Oh no dear!
many of them need the sleep - but needing it and getting it are two different things.
My mom used to tell me that in order to rest well, one needed to expend a certain amount of physical energy and a certain amount of mental energy. In my case it was always a matter of getting up from studying in high school and runnning around, but for our little ones, it's more a matter of needing to have a reasonable amount of mental stimulation (again with the Goldilocks - not too hot, not too cold) during the day is the first problema.
Problema dose, is the difficulty in winding down that intellecutal energy. It's litterally difficult to turn those brains off.
Problema tres is the imbalance between emotional normal maturity with intellectual awareness of things way, way outside the norm. So how can I sleep with Global Warming hoovering over me? Try your best to block and protect, but the best you will be able to do is 'filter.'
And some kids really don't need that many hours.
Lately we've been really really strict with the 8:45 bedtime, quiet lying down with one parent for 30 minutes, the other parent for the rest of the job...usually means dosing off and then creeping back into the real bed later. DS11 just doesn't have the same sleeping equipment as other kids. He could be breathing deeply, slowly and rythmically, for 20 minutes, when the parent tries to disentangle. Often he'll come to full alert status with the first step on the floor. What seems to help is to keep him on the same schedual even on the weekends! When we get him to bed on time on the weekends, he will sleep until 9 or 10 am, but if we let him stay up late (because we aren't disiplined enought to give up on the fun and do the work) he's up at 5am. Does he need more sleep than he's getting? I believe he does.
((shrugs))
Grinity
