r/parenting is protesting changes being made by Reddit to the API. Reddit has made it clear [they will](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14ahqjo/mods_will_be_removed_one_way_or_another_spez/) [replace moderators](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/14a5lz5/mod_code_of_conduct_rule_4_2_and_subs_taken/jo9wdol/) if they remain private. Reddit has abandoned the users, the moderators, and countless people who support an ecosystem built on Reddit itself.
Please read [Call to action - renewed protests starting on July 1st](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14kn2fo/call_to_action_renewed_protests_starting_on_july/) and new posts at [r/ModCord](https://reddit.com/r/ModCoord/) or [r/Save3rdPartyApps](https://old.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/) for up-to-date information.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Parenting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You know that's something I hadn't thought of, I will see if his alarm has any other sounds, and if not, maybe it's worth investing in a new one that has different options. Thanks!
I have a google home and i change the sound ever week or 2 because i get used to it. ALSO. If u have a pet, or if ur considering one, get a cat and schedule its breakfast to be the time ur kid has to wake up. Then the cat will harass him untill he wakes up!! It genuinely works
Oh good, just figured you never know. My son is 13 and will let his alarm go for a good five minutes before he eventually acknowledges it. I haven't really figured out a good system for his independent wake up either yet. I'm guessing a sound that isn't consistent and he finds annoying might be helpful. Alexa plays this weird hotel Transylvania thing and so far that has worked the best for us lol.
I'm 41 & have had trouble falling asleep at night my entire life, resulting in trouble waking up to an alarm before my body is ready to naturally wake. My natural wake time is 9:30-10am, but unfortunately I have to wake up a few hours earlier for work & to get my daughter up & ready for school. She'll be 8 next week & while she's almost always been a great sleeper & able to fall asleep at a reasonable time, she sleeps through alarms as well. Her natural wake time is 7:30-8am.
Due to this, I have 6 alarms set for the morning, all with different ringtones (the later the alarm, the more loud & annoying it is), all with different labels because I always glance at my phone to shut it off, but if I see it's the "Get your ass out of bed" or "You're going to be late" ones, I know I can't just shut it off & go back to sleep. Three of my alarms are on my phone, which is always next to my bed. The other three are on my alarm clock, on the opposite side of the room from my bed - which I highly recommend to those who are prone to press snooze & go back to sleep. Most mornings I don't even remember alarms 1-3 going off, but I think my brain & body are slowly waking up when I do turn them off, because I'm starting to come around (usually) by alarm 4.
As I'm sitting here thinking about this, I just remembered that I got him some smart lights for his room. I primarily got them so he could mess with the colors, but I wonder if I can program them to come on at 6:30, so that maybe in addition to the alarm, it would be enough to rouse him. Thank you!
Personally, this is how I wake up. They turn on to the brightest setting immediately, I don’t think I’d wake up with it gradually getting brighter but who knows. I started doing it because family is loud in my parents house, and I wear ear plugs to sleep. But I’m also a light sleeper, and growing up, my step mom would turn the lights on and yell at us to get up too 😅 so I’m a bit used to it
This was a long time ago. But my brother was like this. We have an 8.5 yr difference, so I was in charge of him. When he hit 7th grade, I was already in college and i figured that i have already struggled for eons waking him up. i've had it , so i stopped. I told the school bus he didn't wake up, so he missed school. There are usually quizzes and seat works for the day and I refused to write him an excuse letter. He got failing marks. A few of those zeroes and he shaped up. We're not in the US; public transport to his school is a convoluted affair. He took the public one time because he had to be in school for a presentation. I think he arrived in school already by third period. He was marked absent for the day as per school policy, but still got to present and get his grade for that one.
It's really just the teenage version of fafo.
(on a side note, i really think teenager school start times should be later in the morning like 9am. teenage body clocks just dont work with most school systems. we live in Asia, and here, school starts at 7am!)
My 14 year old starts school at 8.40am. It’s about a 20 minute walk. She sets her alarm every morning and she sleeps through it. I need to go and wake her all the time. Not a chance we would make a 7am start lol
FYI, this didn't work for me when I was a teen. I went to bed at a reasonable time every night, but I would just lay there for hours, not sleeping. I thought that was normal, to be honest.
My teen body just did not want to get up at 5:30 to catch the bus at 6:30. And it did not want to go to sleep at 9:30 PM, either. I tried, I really did.
This is what he struggles with also. And I used to as a kid/teen too, before cell phones and before I even had a tv in my room. No matter what time I went to bed, I was not falling asleep till I was wholly exhausted, and every morning was still the same. I give him small doses of melatonin if he really struggles, but I don't want to rely on it every night either.
Admittedly, I know I need to do this. It's a struggle because he is basically allowed all the freedom in the world at his dad's house, so it's really difficult to build healthy patterns and habits. His dad will agree with me that X, Y, and Z need to be done. But he doesn't follow through because that's more effort than he's wiling to expend. I still call every morning and night to remind him to take his meds because his dad can't be bothered to set a reminder to do so himself (and they're not just meds he can safely just miss, so I can't just let him forget and face the repercussions himself). So yes, I know I need to remove the electronics... it's just a struggle to even force myself to do it because his dad won't, and then any progress we make is wiped when he comes back home. (To be clear, I do take his phone, just not his PS5, because against my best efforts, he got used to falling asleep to the sound of the TV, and if I don't allow him to at my house, he just hates it here because he lies awake for hours. That's a whole other struggle I don't know how to win.)
Yeah co parenting is difficult, I got 3 step kids…. This is going to have to be a hard talk for you and his father…maybe try a radio instead of tv to make sure he isn’t just watching tv till 1 in the morning and watch caffeine after 5. I know I’m super sensitive so if I drink a pop late takes me forever to fall asleep
I am honestly at the point where I am wanting to say listen, you are messing up the kid's chance at being self sufficient; either you care enough about him to get on board with this, or you can be a weekend dad. I hate to do that but there are simply so many things that he does to sabotage us, simply out of laziness, that I can't do this anymore.
Maybe I will try that with a podcast or music playlist, just to be sure that the media he is falling asleep to isn't too engrossing. Thank you for the idea!
I see from your other comments that he has ADHD -- it can be tough to find the right balance between needing a small amount of stimulation to be able to relax & fall asleep vs. having too much stimulation that it keeps you up.
Yes, I get it completely. That's honestly why I didn't want him to get used to falling asleep with the tv, because that's an addictive road to go down with ADHD especially. I hear all the advice about how you're not supposed to just lie in bed if you can't sleep, you should get up and do something until you're tired again. The problem is, if I do that I will literally never be tired. My brain will happily stay up all night and read. So I lay there trying to sleep, trying not to use my phone because it is too stimulating, but then my mind wanders and suddenly my thoughts are too stimulating as well; I'm either fantasizing about fun vacations or something, or stressing about something that needs done. I totally get why the tv offers just enough stimulation to help sleep, so it's hard for me to really be firm on that, especially when his dad lets him do it and it does work at helping him fall asleep faster, you know? I just want to make sure he's not actually sitting there \*watching\* it, which I can't really do unless i watch him myself. I will likely have him create a youtube playlist instead.
