You’re not inherantly bad just because you don’t follow somebody else’s daily schedule. We’re not automatons operating on synchronized clock pulses issued by a central computer that dictates right & wrong times to accomplish certain tasks.
I have the opposite problem, and often find myself asking the question:
Is staying up late inherantly “good” somehow?
Seems like any time I’m talking to a friend or have a prospect for a date, my ten o’clock bedtime always puts the kibosh on everything. I feel like some kind of social deviant if I don’t eat my dinner at 9:30 and stay up socializing until 2:00 am.
Heck Opal, my son is 9 and he stays up til 10:30 nowadays!!
Before he went to school, he stayed up late, as did I.
Nowadays, we must get up at 7:30 for school.
If I let him sleep on the weekends, he gets up aroudn 9:30.
A neighbor infers that if you have any sugar products after 4p.m. you become a night person.
As if that were a bad thing.
I doubt he could prove this though.
Some peopela re know-it-alls.
I assume if my son wasn’t getting enough sleep, he’d fall asleep earlier than he does.
I’m a nocturnal person forced to be on a diurnal schedule. So, I find myself hitting my stride at 11pm or so, getting those creative urges going, when I should have been in bed at 10:30. So every night, it’s a struggle; I find myself staring at my ceiling until midnight, then waking up exhausted at 6:30. So my first hour or so at work, I’m a zombie, and I leave work just as I start to be really conscious. I hate it. I’m just not built for it.
My natural schedule is to get up at around noon, and get to sleep about 4am. If I have extended time off, my biological clock always reverts to those settings. I’m happier, more productive, and always have my wits about me.
But, the 8-5 job dictates otherwise. Sigh.
Here’s aninteresting article about the nocturnals among us, claiming that since the discovery of fire, we have been necessary to human survival. A neat perspective.
I’d be more coherent, but it’s too early in the morning.
Growing kids need sleep; the sleep experts say about 9 to 10 hours for kids under 16. They need sleep to recharge their brains as well as rest their growing bodies. This is one reason, folks say, why teenagers will sleep 18 hours on the weekends. And of course, there is the exception to the rule [little Henry Kissinger needed only a few hours of sleep].
Parents need sleeping kids. I love to putter around when the kids are asleep - that’s my time.
Having said those two points, let me tell you that I let the kids go to bed anytime they want as long as they get their “8 hours of sleep” [this includes readind in bed] on school nights. If it takes you two hours to get ready for school, you have to be in bed ten hours before school starts. If it only takes you 30 minutes, you have to be in bed… you get the idea.
Itara: I wouldn’t count on your conclusion that more intelligent people stay up later. Maybe in some cases, smart folks need less sleep than the standard eight. The conclusion reminded me of a well known study about democracy factors that found that the only factor that strongly correlated to democratic societies was flush toilets.
Just remembered another study I read (can’t find cites sorry) where they put a volunteer/volunteers? into a controlled environment with no natural light and no time reference. So they could get up and go to bed when they wanted, switch the lights on and off, etc. Ruled only by their natural bodyclocks. They had videos and videogames, but not TV or radio, IIRC. They spoke to researchers, but were completely cut off from the actualy time in the outside world.
Anyway, after 30 days, it turned out they had lived through 25 days. ie they were staying up longer and sleeping longer, like a 20-hour day and 10-hour night.
I always felt that would really suit me.
I also vaguely remember - sorry this is all so anecdotal - some comment when this study was published about humans having various biological clocks, various body processes going on different time circles, and there is a 30-hour one as well as a 24-hour one (like there is a 28-day one for menstruation, eg).
Opal, as others have mentioned, its not inherently bad. Its just bad if
such a lifestyle interferes with your job
you are forcing your children into said lifestyle when they are unable to cope with it.
If your son, before he starts school, is only capable of sleeping for six hours a night, then its reasonable to let him stay up until midnight even after he starts school. However, if he is obviously not coping with such a schedule, then its up to you to change it.
