I'm tired.

I propose that everyone be allowed to get up when they feel like it.
Sleep when they're tired.
Nap. Whenever.

Can you imagine how well rested everyone would be if we honored our body's schedule?

Some of 'my' kids are with me for many hours every day. The earliest arrival arrives as I'm opening at 6:30, and does not leave my care after school until 5 PM at the earliest.

He's still a little guy, and gets sleepy. Sometimes falls asleep during afternoon reading time.

I always let a child rest if they want to.

One of my other morning kids will sometimes grab a beanbag chair and her coat and go sleep in the corner until about five minutes before school starts. She is just really sleepy in the mornings.

It's funny. My mom was raised by florists in Colorado. During the Colorado winters in the 1940's and 50's, my grandfather had to get up multiple times during the night to shovel coal into the boiler to keep the greenhouses heated.

He was a napper, Don was. After lunch every day, he'd sleep for an hour or so. Never set an alarm clock, but about an hour and 10 minutes after he went up the stairs to his room, he'd be back down, feeling refreshed.

He went to bed about 7 each night long after a gas furnace was installed and he didn't have to get up to shovel coal anymore.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

He was scornful of people who 'slept in',  calling them lazy and not making any secret of what he thought of it. I know he just hated it when I lived there and slept in on Saturday and Sunday mornings. He couldn't understand why I was tired. :)

It's not surprising, I guess, that my mom feels guilt over her sleep schedule, speaking of old habits.

I was chatting with her online Saturday night. She was talking about being a night owl, and sounding like she felt guilty about it. "I am definitely a night owl, and probably shouldn't be so much of one and should get more rest at reasonable times."
I told her that I think the world would be a better place if we were all allowed to sleep when we're tired, and that she'd done her time, getting up at the ass crack of dawn for so many years and taking care of everyone.

I get up early during the week (have I mentioned that??) but it's not my personal preference. If I had a choice, I would sleep until noon and stay up way past midnight every night, it seems to work better for me.

I had a very serious case of mononucleosis when I was a sophomore in high school. I was hospitalized for a whole week and spent about three months convalescing. Missed the last month of school that year and most of summer, too.

I lost two days of my life during that time. I have no memory of any of it. I was evidently very, very ill, and they nearly lost me.

And ever since then, I haven't ever gotten enough rest. Doesn't seem to matter how late I'm up, how early I'm up, how many hours I sleep in between those times.. I am always ready for a nap.

I can almost always go right to sleep at night, even if I have taken a nap.

The sleep deprivation thing you get when you have a baby? Oh my GAWD I thought I'd never be rested again. Forever. I think I'm still exhausted from it. One more reason we stopped with two babies. 

Weekends are a quandary for me. Even though we sleep in, sometimes until 10 AM, if I want to stay up past 10 PM, I MUST take a nap sometime during the afternoon, otherwise I start to fade about 9:30. So I feel a little guilty, or at least a little funny that I am napping after sleeping in, but if I don't do it, I go to bed long before everyone else.

And I'd like to stay up a little later, doing mostly nothing since my weeks are so hectic. Early bedtime... (it's rare for us to be up past 9,) and early rising.

Most work days I manage to get a nap. The days I don't get one, I'm always so tired by bedtime.

I guess I feel some guilt about resting, too. There is always so much stuff needing to be done around here, and if I sleep, I am not doing any of it. But the warm bed and the tiredness gets me every time.

So, ya with me? More sleep, less guilt?