If I go to bed at 10 p.m., the children will sleep until 8:30, giving me a solid 10 hours of sleep. If I stay up too late reading or playing Wii, and go to bed at midnight, they get up at 6:55.
I KNEW, I just KNEW, as I finished my book last night around 11:40 that it would not be a sleeping in day. Blast. It wasn't.
So, my original question: How do they know? Do you other parents experience this phenomenon? Will they get up at 6:30 during the week, but have to be dragged out of bed at 7:30 on Sunday for church?
I know I have it better than my friend Katherine, whose children wake up at 6 every day, regardless of the fact that their room is absolutely dark. Habtamu sleeps later now that we've got the blinds up.
8 comments:
Of course they know! And my next comment...who the heck EVER gets 10 hours of sleep??? :0)
That was me, Chris!
Julie
Yep, they know. Don't know how or why, but they know!
We started mandatory 'stay in bed and be quiet' times as soon as youngest was able to tell time reliably (the boys all were between the ages of 7-9 then...we hadn't been together very long at all). On no school days, that was 8:00. They could be awake, read, listen to music (on headphones), play their gameboys, whatever... but be QUIET and in their rooms. Woe woe woe to boys who woke us up fighting...life was baaaaad for everyone then).
On school days that time was staggered, depending on each kid and what they had to do. One kid might be allowed to get up and move at 6:15 so he could practice; another might have to stay upstairs and 'quiet' until 7:15 because he couldn't be up and around without fighting with the first kid. We did a lot of tweaking the schedule with the four of them but...we held the line firmly on that one.
Even now, with only youngest at home, we can say "Quiet until 8:30 tomorrow" as he heads for bed and he knows exactly what we mean. Since he can't roam the house unsupervised, I'm very thankful he's able (and willing) to do that.
grrr... You sure you want to do a 'kid swap sleep over'? If Kai is over there, they're gonna be up at 5. Or earlier. For some reason, sleeping over makes him wake up earlier. Though he has been very good lately about just reading his Bible and not bugging me. Then he goes to do something else.
Noe will sometimes sleep until 7, unless Kai wakes her up. The problem with that is that she wants to EAT right away. I usually make everyone wait until at least 7:30 for food.
Sophia will sleep until 8 a lot of the time. It's weird when she wakes up earlier than 7:30. If only they ALL slept in until 8!
regarding time to bed, it seems that if I stayed up late, it increases the odds that I'm going to have a 'middle of the night' wake up alarm from Sophia, who had a bad dream or who woke herself up yelling at someone in her sleep...
We have the "stay in bed until 7am" rule on weekends and when there is no school. I'm sure sometimes she is wide awake at 6am just watching her clock click over those square numbers over until the magic 7:00 appears, but she does it no questions asked. It's like your bedroom sanctuary rule, it's all she's ever known. Then she usually goes into her t.v. room for a cartoon before wanting breakfast (which is fine by me because its pretty much the only time she watches t.v. since we don't allow it during the school week)...that means we get to sleep in until 8am on a weekend mornings! Hence our 11am church service preference! whoohoo
It's crazy, isn't it? And I'm not sure age has anything to do with it. Steve's son went to bed at 10:30 on Friday night, possibly closer to 11...and he was UP at 6:30am!!! What is that? And then you have to prepare yourself for grumpy children as the day wears on!!! YUCK!
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