Teenagers and Sleep

[joyce knipp]

Anyone have any suggestions on getting my teen to go to bed? He will get up after I go to sleep and be up all hours...School is starting soon and that will help but I will still have weekends to inforce regular sleep habits. I am running out of restrictions for him ,,,should I bribe him???

[JIM RPSGT-CRT-EEGT]

no do not bribe him this will set a bad habit and he could start doing things wrong just to get you to bribe him again.
if anything you should start taking things away from him the more he does not follow the rule then take more away.
look into his habits at night before food drink the thing he is putting into his system could be adding to him being awake. set a time for bed and to get up even on the weekends his sleep clock is off but i really think his intake is causing the problems also.

[Jen H. RMA]

Your son's circadian rythm or internal clock does not allow him to fall asleep at the normal 9 or 10 PM bedtime. Some good suggestions are:

Remove computer and TV from room
Dim lights before bed
Turn down volume on TV and radio in the home
Avoid caffeine a good 6 hours before bed
Do not excercise prior to bed time

All of these will promte good sleep hygiene! Good luck!

[Tyler Brett]

You should definitely not bribe him. This won't have the result you actually want. You should not be to strict with him maybe this helps a little bit. All I can say is when I was a teen I did exactly the same and as I grew older it got better. So lets hope that it is the same with your son. Besides this the suggestions Jen gave are very good.

[Jan]

There are several studies out there that indicate teenagers are hormonely not ready to go to sleep until 11:00 to 12:00 p.m. Some high schools have even changes their class hours to start later with improvements in test scores. So it seems to help some teens function better. Still good sleep habtits is the number one aid mentioned to help; parent-teen.com has a pretty good article about it. I'm sure your health practitioner can help.

I raised two sons, and one is still a night owl even though he is in his twenties now. So I have to ask is sleeping the real issue or is it worrying about school performance? I didn't worry about restrictions as long as they demonstrated good work ethics and kept up with their work. They both graduated high school with a 3.8 GPA or better. -- Good luck

[Tova Greenberg]

We all have an internal sleep clock that works on a 24 hour cycle. It takes until our mid to late 20's for that clock to actually beat properly, so our sleep habits change as we age. Notice how a baby can sleep virtually all day and as time goes by takes longer and longer breaks between sleep. During adolescence, this clock is reset. This same clock is what cues our body to release the hormones we need to bring about sleep and in teenagers the cue comes later at night. And teens actually need 9 hours of sleep - an hour more than adults. So this also explains why they struggle to get out of bed in the morning. Knowledge is power so educate yourself about teens and sleep and educate your teen as well. Talk about it together and agree on a plan that will help him adjust.