Viewing 16 posts - 1 through 16 (of 16 total)
  • Waking up with the alarm(s)
  • SaxonRider
    Full Member

    My 16 year-old son does tend to go to bed very late. He’s done it since he was quite a bit younger, and now that he is studying hard for his A-levels, there is little prospect of him improving his situation soon.

    That said, he sets his alarm – or I should say alarms, as he sets about 3 and places them around his room – but then, when they go off in the morning, he sleeps right through them.

    The situation is almost supernatural. I can currently hear them on a different level of the house, and feel the vibration of them through the floor, but he is out completely and there is no waking him up.

    I think he has trained himself to ignore the alarms, but he just keeps setting them every night with the best intentions of getting up in the morning. Uh huh. Fat chance of that.

    In any case, are there techniques a person can practice in order to wake up when he needs to, and switch the brain on in the morning in order to actually respond to things?

    weeksy
    Full Member

    Walking in there battering a pan with a wooden spoon will help with the first bit at least.

    zippykona
    Full Member

    Curtains open? Always easier to wake up in daylight.

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...
    Latest Singletrack Videos
    thepurist
    Full Member

    Curtains open this time of year, might not be so welcome in early June. Or a daylight alarm of some sort?

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    He’s got to sort his sleep habits. We’ve one who if he doesn’t sleep can also just seemingly ignore alarms. Sleep habits are huge – and related to excercise, eating and screen habits as much as just climbing into bed earlier. He needs to be physically tired, have had good diet at good times, and to just switch off pc and lie down…

    Teens are actually ‘hardwired’ to sleep later/be nocturnal. There’s evidence that to delay the school day until lunch start would improve many outcomes for them – happier, healthier, better connotative cognitive function.

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    Big drink of water before bed.
    His bladder’ll wake him up better than an alarm clock.

    MoreCashThanDash
    Full Member

    Get him a paper round. Eldest is up at 6.20 every weekday morning to get up, fed, paper round, bus to school/college at 8.00.

    £25 a week for working 45 minutes a day has been very motivational. Christmas tips broke £200 this year, like having a 14 month year. He’s happy it’s not affecting his A levels and wants to carry on till he either finds a full time job for the summer or goes to uni.

    Greybeard
    Free Member

    If he needs to wake up at that time, for online lessons etc, he needs to reset his body clock (as matt_oab says) and get to bed earlier. If he’s studying independently, he’s better sleeping until he wakes then getting up asap.

    zippykona
    Full Member

    Our friend has laid down the law that her 19 year old MUST be up by 4pm!

    Tom-B
    Free Member

    One of my guitar students slept through his lesson during half term (I was giving him an extra one due to internet issues in term time)

    His lesson was a 2pm.

    I’ve been a pro musician for over a decade. Currently girlfriend works weddings, so both of us are creatures of the night. We’re usually up by 10am though….which is probably fairly lax for a pair of 30 year olds!

    Duggan
    Full Member

    I’m sort-of jealous tbh. I remember being able to sleep until about 2pm at that age at times.

    Now, I’m lucky if sleep past 6am and even when I can lie-in I just lie there awake with random unwanted thoughts bugging me and a nagging sense that I should be doing something.

    DrP
    Full Member

    ha!
    One of my huge bugbears is people who ‘reset’ their sleep pattern to a compete ‘day night’ swap for no valid reason i.e teens!!
    My OH’s daughter does this..is up till 5am, then sleeps till the afternoon. It’s not like she has a night shift to do.. she just does it ‘cos it seems cool’. It messes up everything for everyone else.

    In answer to your question, and to solve the problem, if you want to reset your sleep cycle, you need to do it from WAKE UP time..often going to bed earlier doesn’t initially work, as you’re not actually tired.
    You need to wake up at (say) 7am every day…and you’ll be super tired to start with,but eventually will WANT to go to bed earlier.

    How to wake up you say..? it’s really not that hard. If YOU hear the alarm..jsut go wake them. Pour water on his head if needed.

    You might find a SAD lamp connected to a timer plug doe the job… 3000 lumen blasting in your face is hard to ignore!!

    It’s not easy, but not hard either..

    DrP

    PhilO
    Free Member

    I was going to suggest a bucket of icy water, but I see that DrP has beaten me to it. 😀

    Also +1 for the SAD lamp or open curtains suggestions. The body clock is at least partially re-set every day by hormones triggered through exposure to daylight, so this really helps with the ‘retraining’ side of things.

    I’ve never understood why anybody would choose to be awake while it’s dark and then sleep through the hours of daylight. I was even annoyed when the BBC switched the main news from 9pm to 10pm.

    reluctantjumper
    Full Member

    Waking up is something I’m struggling with too at the moment as I have no need to be up at 6/7/8am most days currently. I used to be able to switch between day/night shifts with ease, be regimented about going to bed at the right time for waking up correctly the next day and my pre-sleep routine was dialled in completely. 5 months of not working and having no need to be up at a certain time have destroyed all of that though. I can manage to get up at a certain time for 1 day at the moment but I am knackered the next day as I never get enough good sleep! It’s going to be tough re-acclimatising when I get back to working or even just being allowed to do things!

    He needs to work on his sleep hygiene which, as others has mentioned, is all about training the mind and body to realise that at X time you go to sleep then you should naturally wake up around the time of the alarms. You could also try switching to a mechanical-type alarm. Digital noises are easy to ignore and filter out (like car alarms) but a sodding great mechanical bell going off is much harder. An old-style alarm clock might be a good idea, supplemented with frying pans and water if required.

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    How to wake up you say..? it’s really not that hard. If YOU hear the alarm..jsut go wake them. Pour water on his head if needed.

    Spoken like someone who’s never actually tried to wake a 16 year old boy.

    I have lost count of the number of times i’ve woken my 16 year old son to the point of him being out of bed, been to the toilet and stood on the floor opening drawers to get dressed, only to leave him and find him in bed and snoring 30 mins later.

    Hob-Nob
    Free Member

    We have a Lumi sunrise thing. I struggle in the winter to get up in the dark at 6.30 every day, but it’s been brilliant ever since we have had it. Find I wake up naturally with the light now every morning, before the alarm even goes off.

    No we are reaching the point of on a clear day its getting light near that time anyway, which is lovely, nothing quite as depressing as waking up in the pitch black & it being dark for another 2 hours at that time of the day.

Viewing 16 posts - 1 through 16 (of 16 total)

The topic ‘Waking up with the alarm(s)’ is closed to new replies.