http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6?format=rss Tribe.net. Local Connections http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#8cad7d4f-c21d-4a0d-be07-ee80025acfec I am so happy to read this. I have a daughter who needs little to no sleep. She stopped napping at about 13 months and if she does nap she wil be up until 1am. We have nights where she will go to bed at 8 or 9 and be up again at midnight and not go back to sleep until 5am. And then she gets up at 7am and makes it through the day just fine. When she's awake at night, she is her funny cheerful self and keeps herself very busy. I have given up trying to force her to sleep and getting involved in power struggles over it and try to work within her needs. For saftey sake I feel I have to be up with her to some degree. Her brother was very sensative to barametric pressure. If there was a snow storm coming or that humidity filled air that's charged and waiting he would be charged as well. He would require little sleep. I think there is too much presure to have children who sleep through the night or the tidy schedual of the kids in bed at night. I like the child portion of the day to end a 8, to have space and boundries but they are people and it's not going to fit a norm. I try to remember this when I have only slept for an hour. That makes the homeschooling a challenge, the teacher with the impaired brain. Hmmmm. Sun, 24 Sep 2006 02:44:22 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#8cad7d4f-c21d-4a0d-be07-ee80025acfec $item.owner.firstName 2006-09-24T02:44:22Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#76a5bc41-09ab-4ec8-a920-1dec3d971bb1 Just thought I'd chime in on this conversation seeing as it hits close to home with me. As a child I NEVER wanted to sleep. I'm 30 now and nothing has changed. I still stay up late and get up early. My mam told me that when I was a small child - 2 years and counting - they used to leave me on the floor in their bedroom with a bucket of toys and go to sleep themselves. At some point late at night someone would invariably look and find me lying asleep in my toys and put me in bed. It's a funny memory. I remember myself when I was 1-2 years of age, waking up continually through the night, and changing pacifiers and then going back to sleep. There was not a whole pile else to do, even though I hated sleeping even then! Skip forward a few years to the advent of reading in my life. Now my parents were screwed. They would insist I go to bed, and I'd mope off down to my room, and read under the bedcovers with a flashlight, much to their distain and confusion. I would get through books and books and books.....loved it. By the time I was in my mid teens they had started to accept me as someone who liked less than the normal amount of sleep. So, little by little they let me just stay up until I choose to go to bed. They started to trust my own judgment on my own sleep pattern. Now that I am aware of my weird sleep patterns, I just know that I sleep about 4-6 hours a night and that is it. I really have no capacity to sleep more. And I am healthy, and alert and have always been. As a kid, I did well in school and enjoyed lots of sports. So, I am trying to clarify that there is insomnia - which I would define as someone who needs sleep being unable to get the hours of sleep they need - and then there is a non-sleeper or something like that, who is wired to need less sleep but still operates normally. I guess I am getting at the point that not sleeping much is how some of us are just programmed. I know I need to sleep. Boy am I aware of that. It is just that it is less than others seem to. For me, I discovered that it helps to try and tire myself out. If I exercised hard in an evening I notice it would help me go to sleep when I put my head down. The reading helped too. Try and get through a long chapter in a book while in bed lying down. Sometimes it took two, but I tried to associate it with going to sleep and it started to help a little as a pattern. Your comment about "it seems like his body is just wired to stay up late" is EXACTLY what I have felt my entire life. The only difference is that I am very functional when I get up. I mean, I wake up, and I am bright and alert and ready for my day in less than five minutes... always.... However, to push the subject a little further, he may not be wired for little sleep, but rather, as you put it, to stay up late. Rather than reprimanding him over it (believe me, that is never going to work and will only create negative patterns through the rest of his life for him, whether or not either of you are aware of it), you should point out the issue. That he needs to be alert in the morning, and doesn't he think you should figure something out. Maybe let him up late whenever he doesn't need to be up early sometimes. This worked with me! Created less friction anyway! I used to love my