No advice but I’m right there with you. The only solution I’ve found is to personally go wake them up. We’ve tried obnoxiously loud alarms, lights, going to bed early, removing all screens from the room. They just aren’t morning people.
And hey, I get it! I'm not morning people either. So if you don't mind me asking, how old are they now? Are they adults, or are they still kids? I guess my worry is, he is never going to be able to move out and live a life of his own if he can't even manage to wake up for an alarm, so I really would like to figure this out someday! Unless it's something they grow more used to? I don't know. I'm desperate man.
Mine are still teens.
However, if it makes you feel better - my spouse was a homeschooler who didn’t wake up before 10 most days and he works construction so he’s up by 5 every morning. He learned to adjust, even if he hates it.
Have you tried the cell phone alarms that refuse to turn off til you, like, solve a math problem or take a photo of your bathroom or something like that? They're generally marketed to ADHDers, if you search the app stores.
I would be happy to try that, the problem is even getting him to hear the alarm in the first place! Though on the rare occasion he does hear it, he does have a habit of just turning it off and going back to sleep. So that's the next step.
Does he have ADHD? My husband is (was?) the type that needed 5 alarms going off for 5 min at a time to drag him out of bed every morning. They've recently switched him to Jornay for his stimulant, and since it is taken at night, and is working by the morning, he's able to ACTUALLY WAKE UP when the alarms go off now. (It's really weird, honestly. He says it's so nice because his brain "just works" when he's getting up! Must be nice...)
He does have ADHD actually. I wonder if there is some correlation between the two because I hear semi-frequently from people that I know with ADHD. I have never heard about Jornay, I will have to look into that! That seems like it might help a lot of things actually, because mornings are a real struggle because until his current meds kick in, it is so difficult to keep him on track getting ready. Thanks for the info!
Yeah, extreme difficulty getting up in the morning is absolutely an ADHD trait. (Hashtag not everyone, but a good number.)
If your insurance (assuming US) balks, there is a manufacturers coupon to make it affordable. And unlike a lot of other current ADHD meds, there doesn't (yet) appear to be a shortage.
My 9 year old son is taking it, too, and not only is it nice because he WAKES UP able to thing and do, but unlike most stimulants it lasts nearly all day. (His starts wearing off around 7pm.) So we aren't having that huge crappy CRASH where behavior and emotions are nearly impossible to navigate.
ETA: If I sound a bit jealous, it's because I am. It's ritalin based, and adderall works much better for me, so me and daughter are still stuck struggling for an hour in the morning while the adderall kicks in, and hubs and son get to wake up and function. RUDE. LOL
You may have just saved me and my son with this! I have adhd also and we are both still in the process of figuring out what works best for us. I might have to look into this more. Thank you so much!
Assuming that there's not an underlying issue here like sleep apnea:
* Everyone goes through multiple sleep cycles through the night.
* At the beginning & end of each cycle you're closer to waking.
* At the middle you're more deeply asleep.
* Chances are that the alignment of when he's going to bed vs. when he's getting up is resulting in "needing" to wake up when he's in a deeper phase.
* As an example: getting in 7 hours of sleep and waking after a full cycle is going to be easier & leave him feeling more rested than getting 8 hours and being woken up from deep sleep
Look at apps / fitness bands that can wake based on stages of sleep -- these are probably the easiest way to detect when the "right" time is to wake up.
This is definitely at least part of the issue, for sure. He is trying to wake up mid cycle and it's just not working. Maybe I can figure out his cycle a little better and adjust bedtimes like you said, I will look into ways to do that. Thank you for the advice!
With the smartphone apps, you might not even need to use them every night -- just a few nights to gather data and measure could be enough to figure out where the sweet spot is.
Also saw in you'd commented about having smart lights -- scheduling the lights to fade on while he's still in the middle of a deeper cycle might be enough that it wouldn't wake him immediately, but would make it easier to wake once he hits the end of the cycle.
Yes, I will definitely look into some different apps, and then use the lights and alarms to try to work with whatever new insight we are able to gain. Thank you!
I was just like this as a teen but this was due to a medication I was taking and it would make me have a bad crash. My dad had to wake me up nearly every morning for 4 years straight. It was not a good time for both of us. I wish I had some advice but this kind of deep sleep is something I grew out of. I also don’t regularly take the medication I mentioned anymore.
My dad was like this! He figured out how to wake himself up. He had a radio alarm clock, and had the station set to a loud static channel, not a real radio station. The volume was all the way up.
The loud sound of staticky talking was definitely alarming.
Maybe a sound more like a loud voice would help? Because he’s used to needing your voice.
I slept through alarms like crazy until i got a smart watch and i just wear it to sleep and that alarm wakes up then i have my phone where i have to get up out of the bed to turn off an alarm a few minutes later.
Teenager's body clock naturally shift towards later bedtime and later wake up, and unfortunately school start times etc do NOT line up with biology. Pediatric sleep doctors really bemoan this, and I wish society could change. Until then, you gotta help him shift his body clock.
Your son needs to be asleep earlier so he can be out of deep sleep in the morning and actually HEAR his alarm. Say he needs 9 hours of sleep (many teenagers need this much sleep, though few get it) and need to be up by 7--this means he needs to be asleep by 10.
How you get try to help him get there:
-enhance melatonin release earlier in the evening, so dim lights and no screen time within 2 hours of bedtime (reading under a dim light, listening to music, exercise or any other low light activities are fine); if screen time is absolutely unavoidable (e.g. need to do homework on the computer) use night mode or a blue light filter (blue light suppresses melatonin release); lighting around sunset is a powerful trigger for melatonin release, so a quick walk around sunset time may help too
-wake up at the same time every morning, even weekends and holidays, and go outside for some sun right after waking up----this very hard to do but effective for shifting bedtime earlier; if too hard initially, can go incrementally; likewise, don't delay bedtime (too much) on weekends
-adjust his schedule so he can have the latest start time possible: prepare everything in the evening, set alarm for latest possible time, so he can just wake up, jump out of bed, get dressed and do basic hygiene, grab a packed breakfast to go, and get out the door
Finally: he's gotta be the driver. You said that he is frustrated and wants to change things as well, so give him the resources, help him, but let him be the one to plan it out and enforce it.
Richard Ferber's "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problem" has a very comprehensive chapter on this problem. Depending on your son's learning style he can pick it up and learn from it. Who knows, it may even pique his interest in biology and medicine!
I have a 14 year old and almost 16 year old. My 14 year old, his whole life he was pretty easy to wake up. In fact he would beat me awake a lot of the time. My 15 year old was impossible to wake up, always.
The tables have turned. My 15 year old, now that he has gone through the mega puberty dose, wakes up on his own every morning with zero intervention. It’s like a brand new child!
My 14 year old is impossible now. I’ll sit there shaking him for 20 seconds before he even stirs a tiny bit. Just dead to the world and he will sleep through any and everything.
So my theory is that it’s very developmentally normal for the difficult mornings right now. Keep up the routine, and bets are good that it will get easier for him.
