Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How much sleep do your kids get, and when?

Thanks for the tip! Never tried that so will check into it!

ultramarina, funny that you said "nap window", as just this evening I put DD3 down 30 min later, since she'd taken a nap today (unusual for her.)

She sang to herself and read books in her room for the next hour and DH kept remarking that we'd "missed the window." SO true for all three of ours! With DS, I actually worried about all the sleep he seemed to need. Our ped had to reassure me that as he was more than hitting his milestones I shouldn't be at all worried. (He was still sleeping 15-16 hours at 2.)

Ours did the same - he was still taking 3-4 hour naps at home when he was 4! (Daycare didn't let him sleep that long, so he may have been "catching up" to some extent on weekends.)

My ds6 sleeps 8pm (bedtime 7:30) to 6:45-7 for school. He is not happy to be woken. He would rather stay up till 8:30 and sleep till 8:30-9am. He still nap 1x/week. Ds3 sleeps 7:45-6:30ish (sometimes earlier wake up). Naps 2-4 most days, but can skip occasionally.

Luckily sleep is one issue we don't have in our house!

ds6 was capable of sleeping until 4.30, gettin up for a bath and tea then going back to bed at 6.30. It was amazing. Ds4 would sleep 10 mins in the car and be awake until 10.30 pm.

Sleep is such an individual thing - my kids all have very different sleep needs. My oldest never slept much *ever* - gave up his naps very early, routinely stayed wide awake until after 10:30 pm, and yet was popping out of bed wide-eyed alert and ready to tackle the day at 5:30 am sharp (long before his sleepy parents were ready to get up!)... and that went on for years. He's mellowed a bit with age - now goes to be somewhere between 9:30 and 10:30 most nights, and wakes up like clockwork (but without need of an alarm) every day somewhere between 6:15 and 6:30 - wide awake, not tired at all.

My dd11, otoh, took an afternoon nap up through 4 years old, and always fell asleep at 8 pm at night no matter whether or not she was in bed, and that was it - she was asleep until morning, and even then it was tough to wake her up before 8 am. She stays up to 8:30 now and is still difficult to wake up in the morning. My youngest dd is somewhere in between the other two, but is the toughest to get out of bed in the morning - whether or not she slept 5 hours or 15 hours - she's just not a morning person.

One thing to consider if you feel your child is just on the verge of needing more sleep and you don't want to move up a bedtime (which I totally understand - the hours at the end of our days seem so limited and rushed!) - is there any possibility you could let them sleep in a 1/2 hour longer in the morning? We try to get everything ready at our house the night before, and that way our dds don't have to get up extra-early. I like having the extra time (awake) with them at night much more than in the morning - morning's always seem to be rushed whether or not the kids are up 30 minutes before we leave or 2 hours before we leave... possibly because *I'm* not a morning person lol

Best wishes,

polarbear

On weekdays, DD8 begins her bedtime routine at 9:30pm, with lights-out usually around 10:00pm (DW and I don't regulate, as we do not possess the power over space and time to control when DD is ready to sleep), and gets up at 7:30am. We've been noticing behavior that signals sleep deprivation issues in the last week or so, so we've implemented some nighttime routine changes to get her in bed quicker, and the next step will be a move to 9:00pm if that doesn't yield satisfactory results.

On weekends, she gets to stay up to 10:30pm, and gets up whenever she likes... usually 8:30-ish.

When the girls were younger we had a strict 8:00pm bedtime. Now they are old enough to be involved in activities and sports that sometimes run late, so we shoot for 8:00-8:30pm when we can. They get up at 6:40am to get ready for school. We sometimes let them stay up later on weekends, but not always.

There are times they are still awake at 10:30-11:00pm, just laying in bed, singing, playing, or talking to themselves or their stuffed animals. Most nights they are out within 30 minutes of going to bed.

They used to get up many times to ask questions, get a drink, complain about an ache/pain that just mysteriously appeared after they got into bed, etc. They have outgrown that or we finally got through to them to stop getting out of bed - thank goodness!

Both girls can and will sleep in on the weekends if we let them, but then they will want to stay up later on those nights. DD9 can sleep in until 10:30-11:00am, whereas DD7 may sleep in until 9:00-9:30am at the latest. I was a big sleeper when I was a pre-teen/teenager and could easily sleep in until noon if allowed to. I always said I was making up for the little sleep I got when I was a baby/toddler, since my parents told me I didn't ever sleep more than 30 minutes at a time until I started Kindergarten.

Both girls gave up naps about the time they turned 3-4 years old and it didn't really seem to bother their temperaments at all. It was actually much worse on them and us trying to get them to take a nap or at least lay down and rest, than it was to just give up the naps!

I would love it if we could do that, but the bus picks them up before 7:30 for an 8:00 school start. Right now their alarms are set for 6:10, and it is definitely a push to get them ready to get out the door by 7:15 to catch the bus. DD9 takes a really long time to eat breakfast, because she has an oral appliance that is hard to "eat around," and DS5 is just goofy and difficult in the morning. I probably spent 30 min just coaxing him to go to the bathroom and get dressed today. We did a dry run yesterday, and they "won" a trip to the movies yesterday afternoon by being ready to go on time in the morning. DS was really cranky in the afternoon, though, which doesn't bode well for today. We'll see what the report is at the end of the day.

My kids are both difficult in the mornings, too, as far as getting them focused and getting things done. DD is usually awake and cheerful, but then she wants to play, and talk, and pet the dog, etc., and I literally have to shepherd her from one task to the next. DS is everything but awake and cheerful, so I (again, literally) have to drag him out of bed and walk him through everything. We have backpacks ready the night before, so all they have to do is eat and brush teeth and hair, DD gets dressed, and, stupid as this sounds, I generally put DS(10!)'s shoes on his feet while he's eating because it's just too time-consuming to get him to do it. Helicopter shoe mom, that's me.

This morning, moments before the bus came into sight, DS had to run back to the house to use the bathroom because his tummy was upset. So DH had to run him to school and he ended up with his second tardy in two weeks.