weekends as a kid! I'd sit up talking at my friends house, or mine until 5 or 6 am and then get up at 9am or 10am! Or, I'd watch a video, or read, or listen to the radio chat shows on my headphones..... I guess, I am getting at the fact that he is not a bad kid because he can't go to bed. It is not necessarily rebellion. I worked with a small European record company on a series of CD's for the mind. They aim at calming and activating the imagination. One of the side effects of working the mind, is people tend to gain more control over it, which includes the capacity to switch it off. Using the CD (which is 29minutes long) at night before bed, had positive results in terms of helping insomniac's recover some of their missing hours of sleep! The capacity to control the mind and take you to the sleep state is returned. It is like empowering yourself to sleep! One of many wonderful effects on the imagination and brain! There is more information at the page it sells from, but you can also feel free to ask me any question you like. I am very much supportive of it as a treatment of conditions like this, especially with kids. It is good, because it empowers them to deal with their own issues. They can deal with them privately and without embarrassment. And it works! You can read further information, listen to an excerpt or buy the cd at: www.ciaranhope.com/shop.html or www.cdbaby.com/cd/imaginationgym Either way, just to validate for you, there are more of us out here who just naturally sleep less, and it is not a problem. It is just different from the norm, just as some are taller than others, some smaller, or some have great senses of smell or hearing, and others not. yours ciaran www.ciaranhope.com Fri, 29 Apr 2005 08:49:23 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#76a5bc41-09ab-4ec8-a920-1dec3d971bb1 Ciaran 2005-04-29T08:49:23Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#3368e366-9fcd-49c0-8323-0993b4f856ce HELLO!!!!!! I've also got an insomniac child. My son is 4 1/2. He starts kindergarten soon and I was really worried about this issue. Dameon has always had trouble sleeping, he often wakes up thirsty, and has bad dreams of "running forever"... his long-gone-dad has a doctor in the familly who we are still in contact with...It turns out my son's tonsels are HUGE, which makes it difficult for him to breath, especially at night...we are arranging to have them taken out. Supposedly this will aleviate the prob... just a thought to bring up at the next pediatric visit. Wed, 27 Apr 2005 17:10:00 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#3368e366-9fcd-49c0-8323-0993b4f856ce doodle bug 2005-04-27T17:10:00Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#72718a8d-1e8d-4334-a80b-b3494baeb2cd chemicals are going to destroy these kids bodies, let them stay up they can't sleep, they will sleep when the body needs them too Thu, 20 Jan 2005 03:47:16 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#72718a8d-1e8d-4334-a80b-b3494baeb2cd reverend david 2005-01-20T03:47:16Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#45a92033-2537-4625-a94a-7b140392c9e8 with the its not a matter of mibehavior part... Thu, 20 Jan 2005 03:44:33 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#45a92033-2537-4625-a94a-7b140392c9e8 reverend david 2005-01-20T03:44:33Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#dad5c910-d84a-484c-889b-655d6a7e996f I have to full agree. I am colorblind, and as a child, the ability to speep before midnight was not something I had. Now as an adult, I understand the reason, I do not see color properly, but I see in the dark quite well, similar to most of the mammals on earth.... Thu, 20 Jan 2005 03:43:25 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#dad5c910-d84a-484c-889b-655d6a7e996f reverend david 2005-01-20T03:43:25Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#935ffe58-4e01-447a-89b0-5e9eaa70809b I home school all four of our kids, and our son is 9, and he likes to stay up late at night too, sometimes till 1am. but what I have found to work, is to let them. They are in home school. Do you have to drop them off anywhere? Are you a stay at home parent? I am, and what I have done is created a wheel that has all their chores broken down, and dived into 3 groups with the fourt as the helper. then everyday, we turn the wheel one notch. With the school work, they have their set assignment for the day, and when ever they are done with both, properly, they can have their free time. this gives them the option to stay up late, or go to bed a little. it all depends on their attitude. if they are willing to do chores and school work without hassle, feel free to have a good time, as long as you make to keep the rules the same, all the time. reverend david Thu, 20 Jan 2005 03:37:37 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#935ffe58-4e01-447a-89b0-5e9eaa70809b reverend david 