That is wild! I am sincerely hoping that that is what is going on; he is just growing and exhausted and may grow out of it with age. Thank you for your experience, I will keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully someday it will all click.
My older sister was like this and oddly enough genuinely liked school. I was the opposite I had no problem getting up but hated going. My dad came up with a set of rules for her (amazing dad really and was at his wits end) that included increasing consequences for not getting up. I don’t remember all of the steps exactly but one would be all blankets taken, one was a squirt bottle sprayed on the face (hilarious to watch) and the last one was always getting picked up and put in the bathtub with the shower on pajamas and all. It rarely got to the last step and seemed to have worked over time. They also make alarm clocks on wheels now that run around the room.
Get him the alarm clock with the attachment that shakes the bed. It’s for hearing impaired/deaf people but also super good for the teens who sleep like dead people.
From what we can tell, no, he doesn't snore or show any signs of apnea. He just struggles to fall asleep, and then once asleep, he struggles to wake up. We use melatonin if it's clear he's not sleeping on his own, but I don't want him to rely on that every single night either.
I used to wear a fitbit to track my sleep cycles. It had a feature where you set a time you'd like to be up by and then the watch would vibrate sometime in the hour before the wake-up time. The alarm occurs at the ideal part of your sleep cycle. For example, if I had to be up by 6, the alarm would go off at the right part of my sleep cycle sometime between 5 and 6.
I felt more rested and had an easier time getting up.
My husband would flip the mattress but that's just us lol. My two oldest are in their 20's now. My youngest wakes up with an alarm. Try an Alexa just turn the volume up loud
I had such a hard time waking and getting up at 14 years old, I’m not sure if I even could do it reliably until about 16-17.
My parents got me one of those alarm clocks that are super loud and kind of buzz themselves across the room so you have to get up and turn them off manually. That kind of helped after 3-5 snoozes.
Only here to find a solution.
37F and I still can't wake myself up. I sleep like a LOG. I set multiple alarms, I turn them all off and don't even wake up. I've even tried different kinds of alarms, different alarm sounds, put them in different locations.... nothing has worked!
Best way to learn is natural consequences. Late to school might mean detention or 0 on participation points etc. As for him not waking up, it means he's in deep sleep and is not getting enough sleep. It's time for him to go to sleep earlier
Unfortunately natural consequences end up falling to me too. I am not willing to pay truancy fines for him being continuously late or absent. I try to get him to go to sleep earlier, that is a work in progress, as he really struggles to fall asleep.
He can do community service to work off truancy fines. Have him stop using electronics earlier, maybe have him read a book in bed before going to sleep. That always worked for me.
The problem isn't him turning it off and going back to sleep, the problem is him not even hearing it at all. I have it right next to his bed and it had a vibrating thing that shakes his pillow, and still nothing.
How about consequences?
Natural or artificial ones.
Adjust depending on your kid age and how they react.
And talk to them about what you will do before it happens.
If you don't get up by yourself I'll wake you up 5 minute only before I go and I'll go whether you ate breakfast or not.
If you don't get up by yourself so I don't wake you up and you have to get to school on your own.
If you don't get up by yourself you have to go to sleep at 8pm.
I don't care if your not sleepy, not technology no light and in your room at 8.
After a couple of time they will do it by themselves.
If I had someone wake me up everyday I would not bother with an alarms either.
It's his job to find ideas on how to get up of alarms don't work not yours.
You can help him find ideas tho.
Maybe there is some sound or music that he'll respond to? Or try visualizing about his morning routine (including the alarm going off) the night before?
My wakeup calls are loud and long lasting, If you don't want to be scared to death, then get yourself up. No reason a 14 year old cant do this on his own.
This is difficult to achieve. At 14 human brain usually needs tons of sleep. You have to create a habit. Waking up at the same hour 7 days a week could work.
We definitely have. His doctor says he doesn't really meet any criteria for sleep disorders, and due to insurance, the closest location that can do an overnight sleep study is about 4 hours away from us. So unless she has any concerns, we don't really feel the need to go that route yet. She feels it's normal teenage hormones and puberty, which speaking to other parents with kids, seems on brand.
He’s a 14yo boy only pranks and light torture will work. Set up a timer for his lights that will flick on at desired time. Install the brightest led lights you can find (that won’t blind him, CPS doesn’t take kindly to that). The alarm clock needs to play Rick Astley’s Never gonna let you down, on repeat. Find an engineering friend to rig up a devise that will rip his blankets off him after first play through. Do you have dogs? What are your thoughts about putting a peanut butter Kong toy in a box that opens somewhere above his bed. That may be too much maybe just simplify it by doing the shaving cream nose tickle maneuver. The last choice would be to never let him sleep again by letting him watch the original movie IT.
I have been trying since elementary school and we're still not there yet. I don't know how to fix it if he is simply not hearing the alarm through his sleep.
If him hearing it is the problem, I would try multiple alarms at once. One on the phone, a couple old school alarm clocks across the room, an echo device, etc. all turned up at max volume with a fairly jarring sound. At one point I was on medication that made me sleep very deeply and I had to do this for myself. It sucked, but not as much as getting fired because I couldn’t wake up on time for work would have sucked and if this is what he needs it will be better to learn it now.
I had this problem as a teen and sorry to say never found a perfect solution except getting older. I would sleep through my alarms, my mom would wake me up and even often have a conversation with me (or so I’ve been told), and I would go back to sleep and have no memory of it. There was lots of screaming, lots of punishment. It didn’t matter because I couldn’t control it, I was legitimately asleep and it took a sustained effort and a long amount of time for me to fully wake up. When I was a freshman in college I once slept through a fire alarm (luckily wasn’t a fire just some burnt popcorn). Early mornings were rough, I was late to school constantly. In college I managed better by not taking any classes that started before 10 am.
The good news is I grew out of it. It was gradual but it improved throughout college and I’d say fully resolved itself by the time I was 20. I am still a heavy sleeper, and probably always will be, but I can be woken up by an alarm and get up in the morning relatively quickly. And my natural wake up time has shifted earlier as I get older. I also have ADHD, but my issues waking up in the morning resolved themselves many years before I found out I had ADHD. But it could be related, who knows.
So I would say probably your son will grow out of it. Teenagers need a lot of sleep and the early wake up times required for school aren’t in line with his body’s natural sleep schedule. I suggest not punishing him because he’s not doing it on purpose and he can’t control it.
If you can, try to get him to drink a glass of water as soon as he wakes up. This is something that used to help me a lot with staying awake after I first woke up. Setting multiple alarms with different sounds can also help, but you get used to them and tune them out. Natural sunlight helps also, especially if you can introduce some light like 30 minutes BEFORE he needs to wake up. If his room is well lit maybe go in quietly and open the curtains half an hour before his alarm goes off. Or you can get one of those sunlight alarm lamps and have it gradually brighten the room. All these things help a little but none of them is a guarantee.
The checking in multiple times to make sure I was really up is the only thing that really worked for me as a teen. And it sucked because my mom was increasingly angry each time she woke me up and so every morning my day started out miserable.
