Should You Let Teens Sleep Late During the Summer, Or Wake Them Up?

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15 hours ago

The mom of a 16-year-old night owl asks: How much sleep do teens need in the summer? Should parents wake up their teens at a semi-decent hour of the morning, or let them sleep?
'He is turning into a vampire, staying up all night and sleeping all day,' Ashley Smith, a middle school teacher, tells TODAY.com about her teen son. 'Is that normal — or am I totally crazy for letting him do his own thing in the summer?'
Smith quizzed TikTok for help.
'Question for parents of teenagers, especially teenage boys,' Smith said in a TikTok video. 'How long are we letting them sleep in during the summer — do we wake them up at all?'
Parents had different rules for summer bedtimes, responding:
'As long as they want. Summer is for recharging.'
'When they're sleeping, they're not eating all the food. Let them sleep.'
'Two teenagers here. They're sleeping in as long as they want, so they're not bothering me.'
'You never wake a sleeping baby. Same applies with teenagers.'
'We're a farming family, so no, our son can't sleep all day. In summer, he can sleep an hour later than during the school year, so 6:30 a.m.'
'Unless we have plans, I let all the kids sleep. If they have chores or things I need them to do, they can do it when they're up. I don't care if they clean their room at 9 a.m. or 11 p.m., as long as it gets done.'
'Depends on why they're sleeping so much and how late in the day. If they're waking up at 4 p.m. and playing video games until 6 a.m., that's a 'No' for me.'
'Youth is such a short period of time. They have the rest of their lives to have alarms and deadlines. Let them be kids, as carefree as possible, for as long as possible.'
'My parents made me work, volunteer, etc. during the summer. Y'all aren't setting these kids up for success.'
'Why do you think kids grow so much over the summer? ... They are exhausted, they are growing.'
'Summer just started two minutes ago. Let them sleep.'
Smith tells TODAY.com that her 15-year-old daughter wakes up around 10 a.m. to hit the pool, while her 16-year-old son has been rising in the late afternoon, after staying up for most of the night playing video games.
The lenient bedtime rule, says Smith, is more for her son, who wakes up early during the school year and for part of the summer to attend marching band practice.
'There's a lot of variability for sleep duration across all ages of children,' Dr. Rakesh Bhattacharjee, the director of pediatric sleep medicine at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego, tells TODAY.com.
'For teenagers, the current recommendation is at least eight hours of sleep — and not less,' says Bhattacharjee, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. 'As children get older .... their need for sleep reduces: Babies spend half the day sleeping and adults spend a third of the day sleeping.'
Bhattacharjee adds, 'Up to 85% of teenagers are not getting the recommended amount of sleep.'
These are the sleep guidelines for children of other ages (including naps for the youngest kids), according to The American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
Babies: ages 4 months to 12 months should sleep 12 to 16 hours.
Toddlers: ages 1 to 2 years old should sleep 11 to 14 hours.
Preschoolers: Ages 3 to 5 years old should sleep 10 to 13 hours.
School-aged children: Ages 6 to 12 years old should sleep 9 to 12 hours.
Teenagers, Bhattacharjee says, should get 8-10 hours, but he notes, 'There's a range. Some teens can function on 8 hours of sleep while others may need 9 to 10 hours.'
You don't have to, but it's OK if you do, and sometimes you should.
'This is an incredibly relatable scenario for many parents of teens,' John Lopos, CEO of the National Sleep Foundation, tells TODAY.com in an email interview. 'There's nothing wrong with checking in on and waking up a teen who's sleeping late into the day, including during summer, especially if they've had the opportunity to get ... a sufficient amount of quality sleep.'
Lopos says parents should figure out the reason a teen is sleeping in for so long.
'Are they very sleep deprived from what they are doing late at night into the early morning? How is their mental health? Are there any medical symptoms that are disrupting their sleep at night?' says Lopos, adding that checking in with a medical or mental health professional can help.
Teens who don't heed their natural body clocks while playing video games or using other devices at night 'are setting themselves up for a really poor sleep schedule and the consequences for health and performance that can travel with that,' notes Lopos.
Even without a reason to wake up during the summer, Lopos recommends a consistent sleep-and-wake schedule for teens, which also helps them adjust to earlier wakeup times as the school year approaches.
Without an explicit time at which parents should wake their sleeping teens, Lopos suggests using judgment 'based on reasonable social and activity schedules' and 'the effects of daylight.'
'Our circadian clock needs light during the day, especially sunlight in the morning, also to help our sleep at night,' says Lobos. 'Even with longer summer days, if a teen is sleeping so late into the day that they have less opportunity to get up, get outside and be active in the light, that's another contributor to an unhealthy sleep experience and a pattern of behavior that can have lasting negative effects.'
Teens are usually sleep-deprived on weekdays and 'incur a sleep debt,' says Bhattacharjee, adding, 'They sleep more on the weekends to make up for it.'
Video games are a frequent offender when it comes to disrupting sleep. "Engaging in video games during the nighttime exposes teenagers to potentially harmful screen time, which can disrupt their circadian rhythm," Bhattacharjee says, noting that video games can have addictive effects, making it harder for kids to stop playing and get the sleep they need.
Sleep is involved in learning and memory consolidation, emotional regulation and athletic performance, according to the doctor. He adds that sleep-deprived kids could have higher rates of anxiety and depression, lower scholastic performance, poorer executive functioning and unsafe driving skills.
'Teen boys and girls need about the same amount of sleep .... but teen girls struggle more with sleep than teen boys,' says Bhattacharjee. 'That disparity starts in adolescence and persists throughout adulthood.'
This article was originally published on TODAY.com