2005-01-20T03:37:37Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#a383fd7e-2f45-4116-9c94-2c3b96762b48 greetings folks, as a lifetime sleeper at odd hours, i encourage you to consider that it might be a physical/emotional matter of one's constitution and not one to have consequences as if it was misbehavior. i for one have always stayed up late. i'm up late now. even when the body is tired, my mind is very active. that's not to discourage finding solutions to help your child find rest, but simply to assure you that some people have schedules that don't fit the norm. from early childhood my parents found that i would not nap in the daytime and would stay up late at night wandering the house, playing, talking to imaginary friends, reading books even before i could actually read. my father finally laid down a compromise that stuck with me, "you don't have to sleep, you just have to rest." i use this with children i care for in my profession- karma has it that i wind up caring for a lot of night owls. it generally means, you don't have to go to sleep, but you do have to stay restfully in your bedroom or in your bed, reading or writing or 'resting' so that you don't bother the rest of us with your shennanigans. in my life i have found it to be two factors- one, it became a pattern for me as a homeschooled child that my mother being very involved in my life led me to seek alone time after she went to sleep. i would pretend to be asleep so that she would go to bed, and then turn my light back on and read or write or do my own thing. for some reason i always liked to play dressup after midnight- still do have these patterns, spending latenight alone time with myself, still play dressup after midnight. ;-) the other factor i have learned is through my limited study of ayurveda, the medical tradition of ancient and modern india. there is a book about ayurvedic health for children called 'Perfect Health for Kids' that might be worth looking into. i haven't checked it out yet, but... hopefully it addresses what i understand now has to do with my constitution... each of the three constitutions has different times that they are most influenced under, and these effect sleep patterns big time. i don't know offhand the time correlations... but it is worth looking into. i would second the caution about any drugs... there are herbal options if you really feel the need to resort to substances to induce relaxation. but all drugs have side effects. my segway (sp?) into a teenagehood of addiction began from early teenage problems with cramps and poor sleeping- i began taking midol and sleeping pills, and ended up liking the effects and taking large amounts that my folks never knew about, setting the stage for later teen years taking large amounts of other things my parents never knew about ;-) careful the patterns you set.... blessed love. Wed, 19 Jan 2005 07:45:27 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#a383fd7e-2f45-4116-9c94-2c3b96762b48 Xylem 2005-01-19T07:45:27Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#fe9769d1-43d3-4c3e-9a4a-210ee43af6b2 I think it's all a matter of DISCIPLINE. If he doesn't sleep then there should be some consequences for him. But if it works out for you then fine. I still think that a child should have a bed time that shouldn't go past 9:00 or 9:30 PM; and I think it should also include the weekends. And one should be very careful with melatonin. Even though you could get it over the counter, you should be careful with it. I don't think it should be given to any child unless a doctor says it's okay. And even then, I would be very careful with Melatonin. Those are hormones of which should be taken with extreme caution. Mon, 03 Jan 2005 23:11:51 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#fe9769d1-43d3-4c3e-9a4a-210ee43af6b2 Sandy 2005-01-03T23:11:51Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#98686a7f-73b6-4aed-bf33-934d9df2818f Yeah, I had to argue with my godchildren's parents. They were all upset that their kids were so hyper. The kids refused to relax. I claimed that maybe if they turned off the TV and went outside a bit, the kids might get tired. I used to take my godson to the playground and run him ragged. He would sleep like the dead. Diet and excercise are very important when dealing with insomnia. I never had this problem growing up, as we lived in the country. I was always tired, because if I didn't work on the farm, I didn't eat! I slept well. Now as an adult, I have taken on a more sedentary lifestyle and insomnia is plagueing me. Mon, 29 Nov 2004 13:26:41 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#98686a7f-73b6-4aed-bf33-934d9df2818f Wendy 2004-11-29T13:26:41Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#234c6df9-5245-487c-b510-0fbc5fe34037 I totally agree with you, and I'm glad you made that point. Part of my difficulty is that it's probably quite based on lifestyle. We