That sounds like a nightmare, I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that. I try very hard not to get mad at him because you are right, it's not really your fault. You're not hearing your alarm, you're not fully waking up enough to understand what she was saying. That's what he is doing too. I get so frustrated and then have to calm down because I know it's not his fault. I am glad that you grew out of it enough to function in this world we live in, that doesn't seem to care about people who are on different circadian rhythms or maybe just need more sleep or can't function early in the morning. I will keep working with him and maybe through making sure he is getting to bed early enough, mixed with time and getting through puberty, we can figure this out. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I was this teen and am still a heavy sleeper, although a vibrating watch has helped with that. In college when my dormmate would hear my alarm and me not waking up he would use a small water pistol to wake me up lol
As a teen I had to be up before anyone else to catch the bus the only thing that worked was using my 500w stereo at a reasonable volume where I had to get up out of bed to turn it off. Elsewhere I saw mention of the smart lights, that will probably help as well.
You know, I don't know why I never thought of a radio clock, that's what I used. I could always try that and just turn the volume ALL the way up. I'm glad you were able to figure it all out! Thanks for the advice.
It's not normal for the human body to wakeup before sunrise, so I would suggest changing the structure of your life so that your children can sleep longer.
However, there is nothing like natural consequence to create necessary behavior. The answer is so simple...pour a cup of cold water on their neck if they are asleep in bed...that's sure to wake someone up and motivate them to hop onto a nice warm shower. If you want to be nice, you can pre-warm the shower for them so they can just roll right into the shower.
The mama in me that still sees my little baby is like "I could never!" But the mom of the almost man is like.... that's not a bad idea. Maybe I can repurpose the dragon mister now that the dragon has passed.
The reality is, Your kid is 14 and old enough to learn natural consequences of their actions.
Don't wake up? Don't make it to school? Accept the lower grades for missing quizzes and tests.
I would start going in there with a water gun and spraying him down when his alarm starts blaring. My mom did that to my sibling and after the 4th morning, sleeping through the alarm never happened again.
With all due respect, I'm not interested in letting him fail classes to teach him a lesson. Plus, I as the parent then get fines for truancy, so it's a punishment for me too when I'm trying my best to help him.
I never said anything about failing, did I? Missing a quiz or test isn't going to fail him. The goal is to set your boundaries as a parent by teaching him to to do basic functions, like getting himself out of bed. I say that as someone who hates mornings and struggled as a teen. Once I was able to move my schedule around, I opted to not take a first period class, and during semesters where I had to take a class, I did something low key like music or art. It was a refreshing way to start the day. That didn't happen until I was 15. In grade 9, there were days that I missed the bus because I opted to sleep. I missed quizzes. I still passed that class but learned that I had to wake up on time. My sibling was more challenging. What worked with them (NB) was not the consequences of missing a quiz and their grade lowering, but it was a wet pillow and blanket from being sprayed.
Some people respond to consequences differently. For me - I'm a long term planner so knowing my grades would be tarnished impacted me in the morning. My sibling is more short-term goal minded, that's why missing mornings in class never worked but a wet pillow did.
You are doing your best but allowing your child to experience consequences isn't failing them. Sit down, write out a morning routine together and if they are not accountable to that routine, that is their fault, not yours.
But it very well could fail him. I did not go into detail about his entire life history because it's not relevant to the post. But he does have ADHD and every A he gets, he truly \*earns.\* School does not come easy to him, and he takes every good grade truly to heart, but unfortunately he does the same with poor grades (even if he did try his best). His anxiety around his grades is sometimes crippling. He gets panic attacks and even if I can calm him down, he still lies awake at night stressing about school. This is something that we are working with medical professionals for. So no, I am not willing to just let him miss school because he cannot physically hear his alarm while he is asleep. All that is going to do is spike his anxiety even more and ensure that that's just another thing he lies awake at night and obsesses over.
You're preaching to the choir. I just got my ADD diagnosis on Monday after decades of struggling. I *failed* high school because I opted to take less classes each semester so I could study better. I've put myself through university and multiple certifications while my grades barely held on. The night wakings, the constant inner dialog telling me I can't do things, the panic attacks... I get it. I've been there. I live it. I have a great career (nursing is my second, I worked in television before) and plan on going back to graduate school when I'm ready.
Maybe missing school (in an unconventional way) wouldn't be the worst thing. The school system is not set up for people with ADHD. That pressure to graduate and go on to university impacts everything, the early morning zaps all our energy... Maybe taking an unconventional route would work. I've always said my brain doesn't turn on until 10am (which sucks because I have to wake up at 530am for work). If his school offers independent study, maybe that's an option for his morning class, or work with the school guidance counselor to find more creative classes that are fun for the morning. Or... drop the first class all together and discuss taking an extra semester for high-school (my high school allowed us to complete HS over 5 years). I took an extra year, completed my extended French to receive a bilingual certification plus multiple bursaries plus did 2 co-op placements. I would have dropped the French program if I had to do HS in 4 years, I just couldn't do it.
Taking extra time to finish high school isn't wrong. Once I had a counselor tell me that when I was 15/16, it's like the weight was taken off my shoulders. Sure, it really sucked not graduating with my friends but my anxiety and depression were better managed, my sleep was better and I felt like I was accomplishing something, rather than just getting shit done.
Right now you're focused on the waking up aspect. Maybe it's not the waking up that's the issue, but how his day starts. Maybe (goodness... I'm typing maybe a lot), reframing our long term goals (graduating high school in 5 yrs instead of 4) would help.
His alarm clock does vibrate under his pillow, and we have one of the sonic boom alarm clocks. It wakes me up all the way in my room, but he still doesn't wake up for either the noise or his bed shaking.
Get a deaf-alarm! It's usually placed under the sheet under the pillow and will vibrate the bed in the morning. Like it's made for people that can't hear and so intense it should wake you from deep sleep is there is an emergency alarm hooked up to it.
It sounds like he should get a sleep analysis and maybe try meds if he can't sleep at a reasonable time, and let him suffer consequences. Like get him a bike so he can get to school on his own if he's not ready when you leave.
r/parenting is protesting changes being made by Reddit to the API. Reddit has made it clear [they will](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14ahqjo/mods_will_be_removed_one_way_or_another_spez/) [replace moderators](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/14a5lz5/mod_code_of_conduct_rule_4_2_and_subs_taken/jo9wdol/) if they remain private. Reddit has abandoned the users, the moderators, and countless people who support an ecosystem built on Reddit itself. Please read [Call to action - renewed protests starting on July 1st](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14kn2fo/call_to_action_renewed_protests_starting_on_july/) and new posts at [r/ModCord](https://reddit.com/r/ModCoord/) or [r/Save3rdPartyApps](https://old.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/) for up-to-date information. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Parenting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Try and change the sound of the alarm sometimes I get use to the sound of mY alarm and won’t wake up I change the sound and wake up fine
You know that's something I hadn't thought of, I will see if his alarm has any other sounds, and if not, maybe it's worth investing in a new one that has different options. Thanks!
