Parents How much sleep does your gymnast get in a weeknight?

[Iwannabemargo]

I say again, your schooling is CRAAAAAAAAZZZY

99% of schools here run 8.30-3, no buses, DD is 12, in year 7 (1st year of secondary) gets 3 -4 pieces of homework a week, which she generally wacks out in 1-2 hours on a weekend.

We get home from gym between 9 & 9.30 in the week, then its hot chocolate, snack and bed. And I think that by Friday the tiredness is building up. Weekends is for lie ins and early nights.

 

[skschlag]

D gets home from gym at 9:20 on T,W,TH, F and is in bed by 10:30. He has to get up about right now (6:30) to get to the bus on time (7:05). His school is from 7:45-2:30. He has a little homework during the week but usually gets it done before gym. He was up last night studying for a test. So I think he typically gets 8 hours a night. 9 on Monday nights.

 

[Mrs. Puma]

This is my constant battle. I can never get this kid enough sleep. She has always needed more than her sister. My ten year old is fine with 9 or even 8 hours, but Puma Jr seriously needs like 12 hours which is pretty much impossible most nights. The three week nights she has gym it ends at 8:30 so best case she's in bed by 9:15 and I usually get her up about 8. Thursdays are the worst since I work earlier/further so I have to get her up before 7. I try to get her in bed as early as possible on non gym nights and let her sleep in as long as she wants when there's no school. Thank god Saturday practice is at 10:15 so I drag her out of bed about 9:30. She desperately wants me to homeschool her, mostly for this reason, but I don't think it's an option. I only work part time, but I'd have to do crazy things with my schedule and I have zero homework tolerance, so that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen! Plus Puma is a highschool teacher is the district we live and he wants the kids there, so it would be a tough sell. I also am fearing middle school, which is way more homework and a bus over an hour earlier! Uggg.....

 

[AgingHippie]

, that is crazy early! Having to get up at 6:45 is crazy enough, but to the bus by that time?!? What time will she get home each day?

School ends at 2:25. Bus drops off at 3. We are going to entertain trying to move closer to the school. We have to figure something out!

 

[SurpriseGymMom]

Gymmie is 11, L7. School lets out at 2:30, home, change, eat something, off to gym/dance. We get home at the EARLIEST at 7:30(1-2 days, depending on her sisters schedule), most days it's 9:30pm. Eat a quick snack, go straight to bed around 10, showers only happen on the early days and weekends.... Up at 6:30, school starts at 7:30.
On the early days, she has time to shower and watch tv or something, or even do her homework at home (on the late days, she brings her homework at does it at gym).

 

[NutterButter]

Yep, lack of sleep is one of the things I fret about the most. My 8th grader goes straight to gym from school 3x/week. She gets home at 9pm and then it's eat and homework. Bedtime is between 11 and 11:30pm but in recent weeks has crept closer to midnight. School starts at 9:20 so at least she can sleep in a bit. I find myself looking for more opportunities for DD to get more sleep. At one point I would have avoided a 10:30am orthodontist appointment. Now I willingly accept it as a day for DD to sleep in. Ditto with rainy days when she can't walk to school and I need to drive her - extra 30 minutes of sleep, score! Otherwise I will, on rare occasion, pull DD out of practice early or take her late if it's Saturday if I sense she is really, really sleep deprived (this happens maybe 2-3 times a year and usually other circumstances such as a rough patch with school projects or growth spurt or something different).

The worst part is that my 8 year old follows DD's schedule. He's not up until quite as late as her but almost...I haven't figured out how to make it work with having two kids with totally different bedtimes....

 

[OwlGalLiz]

DS (second grade) is typically asleep by 945 and up at 615 two days a week and 7 the other two. Occasionally he grabs a quick nap on the way to gym (almost an hour drive between school and gym)

 

[mom2newgymnast]

My 7 year old gets up at 7:45 and the bus comes at 8:30. I pick her up in carpool at 3:45 and take her straight to the gym 3 days a week. Practice is 4-8 (we are 15 minutes late). She gets home around 8:30, has dinner, does any homework, etc and usually is in bed by 9:30. So she still gets a good 10 hours of sleep.She doesn't have much homework in 2nd grade thankfully, but I know some of her teammates that are in 3rd and 4th grade are having a harder time fitting in homework lately.

My poor sons though. There school starts at 7:20 and the bus comes around 6:25. They have been waking up around 5:30-5:45 lately. They don't do gymnastics, but are involved in other activities, plus they are 14 and almost 12, so they just don't go to bed early. They are lucky to be in bed by 10:00-10:30 and I suspect average around 7 hours a night. By the weekend, the oldest is exhausted. Sometimes he sleeps for 12+ hours a night on the weekend if we let him.

 

[aerials]

Wow, thank you for asking this question. I've been thinking about this all year, I feel better that we are not alone in this situation. My dd (in 6th grade) goes straight to gym from school, gets home at 9:00, eats dinner then homework. Homework has been insane this year, at least one hour if not 3 hours most nights. This is every night, there hasn't been any breaks. There have been nights when she goes to bed at midnight. At least she only gets up at 7:45. She can get a pass to postpone the homework for one day but usually that will just add more to the next day.

Iwannabemargo - I'm moving to UK now after reading your post

 

[mkwh]

She gets out of public school at 2:30, has to wait at the school for me until 3:15. She gets all homework done during that time ( thankfully at this age -5th grade- that works. We drive straight from school to gym. Gym 4-7 5days a week. Home at 7:30. She then has until 9 for dinner, shower, chill, whatever. Strict bedtime of 9:00. Gets up at 6:00 to leave for school at 7. So that is 9 hours of sleep. Works great now but Im a little worried about the extra homework that will come with middle school next year and getting out of school 30 min later.

