Don't Lose Sleep

I used to be a fan of late bedtimes (I was the only kid in my fourth-grade class to know who Ed McMahon was), but now that my husband and I have kids of our own, we're desperate to get them settled every night. Despite our good intentions, bedtime at our house is routinely hijacked by homework, phone calls and the occasional tantrum--kids' and parents' both. Throw in wild cards like sickness, sleepovers and daylight saving time, and it's no wonder we've all got circles under our eyes.

Even the kids, who are night owls, are admitting they're tired. Our 11-year-old is having trouble getting up in the morning. Our languorous eight-year-old has offered to drop ballet lessons so she can get more rest. And our three-year-old has taken to muttering, "I'm exhausted!"

The kids seem to catch up on their sleep on the weekends, but I wouldn't trust my husband or me to operate heavy machinery anytime soon. We're not alone. A new poll by the National Sleep Foundation reports that 76% of parents with children younger than 18 are likely to have one or more sleep problems--including difficulty falling asleep, snoring, waking up unrefreshed and sleep apnea--a few nights a week or more. As a result, those folks get half an hour less of sleep a night than their childless counterparts.

For help, I contacted Dr. Judith Owens, director of the Pediatric Sleep Disorders Clinic at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence, R.I. She started with our eldest kid, noting that although adolescents still need as much as 9 1/2 hours of sleep every night, they often get sleepy about an hour later than they did before hitting puberty. Ideally, if they go to bed later, they should sleep later, but that scenario conflicts with most school schedules. Thus some activists are lobbying to start the day later at middle and high schools nationwide. In the meantime, Owens suggests that kids steal a few minutes of morning sleep by skipping a shower here and there and by setting out clothes and backpacks the night before.

Owens wasn't as concerned about our eight-year-old, who usually gets about 10 hours of sleep a night, with a frequent change of venue--to her parents' bed--around dawn. But Owens was worried about us: "These wakings are more likely to disturb you than her." Make that my husband. He sleeps through nothing, while I snooze through all manner of commotion. To help him get the recommended eight hours for adults, Owens said we should set limits. For instance, no coming into our room before Daddy's alarm goes off.

Now for our three-year-old. To help him reach his quota of 11 hours a day, lately I've been letting him doze in the car while I drive the girls to their after-school activities. But that means he often stays up later than his sisters, which puts his parents at risk of a breakdown. Owens suggested we end the late-afternoon car naps and instead take our son to his room well before then and help him find his midday circadian trough, one of two low points humans experience in energy level each day. (The other one is in the middle of the night.)

Finally, Owens plugged an upcoming advice book about sleep, for which she wrote the foreword. It's called The 7 O'Clock Bedtime, something I'm thinking of trying. For myself. Good night, kids.

For more information about family sleep habits, see the 2001 Sleep in America poll at www.sleepfoundation.org