<p>Freshman daughter is home, loves her school, came in with solid B grades. I know that she has always liked to sleep in on weekends during high school, and napped almost every day during the week. But it drives me absolutely crazy that it’ll be 1:00 in the afternoon when she finally gets up, then still take a nap before dinner. She says it’s normal and all her friends think I’m strange that I am concerned about her sleeping habits. Talk to me about your experiences!</p>
<p>Lassie, apparently this is relatively common. They do grow out of this habit eventually. 
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<p>Many/most/all do this. and not just during Christmas break…also during summers on their days off from job/internship/whatever.</p>
<p>I am out college and work full time, and I still do it when I have a day where I can afford to - nothing is like sleeping in! </p>
<p>I’m a few weeks shy of being 24, a grad student, and still doing this. (This is the first break where I haven’t had to work and I am taking FULL advantage of it!) </p>
<p>I was a few weeks shy of being 39 ( 
), and I took a day off when I got my professional degree and just slept in!</p>
<p>I like this point of view:</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.sleepdex.org/sleep.htm”>http://www.sleepdex.org/sleep.htm</a></p>
<p>make cookies while she is sleeping?</p>
<p>Mine do this and it drives me crazy!! This may not be the case for all,but for my daughter it is due to social media. I swear she is on Instagram and twitter until some ungodly hour! She has a job this break, so it has cut down on much of the social media late nights. </p>
<p>As a kid, I was always forced to wake at the crack of dawn, even on weekends! Never allowed to sleep in. I have been the complete opposite and have always allowed the kids to sleep in when they can. DD loves to sleep! She too has slept most of the break. They are exhausted from juggling their new surroundings, schoolwork, ECs, friends and such. I read an article about a year ago saying that HS kids who sleep more tend to have better grades. </p>
<p>I still wake up at 5am most mornings. A bad habit to break!</p>
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<p>This often is a large part of it. In some cases, they’re really not sleeping a LOT more hours, it’s just that they’re “up all night” doing what they want, then they crash around 3 am…and sleep til noon.</p>
<p>So glad you brought this up as I was thinking of doing the same today. I think it’s one thing if the student is normally high achieving and gets things done. It’s another if they aren’t achieving their potential. This is my son. This was his best semester and he still got three C’s. We have told him again and again…wake up, have a cup of coffee…get your day started. When he’s home he sleeps until noon and goes to bed at 3. I bet this is his pattern half the time at school, at least those days he doesn’t have lots of classes. I was never made to get up at the crack of dawn, but even in college I don’t think I ever slept past 8:00,and I wasnt a high achiever. </p>
<p>It drives us crazy. On the other hand, while he is on break, what is there for him to do in the mornings?</p>
<p>One of mine does this, and has slept as late as 4pm. I also had to wake her up in the morning when she was a baby. She just loves to sleep, and is routinely sleep deprived at school. </p>
<p>The beauty of a kid who went two time zones east to school is when she’s on break she’s still keeping Central Time hours. Skyping with friends happens at 7 or 8pm and she is up by 8am our time.</p>
<p>That would drive me crazy and I"m glad to say both my kids got the “early genes” too. They both choose to work jobs that start early morning and pick classes and other commitments early morning. D, a senior in high school, still goes to bed at 9:30 each night, lights out, might stay up until 11 on the weekends if there’s something going on. Its funny that we were talking yesterday about how some colleges offer course selections starting early in the morning and its truly a case of “early bird gets the worm”. Probably won’t matter as much for her because her first choice will be the 8 am class that most others don’t want.</p>
<p>Mine are of the stay up until wee hours and sleep very late variety. Drives me nuts, but it is not somethingim going to fight with them about. When we went on vacation last summer, my husband and I got up early and Did our thing. The kids got up about 3, we went to dinner (aka basically their breakfast) between 5 and 6, and they stayed up and went out til all hours. On previous vacations I spent a fair amount of time being stressed/mad. I finally just went with it, and we were all happy. I’m taking the same approach for break. </p>
<p>We just went to Germany for Christmas and D2 kept falling asleep all over the place (as did DH, but they are two of a kind in many ways). We went to a museum which had a room where a film about the Berlin Wall kept playing on a loop. I found D2 and DH in there, snoozing away. I get the jet lag thing, but we were there 10 days and D2 kept grabbing naps at any and all opportunities. Now that I think about it, DH fell asleep at the dinner table one evening, sitting straight up in his chair!</p>
<p>“In some cases, they’re really not sleeping a LOT more hours, it’s just that they’re “up all night” doing what they want, then they crash around 3 am…and sleep til noon.” </p>
<p>@mom2collegekids, you are so right. That’s exactly what my son does on weekends and winter break (he is a teacher), plays computer games into the wee hours, then gets up at noon the next day, often times takes a nap in the afternoon also. Having said that, he will grade a huge stack of essays/projects over winter break, and he actually enjoys that.</p>
<p>My freshman daughter started working 2 days after she came home (at her supermarket job), but she practically slept the entire first day. She does not stay up too late because she has to work, otherwise she will be doing what some college kids do, sleep a lot.</p>
<p>Dont know if this applies, it certainly applies to me, but it just being winter time may affect how much your daughter is sleeping as well. I have SAD (which used to cripple me every winter, but I have learned to cope and have recovered significantly), and living in Alaska, the winters do not help and I find myself, although avoiding the mood affliction, putting in about 15 hours of sleep (and I still never wake up feeling well-rested) a day currently. Of course, this is not to say that your daughter has SAD, but winter is just naturally a time for sleep and languor, and is especially effective for those living closer to the poles. </p>
<p>As a student who averages 4-5 hours of sleep a day when school is in session, winter break allows my body to both catch up and also shutdown in its own way, especially since not allowing myself to sleep as much during school most likely worsens my winter sleepiness, thus causing me to sleep so much now. Everything is a pain! I say let her get her rest, she most likely needs it. </p>
<p>My S is working at part time job he’s had since high school but on his days off or when he doesn’t go in until afternoon, I have been encouraging him to sleep in. He came home exhausted from school (was writing his thesis last semester and there were weeks he was up 30-40 hours straight.) </p>
<p>S who has always been one to sleep in on college breaks to 11 or so is on his first holiday break not as a student anymore, but as a teacher. He has found that his body CANNOT sleep in anymore! He’s so used to getting up at 6:30 that his body finds sleeping till 8 or maybe 9 to be the limit. Haha! He’s still staying up late and going out a good bit on his holiday break, but his body clock only compensates so much! </p>
<p>The other thing I’ve discovered as my teens turned into young adults - they discover that there are fun activities to be had earlier in the day worth getting up for - so they do. S will get up on the weekend and go to a friends and watch soccer games Sunday mornings. D will get up and have many brunch dates or exercise. </p>
<p>Seems to be a good blend of rest, sleeping in but not too late. OP, your D will get there. :)</p>