed right after supper and then get up at 3 or 4 am and study when I had the room to myself). Same with her career as an adult, not all jobs are 8-5, her wake-up and go-to-bed times will be influenced by her current job &/or her husband’s job. If it’s working for you, go with it.
That said, in the past couple years we’ve had seasons where I’ve chosen to wake my older girls (twins, they turn 8 this month), up at a given time, earlier than they’d choose, so that our day can flow smoothly with the baby’s (now almost 2) nap schedule. So, don’t rule it out, there may come a time when, in evaluating the smooth runnings of the whole family, you find it beneficial to adjust one or more of the children’s natural bed/wake times and that’s ok too (and IMO easier to adjust the older ones’ than attempt to adjust the baby/toddler’s natural rhythms but that might just be my kids).
I know! I’m so spoiled. 🙂
life will soon impose it’s own rules on her sleeping habits. why not let her (and you) enjoy while you can? who cares what ‘the normal American routine’ is! laugh. is any family with young children (or teenagers as in my case) really ‘normal’ (>:
I know I’m a bit late here, but seriously, I don’t wake my kids up unless I need to. We have no where to be, and they (being so called experts that appear on news and magazines, etc) keep saying too many kids aren’t getting enough sleep.
So I say, let them sleep. Wake them up if you have to, but otherwise, let them go. My kids are 11, 8 and 5, and this has not (so far) caused any problems for us at all!