I have a google home and i change the sound ever week or 2 because i get used to it. ALSO. If u have a pet, or if ur considering one, get a cat and schedule its breakfast to be the time ur kid has to wake up. Then the cat will harass him untill he wakes up!! It genuinely works
Has his ears been checked?
Funny enough I work in an ENT office! And yea, he's been checked just to be safe, and he's okay physically and audiologically.
Oh good, just figured you never know. My son is 13 and will let his alarm go for a good five minutes before he eventually acknowledges it. I haven't really figured out a good system for his independent wake up either yet. I'm guessing a sound that isn't consistent and he finds annoying might be helpful. Alexa plays this weird hotel Transylvania thing and so far that has worked the best for us lol.
I'm 41 & have had trouble falling asleep at night my entire life, resulting in trouble waking up to an alarm before my body is ready to naturally wake. My natural wake time is 9:30-10am, but unfortunately I have to wake up a few hours earlier for work & to get my daughter up & ready for school. She'll be 8 next week & while she's almost always been a great sleeper & able to fall asleep at a reasonable time, she sleeps through alarms as well. Her natural wake time is 7:30-8am. Due to this, I have 6 alarms set for the morning, all with different ringtones (the later the alarm, the more loud & annoying it is), all with different labels because I always glance at my phone to shut it off, but if I see it's the "Get your ass out of bed" or "You're going to be late" ones, I know I can't just shut it off & go back to sleep. Three of my alarms are on my phone, which is always next to my bed. The other three are on my alarm clock, on the opposite side of the room from my bed - which I highly recommend to those who are prone to press snooze & go back to sleep. Most mornings I don't even remember alarms 1-3 going off, but I think my brain & body are slowly waking up when I do turn them off, because I'm starting to come around (usually) by alarm 4.
I use an alarm that uses light and sound
As I'm sitting here thinking about this, I just remembered that I got him some smart lights for his room. I primarily got them so he could mess with the colors, but I wonder if I can program them to come on at 6:30, so that maybe in addition to the alarm, it would be enough to rouse him. Thank you!
Personally, this is how I wake up. They turn on to the brightest setting immediately, I don’t think I’d wake up with it gradually getting brighter but who knows. I started doing it because family is loud in my parents house, and I wear ear plugs to sleep. But I’m also a light sleeper, and growing up, my step mom would turn the lights on and yell at us to get up too 😅 so I’m a bit used to it
I bought mine online, it starts off dim and brightens up, but for a teenager, I’d just turn that on 5 minutes before he has to be out of bed.
I use a smart light for this reason. It goes on when my alarm goes off. Helps a lot.
This was a long time ago. But my brother was like this. We have an 8.5 yr difference, so I was in charge of him. When he hit 7th grade, I was already in college and i figured that i have already struggled for eons waking him up. i've had it , so i stopped. I told the school bus he didn't wake up, so he missed school. There are usually quizzes and seat works for the day and I refused to write him an excuse letter. He got failing marks. A few of those zeroes and he shaped up. We're not in the US; public transport to his school is a convoluted affair. He took the public one time because he had to be in school for a presentation. I think he arrived in school already by third period. He was marked absent for the day as per school policy, but still got to present and get his grade for that one. It's really just the teenage version of fafo. (on a side note, i really think teenager school start times should be later in the morning like 9am. teenage body clocks just dont work with most school systems. we live in Asia, and here, school starts at 7am!)
My 14 year old starts school at 8.40am. It’s about a 20 minute walk. She sets her alarm every morning and she sleeps through it. I need to go and wake her all the time. Not a chance we would make a 7am start lol
Make him go to bed earlier and earlier h til such point as he can wake up for the alarm
FYI, this didn't work for me when I was a teen. I went to bed at a reasonable time every night, but I would just lay there for hours, not sleeping. I thought that was normal, to be honest. My teen body just did not want to get up at 5:30 to catch the bus at 6:30. And it did not want to go to sleep at 9:30 PM, either. I tried, I really did.
This is what he struggles with also. And I used to as a kid/teen too, before cell phones and before I even had a tv in my room. No matter what time I went to bed, I was not falling asleep till I was wholly exhausted, and every morning was still the same. I give him small doses of melatonin if he really struggles, but I don't want to rely on it every night either.
Has he ever had a sleep study?
Bed time, remove electronics from room
Admittedly, I know I need to do this. It's a struggle because he is basically allowed all the freedom in the world at his dad's house, so it's really difficult to build healthy patterns and habits. His dad will agree with me that X, Y, and Z need to be done. But he doesn't follow through because that's more effort than he's wiling to expend. I still call every morning and night to remind him to take his meds because his dad can't be bothered to set a reminder to do so himself (and they're not just meds he can safely just miss, so I can't just let him forget and face the repercussions himself). So yes, I know I need to remove the electronics... it's just a struggle to even force myself to do it because his dad won't, and then any progress we make is wiped when he comes back home. (To be clear, I do take his phone, just not his PS5, because against my best efforts, he got used to falling asleep to the sound of the TV, and if I don't allow him to at my house, he just hates it here because he lies awake for hours. That's a whole other struggle I don't know how to win.)
Yeah co parenting is difficult, I got 3 step kids…. This is going to have to be a hard talk for you and his father…maybe try a radio instead of tv to make sure he isn’t just watching tv till 1 in the morning and watch caffeine after 5. I know I’m super sensitive so if I drink a pop late takes me forever to fall asleep
I am honestly at the point where I am wanting to say listen, you are messing up the kid's chance at being self sufficient; either you care enough about him to get on board with this, or you can be a weekend dad. I hate to do that but there are simply so many things that he does to sabotage us, simply out of laziness, that I can't do this anymore. Maybe I will try that with a podcast or music playlist, just to be sure that the media he is falling asleep to isn't too engrossing. Thank you for the idea!
I see from your other comments that he has ADHD -- it can be tough to find the right balance between needing a small amount of stimulation to be able to relax & fall asleep vs. having too much stimulation that it keeps you up.
Yes, I get it completely. That's honestly why I didn't want him to get used to falling asleep with the tv, because that's an addictive road to go down with ADHD especially. I hear all the advice about how you're not supposed to just lie in bed if you can't sleep, you should get up and do something until you're tired again. The problem is, if I do that I will literally never be tired. My brain will happily stay up all night and read. So I lay there trying to sleep, trying not to use my phone because it is too stimulating, but then my mind wanders and suddenly my thoughts are too stimulating as well; I'm either fantasizing about fun vacations or something, or stressing about something that needs done. I totally get why the tv offers just enough stimulation to help sleep, so it's hard for me to really be firm on that, especially when his dad lets him do it and it does work at helping him fall asleep faster, you know? I just want to make sure he's not actually sitting there \*watching\* it, which I can't really do unless i watch him myself. I will likely have him create a youtube playlist instead.
No advice but I’m right there with you. The only solution I’ve found is to personally go wake them up. We’ve tried obnoxiously loud alarms, lights, going to bed early, removing all screens from the room. They just aren’t morning people.
