Parents; what were your HS senior’s sleeping habits? What time did they generally go to sleep/wake up on school nights?
Extra credit: Did they wake up on their own or did they need outside human assistance?
The current graduate goes lights out at about 0030 and wakes up at 0545. There is some recharging on the weekends when they get up at about 0730.
Other than the alarm clock, they need assistance waking about 40% of the time.
Who will wake your child up in college if this behavior is not learned 100% of the time this summer?
People have a certain amount of flexibility built in. They have the ability to rise to meet new situations.
My D sleeps until ~ 11:30 on weekends. She has always been a late sleeper. On school days she is up and ready on her own 95% of the time. Most school nights she is in bed by anywhere from 12-12:30.
My S, now is no longer a HS student. He was always any early bird and up usually no later than 7:30 no matter if it was a weekend or not. We never needed to wake him up. He also had a job that on some weekend mornings and during school breaks that he was out the door by 4:45am.
HOWEVER today that is no longer true. The number one thing he learned in college was how to sleep. He gets an A+ in this subject. He comes home from hanging out with friends anywhere between 12:30-2:00 am and sleeps until about 10:30-11:00, unless he has to work early morning (anywhere from 4:45-10:00). It so bugs me that he sleeps in. I’m not use to him being the sleeper. I’m having a hard time dealing with this and makes me concerned that he may not wake up for classes at college. He says he does, but I question if he is being honest.
Did I read that right? Your DD or DS is going to bed at 3:00 a.m. and getting up at 6:00 a.m.? 3 hours sleep?
We’ve gone round and round with DS1 about his sleep habits. Left alone, he does what PerPlexD DS does exactly and it drives us crazy. I’m assuming he’s doing this when he’s at college too. DH is always telling him that the road to success is to get up and going, but it just falls on deaf ears. And he’s not the best student. however, he’s taking a summer course right now and it starts at 9:00 a.m., so he has to get up.
DS2 is better, as he’s working this summer. If left to his own devices, he’d go to bed at midnight - 1:00 and sleep until 9:00.
DH just had a serious talk to DS2 about sleeping and success in college. I think he has him scared to death, as DS2 is sort of on a probationary type acceptance. He has to meet a certain GPA at a CC to be direct admitted to the Univ. after one semester…it’s a Link program between the CC and univ.
During the school year, I think they went to bed about 11:00ish and up at 6:15 or so. They normally did it themselves, but I work them up about 20% of the time. During the last semester of senior year I told them I wasn’t doing it anymore and if they were tardy, they were tardy. They always seemed to get themselves up.
I have no idea as DS attended a boarding school thousands of miles away from me; he definitely got up every day without my assistance. Now that he’s home, he’s up by 8 and in bed by 10:30 trying to catch up on four years of lost sleep. It will not be possible to oversleep at his college.
During the school year, I was in bed between 11 and 12 and up at 6:45 during the week, although weekends I slept until about 8. This was definitely without parental assistance.
During the summer, it shifts a bit depending upon who the guests are on the late shows. I’m not anticipating issues in college.
Each of my kids is different. My oldest went to bed around 11 p.m. and got up without issue for school. He got used to snapping awake at any hour in the military, and now has a job where he may have to be on the road at 4 or 5 a.m. some days. It’s not a problem for him.
My middle kid never liked getting up early except as a little kid, and did get many “tardies” in HS. For college we got her one of those shrieking alarm clocks and sometimes that just got shut off and classes were missed. Now long out of school she has the perfect solution-she works the evening shift at a restaurant and doesn’t need to get up until noon or later. It fits with her body clock.
My youngest, a rising senior in HS, needs a lot of sleep. 9 p.m. is really the latest she can be up for too many days in a row. But she’s up and alert by 6:30 a.m. Weekends she sleeps in till 9-10 depending on her schedule.
I had only 2 rules in house that my adult D. said were very good looking back. I requested that she is in bed by 10pm and another rule was not related to this. She was allowed to be much later in due to HS parties or whatever get together on the weekends. She had vey busy schedule and we knew that if she does not sleep enough than she would not perform, not in classroom, not at sport practice, not at piano recitals, not in her private art lessons, not as an editor of school newspaper, and there are more things to this list. As a busy teenager, my rule allowed her to develop great time management skills, multitasking abilities, that are all so valuable later on at college and beyond.