have a very busy, very active house... But, we are doing good with the home schooling (and the hours we provide for it), so it all works out. Kat Mon, 29 Nov 2004 02:03:40 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#234c6df9-5245-487c-b510-0fbc5fe34037 **Kat** 2004-11-29T02:03:40Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#d69d55b8-9585-4e71-b400-83d8bcbb4cce My nephew will be a nite owl if left to his own devices. He'll easily stay up well past midnite, and be a zombie the next day at school, then perpetuate the cycle by taking a nap when he comes home. My sister has had to limit his activities in order to keep him on a "normal" schedule so he is rested enough for school the next day. No sodas or sugars after 8pm, no rambunctious activity an hour before bedtime. He seems to fall asleep easier if he takes a bath before bed and has a little time to watch TV. The main thing is being consistent, and you have not mentioned any lifestyle issues or habits that may contribute to your child staying awake late. If he is tired yet has outright insomnia, that is another matter and seeing a doctor might be in order. Just make sure he is not being overstimulated or "wired" by diet or activity too close to bedtime before going the medical route. ~Juliana~ Sat, 27 Nov 2004 09:19:03 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#d69d55b8-9585-4e71-b400-83d8bcbb4cce Water Lily 2004-11-27T09:19:03Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#ae1f6c2d-ffcb-4679-8728-dd8c6a5b72ca I don't know about your son, but mine has a similiar issue if he stays up past 9 pm. If he gets into bed at 10 pm forget it, he'll be up until midnight or later, but at 9 or earlier he falls asleep fairly quickly. We also have a solid night time routine with him that includes lots of calming activities starting at 8 pm so that he is really ready at 9 pm. Those activities include reading to him while he is snuggled into a blanket (if he's really hyper, we wrap him up like a burrito and he lays in a tight bundle with his head on a pillow), then we speak to him in quiet tones and he goes to bed with a tuck in and listening to relaxing music of some kind or another. We have also found that if for whatever reason (rain or caught up or whatever), we haven't really been very physically active that day, he also has a harder time sleeping. We try to get in some kind of activity every day (it's hard though when weather is cold or rainy). He is 8 yrs. old. We've been doing this for about 2 yrs variantly and it works really well for us. Good Luck! Heather Thu, 25 Nov 2004 05:12:34 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#ae1f6c2d-ffcb-4679-8728-dd8c6a5b72ca $item.owner.firstName 2004-11-25T05:12:34Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#00202678-55d0-4deb-a057-11d7e392e094 Hi there, I have a night owl for a son too. And an early bird for a daughter. Having both tends to make interesting. I would say work with what you have. My daughter, Katie, is almost 13. She gets up and gets ready, has breakfast and starts reading a book or do her knitting. I still feel like I need to be awake when my son is, because he's only 10. Katie loves having her quiet time, and Kyle enjoys the one on one time with me in the evening. Every family is different. I agree a trip to the doc, for a good overall check up. If nothing is wrong, you might be staying up with the rest of us. lol MAKE a great day! Fri, 13 Aug 2004 05:17:05 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#00202678-55d0-4deb-a057-11d7e392e094 Cathi 2004-08-13T05:17:05Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#737cc569-5b8d-4abd-86a0-3987d654b596 "It seems like his body is just wired to stay up late...." Have you taken him to the doctor, it's possible he has a melatonin deficiency which is easily corrected by taking melatonin which can be found in the vitamin section of any pharmacy. But if he is in fact just wired that way, then work with it. You'll all be much happier. Thu, 12 Aug 2004 21:41:35 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#737cc569-5b8d-4abd-86a0-3987d654b596 $item.owner.firstName 2004-08-12T21:41:35Z http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#11c28071-4fe0-4935-979e-b34c0a25c978 Hi there! My nine year old son has insomnia. He can't seem to get to bed before 10:00, some times 12:00am! This is one of the reasons we pulled him out of regular school. He can't sleep at night, so he's dysfunctional especially in the mornings. Like when he has to get up at 6:30am to catch a bus to school. We have been going through this for at least 3 years now, we've tried every trick in the book that we can think of. Any ideas? It seems like his body is just wired to stay up late....] sincerely, Kat Tue, 10 Aug 2004 07:47:50 GMT http://homeschool.tribe.net/thread/1b039cc8-73b3-4139-aa20-2e330e8c3af6#11c28071-4fe0-4935-979e-b34c0a25c978 **Kat** 2004-08-10T07:47:50Z