For what its worth, I don’t think parents should let their small children dictate how long and when they want to sleep. Small children CAN get overtired; they are so tired they CAN’T sleep. Its up to the parents to make sure the children are getting enough sleep in order to function in their society (whether that be home, playgroup or school). Which is why my kids go to bed at 8.30pm and get up at 6.30am.
My son is an “owl” like me. He sez that he might well work night shift when he grows up, just like mommy does. If the kid stays up until 2am on the weekends watching TV (quietly), what do I care? It’s not as though my 7-year-old is out getting drunk and whoring around.
I think it all goes back to Ben Franklin, and the assumption that people who get up early are farmers/hardworking, and people who stay up late are drinking, gambling wastrels. Maybe that was actually the case in the 18th century.
Opal, we owls gotta stick together. And by that, I mean our kids, too. All moms know that we have to pick our battles…why battle the kid’s inner clock?
I know exactly what you mean. I’m a natural night owl and I have a sleeping disorder on top of that - and everyone gives me the “If you went to bed at a normal hour…” lecure. It really bugs me because if it was that simple, I’d do it. The problem is that going to bed at a normal hour leaves me lying awake in bed for hours and hours, bored and frustrated. I used to find that going to bed early made me lie awake longer because I’d get so sick of lying there that I’d get mad instead of sleepy.
I always feel more alert at night, even when I’m tired. During the day I have no energy and I feel vaguely unwell all the time, but after about 9pm, I pick up and feel much better. I’ve always figured that I was supposed to be one of the people guarding the cave entrance while the other’s slept, so it’s no surprise to me to see that Mr Visible has found someone else with the same theory I have been like this since childhood, despite having parents who had good sleep patterns, from the age of 5 I have never been good at sleeping at night. I used to be sent to bed around 7:30pm, and I’d still be awake after my parents went to bed at 10:30, and I’d often wake them around midnight when I’d get bored and roam the house.
Oh, and I sleep better in a lighted room, and most especially in a sunlit room.
I am a morning person, as is my husband. My son was a day person when he was little, but that has changed. He gets up around noon, squeezes in an early afternoon cat-nap, and then works 4 til Midnight or so. Then he goes out to hang with the pack and waltzes in around 5 am. When he lived at home, our “quality” time was while I was getting ready for work at 4:30.
I don’t think it is inherently bad, but it makes it difficult to function in a “daytime” world, i.e., banking, dry cleaning, telephone calls, repairmen, blah, blah, blah. But if you fight your own clock, you will make yourself crazy and less productive.
But boy, do I love getting up early…except for work…but it’s not the hour I hate – its the reason. I never sleep in on the weekend.
Well said, but have you seen the schlock that is on TV late at night? If the program is half decent the commercials completely suck, regardless of the channel.
Let the kids decide for themselves when its bedtime if that works for you but I would not let a young child keep a TV on in their room late into the night.
I’m with Opal and the other nightowls. I don’t understand why our society forces everyone into the same schedule despite our differing body clocks. I would be a lot more productive if I were allowed to work 2-10 instead of 8-5.
I think we are seeing a slow move towards allowing people to work to their own body clock. There are an increasing number of jobs which can be done from home, plus there are the usual kinds of shift-work and jobs with flexitime.
Yes, its a SLOW move which probably doesn’t satisfy most of you, but we are getting a lot more options. So I think that this idea of staying up late being inherently bad is gradually being phased out.
**OpalCat[/] – I can only aspire to Kai-ness. My boyfriend and I often ask ourselves, “WWKD?” (What Would Kai Do?) So I settle for being Squish, which isn’t all bad–cute and cuddly, plus I get to be held by Kai and hear him say, “That’s my baby.”
I’ve become intimately familiar with my sleep requirements and preferences in the last few years. (From what I understand, I will become even moreso when I’m an intern.)
