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How Much Do They Sleep?


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Near the very top of my ever growing list of pet peeves is the fact that a little over 16 years ago I came home from the hospital with a baby. This new person didn't come with an instruction book!!

I think the fact that he is still here after 16 years, without coming with an instruction manual, just proves how two people who don't have any idea about what they are doing can at times be very lucky.

As many who visit this forum know I think our son is not a bad kid, in fact most of the time I see him as a good kid. However lately he seems to spend a lot of time sleeping. In fact sleeping seems to have become his favorite activity. He comes home from School and falls asleep, he will stay in bed asleep till noon sleeping if we let him.

The house rule is that he has to be in bed by 11:00 and everything turned off by 11:30. He is in bed asleep by 10:30!!

I don't ever remember sleeping as much as he does. Do all kids sleep this much? Or is this just a stage?

Of course I have put it all down to him being a lazy little toad.

Boy I wish he had came with instructions!!

Eamonn.

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Eammon we forget how hard these guys are working sometimes... Be glad he doesn't still try to stay up and then grump it out the next day!

Wondering if we could develop some sort of an index based on calendar age and oversized feet (indicating rate of growth) Might be fun, if only to come up with a name and the necessary acronym.

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Eamonn, he sounds pretty normal to me. Since their births I worked at a schedule for our boys, and 11 & 12 years later, they are still going to bed at 8 pm. Recently we began allowing them to stay up a little later, but they will often ask to go to bed by then. I wake them at 7 am every morning, and over the summer they were waking as early as 5 & 6 am. A week into school, and they needed to be shaken out of bed by 7. Growth combined with the hard work of school, the athletics and scouting events and social time--it seems perfectly appropriate that a youth would sleep longer considering this stuff. If he really worries you, a call to the doctor wouldn't be out of line. When I notice a significant change in sleeping patterns (has only happened twice), I've called--once it was due to allergies, once it was due to growth, but both times I got piece of mind that things were ok.

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You didn't mention how his grades are in school?

If they are good then he is just being a kid.

If they are not you night want to check and make sure he isn't suffering from depression. One of the main signs of depression is excessive sleeping.

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Eamonn, i would venture to say it's a phase. My little twerp turns 16 on the 16th :). He is a sophmore, and almost always takes a nap when he gets home from school (and the sleeping 'til noon... ditto). I find it difficult to fault him since he's getting up at 5:30am to catch his bus at 6:30am. I'm just afraid he'll get his days and nights mixed up like when he was a baby. He also spends alot of time in his room (i did too).

 

Don't let it bug you, if this is our biggest complaint about our kids... we got it made! :)

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Eamonn, let me suggest another possibility. When I was that age I also started sleeping a lot - naps after school, early to bed, etc. My mom took me to the doctor when I also started complaining about joint pain. The first diagnosis was low iron - not completely correct. Turned out after further testing that I had hypothyroidism - a condition where the pituitary doesn't stimulate the thyroid gland to produce enough thyroid. Simple fix - take prescribed thyroid. With the exception of a couple of years I've taken it ever since. It is usually a female "thing" but my brother has it too so it's not exclusive.

 

The sleep pattern might be normal, then again it might not...

 

Vicki

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I watched a special on PBS a few years back they where exploring why teenagers sleep so much. The program suggested that the teenagers brains where developing during sleep, and that teenagers that got to sleep at least 12 hours a night on weekends where better off than those getting 8 hours a night.

 

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