It’s not bad for her. Don’t worry about it. Also, a third of the population are night owls anyway.
If you’re concerned about her slouching around the house all day, give her some jobs to do. It doesn’t matter if they get done at 9am or at 3pm, as long as there’s enough actual material in there that she accomplished something during the day (either for herself or for the household, or both)
Agree about chores. And the household shouldn’t have to tiptoe around to accommodate her sleep schedule. By the same token, she needs to keep it down when everyone else is sleeping normal hours. In other words, the household doesn’t revolve around her.
My SIL is a night person who sleeps in till nearly noon. Now, he does work the night shift, but when he comes home, he’ll be up till the wee hours of the morning. However, he’s quiet - I never hear him get home nor do I hear him go to bed. And since it’s because of his job, I have no problems waiting till he’s awake before vacuuming. But I don’t tiptoe around.
Is there anything you need her to do? No? Then leave her alone. Do you like when people come into your room and wake you up for no reason? No? Then why would you think your daughter likes it?
She’s a kid. She’ll grow out of it. And if she’s very unlucky she’ll be an insomniac.
My teens had chores and I just told them what to do. If it got done I never worried. If it went undone then there were consequences.
The lil’wrekker could sleep 14hrs straight, sometimes as a teen. She is now 21yo and is beginning to have sleepless times.
To me 11:15 would be unreasonable, and I would consider removing her curtains from her room and explain how her actions affect others. There are reasonable limits and their are absurd limits, this fits in the second category. A doctor’s visit would be in order on 2 levels, one is the potential excessive sleep and the second would be for mental health as her reply seems to indicate that being screened for depression may be in order.
The OP didn’t say what time her daughter was going to sleep. Is she going to sleep at ten pm and sleeping fourteen hours until noon? Or is she going to sleep at four am and sleeping eight hours until noon?
One is a matter of excessive sleeping. The other is a matter of scheduling.
Teens just need more sleep than adults. If you expect her to get by on your sleep schedule, you are depriving her of what her body needs. That is unhealthy. That will be inconvenient for people in the same house that need less sleep. If you truly care about her health, deal with the inconvenience.
There are health risks correlated with being a night owl. Correlation is not causation. Not everybody has the same internal sleep schedule. There is a pretty strong genetic component to what our natural sleep schedules are. If you read through the cite about half of what determines someones sleep schedule is determined by the time of her birth. That is a similar strength of genetic predisposition as she has for her sexuality. She may literally just have been born this way
There are people with societally normal sleep cycle dispositions that end up on later schedules. Some sleep hygiene work can get them on a more natural cycle which might be healthier for them. Those same techniques can help night owls operate differently than how they were born. For them it is a lifelong struggle against who they are to fit in. As one of those people, I can tell you it can be hard work to maintain that schedule. Trying to fit that square peg into society’s round hole of acceptable sleep schedules comes with real costs. Moralizing by calling us lazy or unmotivated doesn’t help.
I’m 41 and have always had a late sleep schedule (sometimes called DSPD). I sleep a healthy 7-8 hours every night, but from around 3-11.
School was miserable, largely as a function of this. Having to wake up four hours before my body was ready was not good for me, mentally or physically. It only relented when I went to college and could largely avoid early classes. Since then I’ve always managed to find jobs that fit my schedule.
There is absolutely nothing unhealthy about having a delayed schedule; on the contrary, it’s unhealthy to force people with a late schedule onto a “normal” one.
As noted, this may be just an age thing, or it may be how your daughter is permanently wired. But regardless, if she is getting a normal amount of sleep (probably 7-10 hours is normal for a teen), there is nothing wrong. Find a way for her to do chores in your overlapping hours.
Re: Scheduling - she has her own room. I don’t know what time she’s sleeping.
If she wants to sleep “late” - fine, her problem to manage.
Bed time is expected to be around 11pm / midnight.
Assuming she’s “chatting” on social media past then - I have very definite issues with that.
In my mind it’s not a healthy lifestyle to be on social media all night and then sleeping all day.
Particularly when she is expected to help out around the house, and has other homework to be done
Like it or not - during school time, she has to be at school by 8:15, I don’t want to be falling into this habit of sleeping at 3 or 4 am - what’s going to happen when back at school?
For a start - what am I supposed to say to the younger sister? When she wants to go to bed late and then sleep late.
Next up - it affects her mother, having one of the rooms closed
It affects me - during the sunshine hours having someone asleep in a darkened room affects how I feel.
Unless there is a very good reason (nightshift or sickness) I very much associate this sort of sleep pattern with unproductive habits as well as slovenliness - it’s not something that I will allow to be propagated.
I don’t see the problem here. Just tell both of them that if they get the thing done that need to be done in a timely matter, then they can sleep when they want.
Why have rooms at all then?
Do you beat the wicked left-handedness out of her too? Have you banned music because it might lead to dancing?
Just let the poor kid sleep. She’ll learn the hard way when she has to get up for school at the asscrack of dawn.
She’s going to be groggy and grouchy for a couple of days (as are probably 2/3 of her classmates), and she’ll very likely get back into her normal routine pretty quickly.
My natural sleep rhythm – that is, what I fall into when I don’t have to be up at a certain time – is to stay up until 2 a.m. or so, and sleep until 10. I’m actually at my most creative from about 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. I’ve been that way since I was your daughter’s age; I’m 55 now, and I’ve not ever had a problem with being able to get up for school or work.
I get it – you don’t like her sleeping in like that, and you’re ascribing a number of vices to it:
She’s 15. Assuming that she’s at home because her school is closed due to coronavirus, bear in mind that social life, her routines, her entire world, have been disrupted. She might be depressed, sure, or she may just not want to have to deal with things.
Is she getting her chores done? Is she getting her assigned schoolwork (if there is any) done? Is she behaving herself otherwise? If the answers to those are “yes,” IMO, get off her case. If she was sneaking out of the house to see her friends, or out there drinking (which a lot of bored teens are doing), then, yeah, you’d have some serious issues to deal with. Count yourself fortunate, and try to not make a mountain out of a molehill.
This is clearly mainly not about her. It’s mainly about you. You need to separate your feelings and preferences from actual issues.
It’s her obligation to do her homework, do her chores, and make it to school on time, when school is open.
Of she’s not accomplishing those things, then intervention is justified, but the intervention should only be about getting those things done. Your feelings about a healthy lifestyle and being sad when a door is closed is not something your should be imposing on her.
This kid is 15 now, she’s begun the process of pulling away from her parents and living her own life. Yes there are some thing in a broad sense that you should be supervising, such as her meeting her actual obligations and not doing anything illegal. But her Scheduling preferences should be left up to her. You’re not going to win any battles you chose to engage in that front.
As for the younger sister, supervised her the same way. She must meet her obligations, but beyond that it’s not up to her to adjust her sleep schedule to what makes you feel nice.