When left to my own devices with nothing scheduled to do (like, say, now), I’ll sleep from about 4AM to 10AM. If I get absorbed in something (say, Morrowind), I might be up until 6 or 7.
I’ve also learned that I can be perfectly vibrant and functional on four hours of sleep–but I really, really need those four, or I’m worthless. Six is ideal, and it’s diminishing returns after that–if I sleep 9 or 10 hours, I might as well not even get up.
For some reason, I do feel pangs of guilt for staying up so late, but I’m not sure why. Conditioning, I guess. I also wish my schedule were in sync a bit more with my fiancee’s, although it’s much better when I’m actually working.
I’m yet another night person. I find that when I have several days in a row where I don’t have to get up in the morning, I have a strong tendancy to stay up later each night, and get up in the morning (afternoon) later each day. Normally, I’m lucky to make it to bed by 2 AM, and fight mightily to get up before 10 AM, often failing in that.
I don’t know if it is related to being an owl or not, but I’ve discovered caffeine seems to knock me out.
I can remember when my “bedtime” was ostensibly eight-thirty. I’d read and read and read. Sometimes until dawn. Nothing’s changed, except that as an adult, there’s no pretense of going to bed, and I read and read for a few nights, and then write and write for a few nights.
When I’ve done the 9-to-5 thing, I slept from 3-to-7. I don’t place a lot of value on sleep-- Plenty of time for that when I’m old and enfeebled.
I do think a lot of it has carried over from how things used to be. Like bdgr said, if you stayed out too late you were automatically assumed to be doing something bad.
I’m guessing it all goes back to yee olden times before electricity, when you could really only do as much in a day as there was sunlight. Anyone out after the sun went down was most likely a theif or bandit.
I just got placed on a new schedule at work, I now pull the 8pm to 4am shift. I never thought about it before, but it really sucks that you can’t get off work and go to a pub for a beer, eat at a nice diner, or do practically anything aside from 24 hour grocery stores and Wal Mart. :mad:
I work evenings now (3-11 pm) which suits me fine. I used to work mornings, often getting up at 4:45 am. It was sheer, brutal hell. I had to ply myself with TaB (the miracle beverage) to stay awake each morning. I ate a lot of sugary stuff to keep awake. It was sad. And, each weekend I’d sleep like the dead, and then stay up late. I have always been a night owl!
Of course, everyone assumed that with my morning job, I’d “convert” to mornings and finally be “normal”. But it didn’t work that way. I just proved to myself and everyone else that I hated mornings. I’d paid my dues, I’d gotten up at 4-freaking-am, and I HATED IT! Enough of that!!! I love my schedule now. Here I am, it’s 2:27 in the morning, and I can stay up for a few more hours if I like.
I had an old friend who would call me at 8-9 am, “because that’s when you are supposed to be up”. Never mind that I had told her that I was NEVER up that early. I was “supposed” to be up that early, so that was when she’d call! I finally had to really have a fit before she got the hint.
Another thing that I’ll echo is the sentiment that if someone gets up at 1 am that they are “lazy” or “sleep too much”. Hey - 8 hours of sleep is still 8 hours of sleep. Why the hell does it matter if I sleep from 4 am to noon? It’s still 8 fricking hours, DAMMIT!!! That pisses me off. I should call some of these people at 3 am and say “HEY!! I’M up!!! Why don’t you drag your lazy self out of bed too? You are sleeping too much!” Argh.
I have been like this since childhood, despite having parents who had good sleep patterns, from the age of 5 I have never been good at sleeping at night. I used to be sent to bed around 7:30pm, and I’d still be awake after my parents went to bed at 10:30, and I’d often wake them around midnight when I’d get bored and roam the house.
My boyfriend and I often ask ourselves, “WWKD?” (What Would Kai Do?) So I settle for being Squish, which isn’t all bad–cute and cuddly, plus I get to be held by Kai and hear him say, “That’s my baby.”