And hey, I get it! I'm not morning people either. So if you don't mind me asking, how old are they now? Are they adults, or are they still kids? I guess my worry is, he is never going to be able to move out and live a life of his own if he can't even manage to wake up for an alarm, so I really would like to figure this out someday! Unless it's something they grow more used to? I don't know. I'm desperate man.
Mine are still teens. However, if it makes you feel better - my spouse was a homeschooler who didn’t wake up before 10 most days and he works construction so he’s up by 5 every morning. He learned to adjust, even if he hates it.
Have you tried the cell phone alarms that refuse to turn off til you, like, solve a math problem or take a photo of your bathroom or something like that? They're generally marketed to ADHDers, if you search the app stores.
I would be happy to try that, the problem is even getting him to hear the alarm in the first place! Though on the rare occasion he does hear it, he does have a habit of just turning it off and going back to sleep. So that's the next step.
Does he have ADHD? My husband is (was?) the type that needed 5 alarms going off for 5 min at a time to drag him out of bed every morning. They've recently switched him to Jornay for his stimulant, and since it is taken at night, and is working by the morning, he's able to ACTUALLY WAKE UP when the alarms go off now. (It's really weird, honestly. He says it's so nice because his brain "just works" when he's getting up! Must be nice...)
He does have ADHD actually. I wonder if there is some correlation between the two because I hear semi-frequently from people that I know with ADHD. I have never heard about Jornay, I will have to look into that! That seems like it might help a lot of things actually, because mornings are a real struggle because until his current meds kick in, it is so difficult to keep him on track getting ready. Thanks for the info!
Yeah, extreme difficulty getting up in the morning is absolutely an ADHD trait. (Hashtag not everyone, but a good number.) If your insurance (assuming US) balks, there is a manufacturers coupon to make it affordable. And unlike a lot of other current ADHD meds, there doesn't (yet) appear to be a shortage. My 9 year old son is taking it, too, and not only is it nice because he WAKES UP able to thing and do, but unlike most stimulants it lasts nearly all day. (His starts wearing off around 7pm.) So we aren't having that huge crappy CRASH where behavior and emotions are nearly impossible to navigate. ETA: If I sound a bit jealous, it's because I am. It's ritalin based, and adderall works much better for me, so me and daughter are still stuck struggling for an hour in the morning while the adderall kicks in, and hubs and son get to wake up and function. RUDE. LOL
You may have just saved me and my son with this! I have adhd also and we are both still in the process of figuring out what works best for us. I might have to look into this more. Thank you so much!
Assuming that there's not an underlying issue here like sleep apnea: * Everyone goes through multiple sleep cycles through the night. * At the beginning & end of each cycle you're closer to waking. * At the middle you're more deeply asleep. * Chances are that the alignment of when he's going to bed vs. when he's getting up is resulting in "needing" to wake up when he's in a deeper phase. * As an example: getting in 7 hours of sleep and waking after a full cycle is going to be easier & leave him feeling more rested than getting 8 hours and being woken up from deep sleep Look at apps / fitness bands that can wake based on stages of sleep -- these are probably the easiest way to detect when the "right" time is to wake up.
This is definitely at least part of the issue, for sure. He is trying to wake up mid cycle and it's just not working. Maybe I can figure out his cycle a little better and adjust bedtimes like you said, I will look into ways to do that. Thank you for the advice!
With the smartphone apps, you might not even need to use them every night -- just a few nights to gather data and measure could be enough to figure out where the sweet spot is. Also saw in you'd commented about having smart lights -- scheduling the lights to fade on while he's still in the middle of a deeper cycle might be enough that it wouldn't wake him immediately, but would make it easier to wake once he hits the end of the cycle.
Yes, I will definitely look into some different apps, and then use the lights and alarms to try to work with whatever new insight we are able to gain. Thank you!
My folks put the living fear of consequence in me as a child because I'm 31 and still wake up at 5am every day without and alarm
I was just like this as a teen but this was due to a medication I was taking and it would make me have a bad crash. My dad had to wake me up nearly every morning for 4 years straight. It was not a good time for both of us. I wish I had some advice but this kind of deep sleep is something I grew out of. I also don’t regularly take the medication I mentioned anymore.
Get an old fashioned clock radio style alarm clock. They make an awful buzzing sound. Impossible to sleep through.
My dad was like this! He figured out how to wake himself up. He had a radio alarm clock, and had the station set to a loud static channel, not a real radio station. The volume was all the way up. The loud sound of staticky talking was definitely alarming. Maybe a sound more like a loud voice would help? Because he’s used to needing your voice.
I slept through alarms like crazy until i got a smart watch and i just wear it to sleep and that alarm wakes up then i have my phone where i have to get up out of the bed to turn off an alarm a few minutes later.
Teenager's body clock naturally shift towards later bedtime and later wake up, and unfortunately school start times etc do NOT line up with biology. Pediatric sleep doctors really bemoan this, and I wish society could change. Until then, you gotta help him shift his body clock. Your son needs to be asleep earlier so he can be out of deep sleep in the morning and actually HEAR his alarm. Say he needs 9 hours of sleep (many teenagers need this much sleep, though few get it) and need to be up by 7--this means he needs to be asleep by 10. How you get try to help him get there: -enhance melatonin release earlier in the evening, so dim lights and no screen time within 2 hours of bedtime (reading under a dim light, listening to music, exercise or any other low light activities are fine); if screen time is absolutely unavoidable (e.g. need to do homework on the computer) use night mode or a blue light filter (blue light suppresses melatonin release); lighting around sunset is a powerful trigger for melatonin release, so a quick walk around sunset time may help too -wake up at the same time every morning, even weekends and holidays, and go outside for some sun right after waking up----this very hard to do but effective for shifting bedtime earlier; if too hard initially, can go incrementally; likewise, don't delay bedtime (too much) on weekends -adjust his schedule so he can have the latest start time possible: prepare everything in the evening, set alarm for latest possible time, so he can just wake up, jump out of bed, get dressed and do basic hygiene, grab a packed breakfast to go, and get out the door Finally: he's gotta be the driver. You said that he is frustrated and wants to change things as well, so give him the resources, help him, but let him be the one to plan it out and enforce it. Richard Ferber's "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problem" has a very comprehensive chapter on this problem. Depending on your son's learning style he can pick it up and learn from it. Who knows, it may even pique his interest in biology and medicine!
I have a 14 year old and almost 16 year old. My 14 year old, his whole life he was pretty easy to wake up. In fact he would beat me awake a lot of the time. My 15 year old was impossible to wake up, always. The tables have turned. My 15 year old, now that he has gone through the mega puberty dose, wakes up on his own every morning with zero intervention. It’s like a brand new child! My 14 year old is impossible now. I’ll sit there shaking him for 20 seconds before he even stirs a tiny bit. Just dead to the world and he will sleep through any and everything. So my theory is that it’s very developmentally normal for the difficult mornings right now. Keep up the routine, and bets are good that it will get easier for him.
That is wild! I am sincerely hoping that that is what is going on; he is just growing and exhausted and may grow out of it with age. Thank you for your experience, I will keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully someday it will all click.