I believe that in HS she was waking up herself. We both work full time and always prefer to start at about 6:30am at work. She was just catching bus or driving herself and as one of the youngest in her class, D. got her license much later than many others. She had no problem waking up as she normally had at least about 9 hours of sleep and, of course, many more (sometime up to 13hrs) during weekend. Her busy schedule (sport practice alone was taking at least 3 hrs 6 days / week with many competitions, many out of town) required her to do lots of homework during study hall and on the weekend, so many times her homework was actually done ahead of the time. As far as I remember, she did at home primarily AP English Lit. and her college History (took during HS to get rid of her hardest class while still in HS). She spent enormous amount of time on both for different reasons. English paper had to be perfect as determined by her own standard (high as the sky) and History was something that she simply did not understand because she is not an avid reader, she does not like to read for pleasure/entertainment. Her dad was a great help there.
During the school year, I was in bed/asleep by 10-11. Never was one to pull ‘all-nighters’ or stay up too late, and up by 6:30-7. Human assistance was provided, but not needed, to get me up and out of bed.
During the summer, if I don’t have work, I’m asleep by midnight at the latest, awake at 10 by the latest - definitely guilty of being a late sleeper. But for days that I have work or other commitments, which is most days these days, I’m up by 7, no assistance provided or needed (I think the parents are realizing I’ll be in college in a few months and - moreso for them than for me - are trying to start the transition).
Each of our kids has figured it out on their own. We are down to the 4th and final who is in college, not HS. He came home last week and is definitely catching up. He has been sleeping til noon but I don’t have a problem with it. The first couple of days he slept 12-13 hours, and then after that he is just staying up really late catching up with old friends and then sleeping in. He is only here for 2 weeks before he goes back for work. I know he got very little sleep the last 2 weeks of school and was exhausted when he came home. He actually apologized for sleeping so late. I told him to do it while he can- in just a few years he will be out in the work force and won’t be able to do that ever again, so make the most of it. It’s just not a big deal in the overall scheme of things. I know he must make it to class most of the time because his grades reflect that he does. Our other 3 have been out in the work force for a while now and did the same thing off and on when they were in college. They were able to get up on time when they had to and now are all responsible adults making it to work on time as far as I know. One has a job where he is at work at 6AM or earlier and has not had problems, even though he often slept til noon when younger.
With 5 APs and healthy load of ECs she regularly studied until at least midnight and often as late as 1:30 or 2:00 AM waking up at 5:30 AM. Crashed on weekends unless she had speech tournaments. College in comparison will be easy
“0030” is 12:30 am (just after midnight) and 0545 is 5:45 am (in the morning). That’s 5 hours and 15 minutes.
In high school, I was in bed by 12 or 1 and woke up around 6:30 on weeknights. On weekends I’d catch up and sleep til ~noon. There was never human assistance in getting up- I was up and out before my parents stirred.
In college, I never missed a class or work from oversleeping but I had terrible sleep habits. There was no typical time to sleep but it was rarely before midnight.
Even now that I’m in my mid-20s, my sleep schedule is sleep around 4-5 AM, up around 12-1. I work from home and this is what my sleep schedule has always naturally reverted to, even though I had to wake up before 7 for years due to school and work.
I don’t know how late they stayed up because when kid #2 went to high school we had to go to bed early because we had to get up early. So that means kid#2 had to get ready by herself. One day she did call in, I believe my first day or week at work, panicked because she missed the alarm. I told her not to panic, I was going to send in a note for an excuse.
Lol-H.S. sleeping habit turns into bragging!
How do your kids function on so little sleep? Do they take naps after school? Fall asleep during class? They can’t possibly be playing sports when they are that tired. FWIW, my junior D goes to bed at 10:30, gets up at 6:00, completely on her own. On weekends, if she doesn’t have a meet or other activity, she will sleep until noon.
On very rare occasions, maybe twice this year, she had to stay up late to finish an assignment. She has great organizations and planning skills. Much better than I ever had.
Mine is a college athlete/STEM major. During his season he definitely does not always get enough sleep but seems to manage. Between practice/games/traveling he has some periods of time where he gets only 4 or 5 hours of sleep-or less- per night and is still doing well.
12:30 am to 5:45 am is about exactly my sleeping hours, and I usually wake up a few minutes before the alarm. More sleep oddly makes me more tired.
Towards the end of senior year, when senioritis, work-load, and stress was at an all-time high simultaneously, I think I took a nap after school most days.