Sleep.
Our sleep.
Their sleep.
It’s a big topic in homeschool circles. Some say you MUST wake before your children. Some say you MUST wake your children up. Some say you MUST because if you don’t, you won’t make it.
I’m here to tell you something.
The only thing you MUST do is what works for your family.
When my children were young, I never purposely woke before them. We slowly woke together, made and had breakfast together, greeted the start of the day together. I need sleep and rest or anxiety sets in, which serves no one. Especially if I’m pulling myself out of bed just because someone said I must.
I’ve also never woken my children from sleep to start a school day (Unless they ask me to wake them).
Never wake a sleeping baby.
Or teen.
My daughter, 13, still has a bed time, but is allowed to read in bed if she isn’t tired. She wakes up at 8am to feed her cat, but is welcome to go back to sleep, even though she never does. “Math just doesn’t work in the afternoon, Mother.” (Yes, she calls me mother now. I’ll save that for another post 🤣🤣🤣)
My son, 16, is a night owl. Always had been. All electronics have to be off at 10pm, but beyond that, he’s on his own. He sleeps in on the weekends, until the afternoon sometimes, but weekdays he likes to be woken by 10am to get his day started.
We slow school, so we enter mornings slowly and gently and everything we want to accomplish always gets done.
But what about real life, you ask? What about when they HAVE to get up?
Well, my son has no troubles waking at 7am on a Saturday to go play soccer with friends before the rep leagues take the field. And he has no troubles waking up early to start tearing out the basement walls for his new bedroom. And my daughter wakes early for her riding and meetups with friends.
But if they don’t have to, why wake them? Why not let them listen to their body, which is telling them “I’m finishing up growing a brain, let’s sleep in today.”
Plus, the quiet in the morning, now that I DO wake up before my children? It’s blissful ❤
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