SLEEP! | Imamother

amother

Linen

Sat, Oct 13 2018, 11:15 pm

How do you get your teens to sleep at night?

My kids are up past midnight doing nothing, sometimes just wandering around the house! We've set up a phone curfew of 11:30 (way too late in my opinion) and if they don't hang up we disconnect the phones (we have 2 lines). They still don't go to sleep.

I wouldn't care if they were OK the next day, but they are impossible to get up in the morning and sometimes late for school. They are grouchy all day because they are tired, but then won't go to sleep!

HELP!

groisamomma

Sat, Oct 13 2018, 11:33 pm

Yikes, you mean it gets worse?!

DD (13) recently started schmoozing with friends on the phone for hours on end. She thinks she's too old for a bedtime. I disagree, obviously, so at 10:30 on the button I unplug the phone and go to sleep. It still takes her another hour to shower and fall asleep after that! It drives dh batty but what does everyone else do? I think my nieces are the same way today and I also remember roaming the house, eating, and schmoozing with my sisters literally for hours after the phones were off.

LisaS

Sun, Oct 14 2018, 2:37 am

After the younger kids go to sleep, the lights are dim, the house is quiet, and anyone who is up is either doing homework, getting ready for the next day, or quietly reading. There is no action and therefore no one has FOMO. If DD wants to shmooze with a friend on the phone even that has to be done quietly. Curfew on weeknights is 11. Missing the bus is not an option and they know it. So, I don't tell them when to go sleep, but the home environment encourages them to be responsible.

cinnamon

Sun, Oct 14 2018, 4:03 am

I loged on to write this exact post!
Dd 11 does not go to sleep till one or two AM every night. It drives me nuts!
She goes to bed by 11pm and will come to me every night and 12 and 1 to tell me she can't fall asleep. She suffers from headakes and can't concentrate during the day.

I want to institute an earlier bedtime because I'm pretty sure she's going to sleep to late but its so hard to get her to bed earlier!

chani8

Sun, Oct 14 2018, 4:35 am

I allowed my teens to work it out for themselves, but taught them to pay attention to how they feel when they dont get enough sleep. I did not wake them in the mornings. I did not take any responsibility in either direction. I let them fail.

Though when they were late and/or miserable, I pointed out the cause effect they were experiencing, without judgement. "You didn't get enough sleep, so now you are late, and you're tired and grumpy. Was it worth it? You decide."

Sometimes it is worth it to them. Ultimately, it's their choice. They get to decide their priorities. If we make them succeed, first of all, we are the one's deciding what is important, and it may not be what's important to them. And, by being their external control, they dont learn self control.

chani8

Sun, Oct 14 2018, 4:42 am

That said, until high school, my kids went to bed at 8pm. We didn't have phones and devices then, but even my current almost 11yo goes to bed at 8pm. At 6pm her phone goes on the charger and she gets two hours of Netflix until bedtime which makes her so tired that she falls straight to sleep, and this was a girl with sleep issues for many years. TV is way different and better than allowing a phone or other device before bed. TV dulls the mind, while social media stimulates it. So compromise on the media you allow to get the effect you want.

cinnamon

Sun, Oct 14 2018, 5:03 am

chani8 wrote:

Your 11 y.o ends her day at 6pm???
How does she manage that?
dd get home between two and three thirty depending on the day.
She needs to eat lunch and chill and do h.w and hang out with friends and fight with her siblings and argue with me and study and play on the phone and eat supper and shower argue with her father. she doesn't get everything done untill nine or so.

chani8

Sun, Oct 14 2018, 8:07 am

cinnamon wrote:

haha!! I nip all that problem behavior in the bud by the promise of tv. She has to get everything done including her new job of dog walking by 6pm. She does it!

studying_torah

Sun, Oct 14 2018, 10:42 am

My dd goes to bed at a reasonable time but claims she can't fall asleep till 1 am.
I think she needs to be more active after sitting in school all day plus 3 hrs of homework. But she is really tired and not interested.
Will be following for ideas