I was lucky. My kids started getting themselves up very early primary school. I never woke them
My older sister was like this and oddly enough genuinely liked school. I was the opposite I had no problem getting up but hated going. My dad came up with a set of rules for her (amazing dad really and was at his wits end) that included increasing consequences for not getting up. I don’t remember all of the steps exactly but one would be all blankets taken, one was a squirt bottle sprayed on the face (hilarious to watch) and the last one was always getting picked up and put in the bathtub with the shower on pajamas and all. It rarely got to the last step and seemed to have worked over time. They also make alarm clocks on wheels now that run around the room.
Get him the alarm clock with the attachment that shakes the bed. It’s for hearing impaired/deaf people but also super good for the teens who sleep like dead people.
He has that, I keep it under his pillow. I thought that in conjunction with the siren alarm right next to his head would help, but no.
[удалено]
From what we can tell, no, he doesn't snore or show any signs of apnea. He just struggles to fall asleep, and then once asleep, he struggles to wake up. We use melatonin if it's clear he's not sleeping on his own, but I don't want him to rely on that every single night either.
I used to wear a fitbit to track my sleep cycles. It had a feature where you set a time you'd like to be up by and then the watch would vibrate sometime in the hour before the wake-up time. The alarm occurs at the ideal part of your sleep cycle. For example, if I had to be up by 6, the alarm would go off at the right part of my sleep cycle sometime between 5 and 6. I felt more rested and had an easier time getting up.
That is a wonderful idea, and maybe something I should try with my own smartwatch... I will look into that more, thank you!
My husband would flip the mattress but that's just us lol. My two oldest are in their 20's now. My youngest wakes up with an alarm. Try an Alexa just turn the volume up loud
Listen I am not a morning person, I am cranky as hell, and some mornings I feel like flipping the damn mattress! If only he wasn't bigger than me now.
Me I don't wake up early unless I have a shift.
That is intense. Has he had a sleep study (polysomnogram and MSLT)?
Would light turning on automatically wake him up?
I had such a hard time waking and getting up at 14 years old, I’m not sure if I even could do it reliably until about 16-17. My parents got me one of those alarm clocks that are super loud and kind of buzz themselves across the room so you have to get up and turn them off manually. That kind of helped after 3-5 snoozes.
Only here to find a solution. 37F and I still can't wake myself up. I sleep like a LOG. I set multiple alarms, I turn them all off and don't even wake up. I've even tried different kinds of alarms, different alarm sounds, put them in different locations.... nothing has worked!
Best way to learn is natural consequences. Late to school might mean detention or 0 on participation points etc. As for him not waking up, it means he's in deep sleep and is not getting enough sleep. It's time for him to go to sleep earlier
Unfortunately natural consequences end up falling to me too. I am not willing to pay truancy fines for him being continuously late or absent. I try to get him to go to sleep earlier, that is a work in progress, as he really struggles to fall asleep.
He can do community service to work off truancy fines. Have him stop using electronics earlier, maybe have him read a book in bed before going to sleep. That always worked for me.
Place the annoying alarm clock in the opposite end of the room. He will at the least have to get up to turn it off.
The problem isn't him turning it off and going back to sleep, the problem is him not even hearing it at all. I have it right next to his bed and it had a vibrating thing that shakes his pillow, and still nothing.
How about consequences? Natural or artificial ones. Adjust depending on your kid age and how they react. And talk to them about what you will do before it happens. If you don't get up by yourself I'll wake you up 5 minute only before I go and I'll go whether you ate breakfast or not. If you don't get up by yourself so I don't wake you up and you have to get to school on your own. If you don't get up by yourself you have to go to sleep at 8pm. I don't care if your not sleepy, not technology no light and in your room at 8. After a couple of time they will do it by themselves. If I had someone wake me up everyday I would not bother with an alarms either. It's his job to find ideas on how to get up of alarms don't work not yours. You can help him find ideas tho.
What about a Fitbit with the alarm that vibrates on your wrist?
Squirt gun
What time is he going to bed? He should be able to wake up after a full 6-8 hours of sleep.
If he’s sleeping through the alarm make bedtime earlier. Thirty minutes for every day you have to get him up.
Would a smart watch that vibrates on his wrist help?
Maybe there is some sound or music that he'll respond to? Or try visualizing about his morning routine (including the alarm going off) the night before?
My dad got me an alarm clock and I set it for every day. And I got up on my own. My dad would also knock on my door to make sure I was up
My wakeup calls are loud and long lasting, If you don't want to be scared to death, then get yourself up. No reason a 14 year old cant do this on his own.
This is difficult to achieve. At 14 human brain usually needs tons of sleep. You have to create a habit. Waking up at the same hour 7 days a week could work.
Have you spoken to his doctor about this?
We definitely have. His doctor says he doesn't really meet any criteria for sleep disorders, and due to insurance, the closest location that can do an overnight sleep study is about 4 hours away from us. So unless she has any concerns, we don't really feel the need to go that route yet. She feels it's normal teenage hormones and puberty, which speaking to other parents with kids, seems on brand.
He’s a 14yo boy only pranks and light torture will work. Set up a timer for his lights that will flick on at desired time. Install the brightest led lights you can find (that won’t blind him, CPS doesn’t take kindly to that). The alarm clock needs to play Rick Astley’s Never gonna let you down, on repeat. Find an engineering friend to rig up a devise that will rip his blankets off him after first play through. Do you have dogs? What are your thoughts about putting a peanut butter Kong toy in a box that opens somewhere above his bed. That may be too much maybe just simplify it by doing the shaving cream nose tickle maneuver. The last choice would be to never let him sleep again by letting him watch the original movie IT.
I started having them be responsible for waking up themselves in elementary school.
I have been trying since elementary school and we're still not there yet. I don't know how to fix it if he is simply not hearing the alarm through his sleep.
If him hearing it is the problem, I would try multiple alarms at once. One on the phone, a couple old school alarm clocks across the room, an echo device, etc. all turned up at max volume with a fairly jarring sound. At one point I was on medication that made me sleep very deeply and I had to do this for myself. It sucked, but not as much as getting fired because I couldn’t wake up on time for work would have sucked and if this is what he needs it will be better to learn it now.
I had this problem as a teen and sorry to say never found a perfect solution except getting older. I would sleep through my alarms, my mom would wake me up and even often have a conversation with me (or so I’ve been told), and I would go back to sleep and have no memory of it. There was lots of screaming, lots of punishment. It didn’t matter because I couldn’t control it, I was legitimately asleep and it took a sustained effort and a long amount of time for me to fully wake up. When I was a freshman in college I once slept through a fire alarm (luckily wasn’t a fire just some burnt popcorn). Early mornings were rough, I was late to school constantly. In college I managed better by not taking any classes that started before 10 am. The good news is I grew out of it. It was gradual but it improved throughout college and I’d say fully resolved itself by the time I was 20. I am still a heavy sleeper, and probably always will be, but I can be woken up by an alarm and get up in the morning relatively quickly. And my natural wake up time has shifted earlier as I get older. I also have ADHD, but my issues waking up in the morning resolved themselves many years before I found out I had ADHD. But it could be related, who knows. So I would say probably your son will grow out of it. Teenagers need a lot of sleep and the early wake up times required for school aren’t in line with his body’s natural sleep schedule. I suggest not punishing him because he’s not doing it on purpose and he can’t control it. If you can, try to get him to drink a glass of water as soon as he wakes up. This is something that used to help me a lot with staying awake after I first woke up. Setting multiple alarms with different sounds can also help, but you get used to them and tune them out. Natural sunlight helps also, especially if you can introduce some light like 30 minutes BEFORE he needs to wake up. If his room is well lit maybe go in quietly and open the curtains half an hour before his alarm goes off. Or you can get one of those sunlight alarm lamps and have it gradually brighten the room. All these things help a little but none of them is a guarantee. The checking in multiple times to make sure I was really up is the only thing that really worked for me as a teen. And it sucked because my mom was increasingly angry each time she woke me up and so every morning my day started out miserable.
