How much more sleep does a homeschooler get?

Question

I am thinking about sleep this morning. My daughter has been fighting a cold, and today I am letting her sleep as long as she needs to. We will do our schoolwork in the afternoon, if need be. I know on a daily basis she gets about an hour more sleep than her public school neighborhood friends who have to be up early to catch the bus. I often wonder if this accounts for my children's happy dispositions? It is well known that adequate sleep promotes good health. How much sleep do your kids get?

Answer 1

Funny you should ask:

This morning I was up before my daughter. That's unusual for us. She's normally the early riser and I'm the shambling heap in the morning. When her alarm went off she got up to say good morning and feed the cat and just said, "I'm still sleepy. Can I go back to bed?" I let her have another hour and a half before I sent the dogs in to rouse her. (I'm horrible, I know.)Her daddy has had the flu and it is my guess that she's had a brush with the germ herself. I love that I can let her rest as she requires. It is so much healthier.

Answer 2

My two teens have to be in bed reading at 9 and lights out is at 9:30.  My eldest invariably manages to drag this out til well after 10 most nights.  I wake them around 7 AM and they have to be up by 8 and ready for school by 9.

I wish I could say they're happy but most of the time the oldest is cranky when he gets up, for at least a half hour.  I have noticed a correlation between how late he stays awake and how UGLY he is in the morning though.

Answer 3

School starts for us at 8am, so my children are up at about 2-2.5 hours earlier. Bedtime varies by age. Everyone gets roughly  8 hours of sleep, and they get to sleep in on Saturday, even though they have classes for a few hours.

God bless you. †

Answer 4

My son is allowed to follow his body's natural rhythm.  He's 9, almost 10, and usually sleeps 11 hours a night.  He's a night person like me, so we start school later in the morning or in the afternoons.  It works so much better for us!

We've had colds running through our family and HS'ing is so nice - no calling the bus and the school to say my DS won't be there - and he can just take all the time he wants to sleep it off - me, too!

My DD is in PS and it's so annoying when she's ill.  She just can't go to sleep before 9 or 10 but has to be up at 7 to catch the bus.  She's two years younger than her brother but only gets around 9 hrs of sleep.  Eventually by Wed or Thurs, she crashes after school - sometimes for 3 or more hours.  It's not healthy.

Answer 5

My kids get about the same 11 hours per night as they did when they were in public school ...

When in PS, they had to be in bed by 8pm so they could be up by 7am to be at school by 7:45am.

Now that we homeschool, they are in bed by 9pm and up at 8am so we can get things going for the day. Granted sometimes, they get to stay up a little later, and sleep in a little later, which they didn't have that freedom as much when they were in PS, but we still try to stick to that schedule as much as possible.

Answer 6

i get about 9 hrs a night i recently whiched to homeschooling, due to skipped class's. I am now an A student with James Madison.I dont no if its the sleep or the freedom of choosing what class i do when. But i really enjoy it. Even one of my friends started homeschooling this year.

Answer 7

As much as they need.

Answer 8

My kids are night owls. They usually are in bed at 10 - 10:30. I let them sleep until 7:30 or 8:00 depending on the work load. My 11 year old likes to squeeze in a nap after lunch if she can. I know that our high school bus picks up at 7am in the morning. My daughter would be tired all the time if she had to get up that early. There was recently a news article on TV saying something about teens needing to sleep in more, that if effected their performance at school. Sorry, I can't give you a link, I just vaguely remember it.

added:

Brandy, I was actually going to ask why you got thumbs down for your initial answer (I can see a little validity depending on how old the child was), but now that I see what you added you will just get reported. Its to bad that you are so insecure about yourself that you have to resort to making fun of people.

My daughter actually does go to school for 3 classes, one of them a leadership class where she excels. She has many friends, and never has a problem fitting in. I hope you feel more secure about yourself soon.

Answer 9

I go to public school

My bus comes at 6:30 in the morning and the earliest I can ever go to sleep is about 10:30.

I am a high school student taking all honors courses and I stay after until about 4 everyday. Usually I don't get home until about 4:30 or 5. When I come home I have to start my HW right away or I will be up even later. The latest I have ever stayed up was 1:30 to get up at 5:50. I never have time for my family or friends, or even to do anything fun during the week.  When I am sick, I can't miss a day of school because I will have to make up too much work.

Some of my friends, who are on sports teams, don't get home until 5:30/6:00 and when they have a game sometimes they don't get home until 8:00-9:00. A lot of my friends come into school saying they didn't sleep at all that night, or didn't get to bed until 2 in the morning.

I hate the hours of my school. My start time is at 7:15 and school ends at 2:03, but in reality the school hours are 7:15-4:00.

So if you child gets more than seven hours a sleep at night, then she gets more.

Answer 10

I get 8 to 9 hours on an average night. Some nights though I may only get 5, but only under unusual circomstances. I was lucky to get 6 when I was in public school. The way they assign homework and plan your schedule it sometimes felt as though their goal was to deprive you of sleep. And then they stress how important sleep is before tests. I was ALWAYS sick in public school, at least to some degree, and I was never as cheerful as I've been as a home schooler, except maybe in the early years when it was still possible to see family, maybe have some social time, eat dinner, bathe, and still get to bed at a reasonable hour.

Answer 11

I don't know but if my kids are sick I just don't home school that day! I let them get better first. Now if they ask that's different we'll pull out the books!

Answer 12

My kids are all different.  My 9yr old sleeps from 8:30 till 7:00 or so.  My 11yr old is often awake till 9:30 and we wake her between 8:30 and 9:00.

My 14 yr old is awake till 10:30 and he's up 8:30 or 9:00 as well.

Their friends are up by 6:30 to get ready for school.   It's tough on them because they always seem to be very tired.

Answer 13

I am doing an independent study program at school due to an illness which one of the symptoms is extreme fatigue. I am allowed to sleep as much as I need because of that, because I don't have to get up to go to school, and because my parents want my immune system at it's best so I don't catch anything.

Also, I get about 10-11 hours of sleep each night, and sometimes a 30 min. nap.

Answer 14

I usually get about 9hrs i go to sleep at 12:30 and wake up at 8:30 or so. I get alot more sleep than i use to when i went to public school. When i went to public school i got like 7 or less hrs.