 

[Rockygym]

7 yo, L4, 2nd grade so thankfully not a lot of homework yet. On gym nights, out of school at 3:02, walk the 50 yards home and then rest/snack until 3:40, then off to gym. Gym is 3night/week from 4-8. Home by 8:20 or so then get dinner, usually shower, read and do either spelling/math workbook and she is usually lights out around 9:15-9:30. She wakes up anywhere between 7 and 7:45, so usually gets between 9 and 10 hours of sleep.

On non gym nights my goal is for her to be in bed by 8, but she is the queen of the delay tactics and gym has made her a bit of a nightowl, so it is usually more like 8:30.

 

[Mrs. Puma]

She doesn't have much homework in 2nd grade thankfully, but I know some of her teammates that are in 3rd and 4th grade are having a harder time fitting in homework lately.

At least in my area, 2nd to 3rd seemed like a big jump 3rd to 4th seemed fairly similar for my older daughter, so hopefully next year Puma Jr will be ok. But 5th grade is middle school for us and my older daughter is getting A LOT of work this year, so I fear for that in a couple years!

 

[gymjunkie]

If you talk to homeschooling parents of high level athletes, you will find that one of the primary reasons they decide to homeschool is not so that their kids can train longer, it's so they can get adequate sleep!

 

[lovegymnastics22]

I also appreciate this thread as I spend so much time worrying about this! 4 days a week DD8 up at 7, school 8:15-3:15, carpool right to gym 3:45-7:45 carpool drops home at 8:30. I really, really, really try to get her in bed at 9 and can read til 9:30 because I think she needs at least the 9.5 hours. But that basically means she has only 30min(!) at home with us, which means some days HW is saved until the morning, many days she doesn't shower, some days she practices 10 minutes piano, some days we have a longer dinner and get to talk, some days she gets dinner in front of TV.

The tension between us wanting to just hang out with her and hear about her day with racing to get stuff done so I can get her in bed makes this sometimes a really crappy 30 minutes and then she's in bed and I'm so sad that I didn't even really get to talk to her.

 

[ZJsMom]

Gosh some of your kids seem really sleep deprived. I thought my DS had it bad sometimes because he gets out of practice at 9:00 and when there's a test or a lot of homework he's up to 11:00, but he doesn't have to get up until around 7:30. So I guess that's not as bad as some.

 

[Seeker]

I say again, your schooling is CRAAAAAAAAZZZY

99% of schools here run 8.30-3, no buses, DD is 12, in year 7 (1st year of secondary) gets 3 -4 pieces of homework a week, which she generally wacks out in 1-2 hours on a weekend.

We get home from gym between 9 & 9.30 in the week, then its hot chocolate, snack and bed. And I think that by Friday the tiredness is building up. Weekends is for lie ins and early nights.

I agree -- they are crazy....and clearly not results oriented. What the result is (imho) will be a whole generation of kids who grew up sleep-deprived and completely stressed out kids. Only time will tell what that means for our kids. I don't think it will be good.

Thank God we homeschool!!

 

[MILgymFAM]

I agree -- they are crazy....and clearly not results oriented. What the result is (imho) will be a whole generation of kids who grew up sleep-deprived and completely stressed out kids. Only time will tell what that means for our kids. I don't think it will be good.

Thank God we homeschool!!

Yes, this. We live in an area with really high teen suicide rates. These kids are pushed into exhaustion, depression, self-doubt. All without a good reason. Going from prep to ivy isn't worth anyone's health or life. It's sad. My ODD would have had school (hs) from 7 to 3:30 this year. She would have had to get up at 6am and probably would have been lucky to get 6.5 hours of sleep per night.

 

[cbifoja]

Gosh some of your kids seem really sleep deprived.

:-/

 

[mom2newgymnast]

Yes, this. We live in an area with really high teen suicide rates. These kids are pushed into exhaustion, depression, self-doubt. All without a good reason. Going from prep to ivy isn't worth anyone's health or life. It's sad. My ODD would have had school (hs) from 7 to 3:30 this year. She would have had to get up at 6am and probably would have been lucky to get 6.5 hours of sleep per night.

I just want to say that, for us at least, the early start times have nothing to do with a high pressure school system. It has everything to do with resources, specifically buses. We have a 3 tiered bus systems so the same buses have to be used for 3 different routes. So the times are staggered so the buses can make all 3 routes. Schools start at either 7:20, 8:30 or 9:15 (give or take 5 minutes). There has been some debate about the fact that most of the 7:20 schools are the middle and high schools though. Many feel that the older kids need more sleep and should have the later start time. But I think the earlier time sticks around because of sports and after school jobs.

ETA: I was commenting on the last couple of threads, although by accident I only quoted one. I don't know how to change that in the edit window.

 

[MILgymFAM]

I just want to say that, for us at least, the early start times have nothing to do with a high pressure school system. It has everything to do with resources, specifically buses. We have a 3 tiered bus systems so the same buses have to be used for 3 different routes. So the times are staggered so the buses can make all 3 routes. Schools start at either 7:20, 8:30 or 9:15 (give or take 5 minutes). There has been some debate about the fact that most of the 7:20 schools are the middle and high schools though. Many feel that the older kids need more sleep and should have the later start time. But I think the earlier time sticks around because of sports and after school jobs.

I guess that's a step better than us, at least. There would be no busing for my DDs if they were in public school, so that's not the issue here. They just have long days.