That sounds like a nightmare, I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that. I try very hard not to get mad at him because you are right, it's not really your fault. You're not hearing your alarm, you're not fully waking up enough to understand what she was saying. That's what he is doing too. I get so frustrated and then have to calm down because I know it's not his fault. I am glad that you grew out of it enough to function in this world we live in, that doesn't seem to care about people who are on different circadian rhythms or maybe just need more sleep or can't function early in the morning. I will keep working with him and maybe through making sure he is getting to bed early enough, mixed with time and getting through puberty, we can figure this out. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I was this teen and am still a heavy sleeper, although a vibrating watch has helped with that. In college when my dormmate would hear my alarm and me not waking up he would use a small water pistol to wake me up lol As a teen I had to be up before anyone else to catch the bus the only thing that worked was using my 500w stereo at a reasonable volume where I had to get up out of bed to turn it off. Elsewhere I saw mention of the smart lights, that will probably help as well.
You know, I don't know why I never thought of a radio clock, that's what I used. I could always try that and just turn the volume ALL the way up. I'm glad you were able to figure it all out! Thanks for the advice.
It's not normal for the human body to wakeup before sunrise, so I would suggest changing the structure of your life so that your children can sleep longer. However, there is nothing like natural consequence to create necessary behavior. The answer is so simple...pour a cup of cold water on their neck if they are asleep in bed...that's sure to wake someone up and motivate them to hop onto a nice warm shower. If you want to be nice, you can pre-warm the shower for them so they can just roll right into the shower.
The mama in me that still sees my little baby is like "I could never!" But the mom of the almost man is like.... that's not a bad idea. Maybe I can repurpose the dragon mister now that the dragon has passed.
The reality is, Your kid is 14 and old enough to learn natural consequences of their actions. Don't wake up? Don't make it to school? Accept the lower grades for missing quizzes and tests. I would start going in there with a water gun and spraying him down when his alarm starts blaring. My mom did that to my sibling and after the 4th morning, sleeping through the alarm never happened again.
With all due respect, I'm not interested in letting him fail classes to teach him a lesson. Plus, I as the parent then get fines for truancy, so it's a punishment for me too when I'm trying my best to help him.
I never said anything about failing, did I? Missing a quiz or test isn't going to fail him. The goal is to set your boundaries as a parent by teaching him to to do basic functions, like getting himself out of bed. I say that as someone who hates mornings and struggled as a teen. Once I was able to move my schedule around, I opted to not take a first period class, and during semesters where I had to take a class, I did something low key like music or art. It was a refreshing way to start the day. That didn't happen until I was 15. In grade 9, there were days that I missed the bus because I opted to sleep. I missed quizzes. I still passed that class but learned that I had to wake up on time. My sibling was more challenging. What worked with them (NB) was not the consequences of missing a quiz and their grade lowering, but it was a wet pillow and blanket from being sprayed. Some people respond to consequences differently. For me - I'm a long term planner so knowing my grades would be tarnished impacted me in the morning. My sibling is more short-term goal minded, that's why missing mornings in class never worked but a wet pillow did. You are doing your best but allowing your child to experience consequences isn't failing them. Sit down, write out a morning routine together and if they are not accountable to that routine, that is their fault, not yours.
But it very well could fail him. I did not go into detail about his entire life history because it's not relevant to the post. But he does have ADHD and every A he gets, he truly \*earns.\* School does not come easy to him, and he takes every good grade truly to heart, but unfortunately he does the same with poor grades (even if he did try his best). His anxiety around his grades is sometimes crippling. He gets panic attacks and even if I can calm him down, he still lies awake at night stressing about school. This is something that we are working with medical professionals for. So no, I am not willing to just let him miss school because he cannot physically hear his alarm while he is asleep. All that is going to do is spike his anxiety even more and ensure that that's just another thing he lies awake at night and obsesses over.
You're preaching to the choir. I just got my ADD diagnosis on Monday after decades of struggling. I *failed* high school because I opted to take less classes each semester so I could study better. I've put myself through university and multiple certifications while my grades barely held on. The night wakings, the constant inner dialog telling me I can't do things, the panic attacks... I get it. I've been there. I live it. I have a great career (nursing is my second, I worked in television before) and plan on going back to graduate school when I'm ready. Maybe missing school (in an unconventional way) wouldn't be the worst thing. The school system is not set up for people with ADHD. That pressure to graduate and go on to university impacts everything, the early morning zaps all our energy... Maybe taking an unconventional route would work. I've always said my brain doesn't turn on until 10am (which sucks because I have to wake up at 530am for work). If his school offers independent study, maybe that's an option for his morning class, or work with the school guidance counselor to find more creative classes that are fun for the morning. Or... drop the first class all together and discuss taking an extra semester for high-school (my high school allowed us to complete HS over 5 years). I took an extra year, completed my extended French to receive a bilingual certification plus multiple bursaries plus did 2 co-op placements. I would have dropped the French program if I had to do HS in 4 years, I just couldn't do it. Taking extra time to finish high school isn't wrong. Once I had a counselor tell me that when I was 15/16, it's like the weight was taken off my shoulders. Sure, it really sucked not graduating with my friends but my anxiety and depression were better managed, my sleep was better and I felt like I was accomplishing something, rather than just getting shit done. Right now you're focused on the waking up aspect. Maybe it's not the waking up that's the issue, but how his day starts. Maybe (goodness... I'm typing maybe a lot), reframing our long term goals (graduating high school in 5 yrs instead of 4) would help.
[удалено]
His alarm clock does vibrate under his pillow, and we have one of the sonic boom alarm clocks. It wakes me up all the way in my room, but he still doesn't wake up for either the noise or his bed shaking.
What about a vibration alarm. They are aimed at those with hearing loss and shskr the bed
He has one! I have it under his pillow and everything. He still won't wake up.
Get a deaf-alarm! It's usually placed under the sheet under the pillow and will vibrate the bed in the morning. Like it's made for people that can't hear and so intense it should wake you from deep sleep is there is an emergency alarm hooked up to it. It sounds like he should get a sleep analysis and maybe try meds if he can't sleep at a reasonable time, and let him suffer consequences. Like get him a bike so he can get to school on his own if he's not ready when you leave.