I have never been an early riser. This was the original reason that I would plead with my kids to sleep a little later. I wanted that extra 5 minutes, or if I was lucky, another hour of sleep. This is why I am a huge advocate for letting my kids wake up when they feel like it, especially now that they are older! Now that they’re growing older, it actually has a few other benefits that keep me firmly in the wake up whenever you want camp.
Bedtime Schedule
We have pretty set bedtimes for my youngest two kids. My 9 and 12 year olds typically have to be in bed by around 10:30. The loose rule is to get off of screens by 9:30 (we recently changed this to a little later – before, it was 9), start getting ready for bed by 10, and go to their room by 10:30. From there, they can be up for quite a while. Those two share a room and often listen to audiobooks, stay up and read their books, take their dog in there and pet him and talk to him, or try to wind down with nature sounds. As long as they aren’t fighting or making a mess, I honestly don’t mind at this point.
Trust me, when they were younger, we were often watching them VERY carefully, because they were sneaky and a tad destructive, especially unsupervised in their room! They could turn their room into a gigantic mess in 2 minutes flat when they were younger. Luckily, they’ve calmed down quite a bit over the past 3 years.
My teens have a loose bedtime of midnight. We encourage getting off of screens by 11PM but are open to being relaxed with that. My 17 year old son typically heads to bed by 11:30, and my 14 year old son is a night owl! He will accidentally stay up a little later fairly regularly.
Waking Up
I encourage my kids to wake up when their body naturally wants to awaken. If we have somewhere to be, or a scheduled activity, we will all wake up as needed, of course. For my younger kids, wake-up time has absolutely nothing to do with bedtime. If they go to bed at 7PM or 1AM, their bodies are totally programmed to wake up within the same 30 minute window each day!
The youngest is up by 8 AM almost every day. His 12 year old brother can sometimes sleep until 9 AM or so, but he is rarely asleep that long. My 14 year old gets lots of sleep. He’s in that stage where he wants to wake up around noon or so each day. That said, he sleeps with our dog, and the dog sometimes wakes him up earlier if he needs to be let out of fed and can’t wait anymore. It’s adorable to see my teen stumbling into the kitchen to take care of the dog when he clearly wasn’t ready to actually greet the day yet. My 17 year old used to be that little kid that was up by 7AM every single day, without fail! Now that he’s older, he typically sleeps in more, but is usually up by 10 or 10:30 AM.
How Do We Homeschool Around This?
Your head is probably spinning. You’re probably wondering how on earth we even get school done or squeeze anything into our schedule when the kids all wake up at different times. Ah, but that’s the beauty of it!
Our homeschool has been very flexible for many years. We work with the schedule that the kids make. If I will be out of the house or on a Zoom call or the kids have activities planned, those are noted on a big dry erase calendar in our living room. If it’s a significant change in the schedule, we’ll talk about it the day before. I’ll let the kids know when they need to find me to help them with the subjects we work on together. I also have a specific place for kids to drop off assignments I need to grade or edit, in case we miss each other due to other things going on.
I actually love the staggered schedule, because it’s pretty easy to tackle school with the younger kids earlier in the day, and then work on things with the older kids later in the day. If anything, this has actually helped out homeschool. It’s created a bit of a routine, and it’s easy to plan things around the most likely times that we’ll need to work together.
It also means that when my kids are ready to do their school, they are well-rested and have the mental and physical energy to take on the tasks of the day. They get to try their best with exactly the amount of sleep they needed to begin their day. It’s a win for all of us!
Do your kids wake up at a specific time?
