Early morning practice Options

[MNW]

Whilst feeling decidedly sorry for myself now that BB is no longer at boarding school and I have to actually be more of a parent (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) , I was wondering how early parents have to get up to either facilitate music practice or cajole their children out of bed to practice.

I need to get up at 6:30am to be out the door by 6:50am for a 7:20am music practice at school. Anyone need to be up earlier than this? If I know someone is worse off than me then I'll take comfort in my 6:30am start! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

[all ears]

5:30. Though with practice I can now sleep till 5:45.

Sleep? Sanity? Who needs 'em?

[Susie]

Happily my children have passed the stage where I have the power to prise them out of bed to do practice.

But I had a pupil who was an early riser. The household sprang to life at 6am and she use to practice from 6.30 to 6.45 am which was fine for the stage she was at. She was one of my best practisers and I confess to holding her up to other pupils as a shining example of what can be done. (She used to do lots of sport after school so couldn't fit the music in then.)

I applaud all you parents who get up early to instil regular practice habits in your offspring. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/clap.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/clap.gif)

[MNW]

If it wasn't for the optional (BB doesn't know it's optional) practice session at school then we wouldn't do it at home at 7:20am!

[GMc]

That's a pretty late rise here in Australia for most people I know. It's summer and 40 degrees in day time at the moment so most people are up early if they want to do any exercise before work! The difference is that it is light though. Getting up in the dark and cold is not very pleasant as I can well recall from London days. Thank your lucky stars he doesnt swim or row. Those are seriouly early activities.


What time is he going to bed? And how long before he discovers this is optional? Wont take long if he ever talks to anyone! I dont have much luck trying to get mine up to practice while I go to the gym. I thought it would be a great idea but clearly not for night owls who are happy to play into the evening.

[anacrusis]

*blinks blearily*

Morning? wossoneofthem?

For me mornings are a time to stumble about, mainlining coffee and hoping that I'll have woken up by the time I get to work. The idea of doing anything focused at that time of day appalls me - and the sheer noise of practice would be unbearable.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)
On a more serious note though - a study I read showed that there are more people who are naturally night owls than early birds, the first shift in melatonin in teenagers, towards more adult sleeping patterns, involve them finding it difficult to get to sleep at night and even harder to wake up in the mornings: it's physiological. Insomnia is very common in the fourteen to sixteen agegroup, and at the same time teens still need the ten to twelve hours that smaller kids do. It's true that some shifting of natural patterns can be achieved, but I am perturbed when early birds (the minority) make a virtue out of what comes naturally to them, and so-called "lazy" teens also get accused of bad habits. Sure, there's a halfway house to look for, I think, and it's not great to be glued to electronics til three am, but at the same time, many teens would, no matter how early they went to bed, struggle to get to sleep until the time their melatonin levels allow them to.

They have found, somewhere, that high schools which start later, at ten, actually can improve performance amongst their pupils, simply by matching their sleep patterns better....

Not sure how that would work Down Under....

[MNW]

He's in bed by 8pm and goes off almost instantly. He is difficult to rouse at 6:40am but I can't seem him getting to sleep before 8pm and at age 11, I think anything below 8pm is quite early. Swimming twice a week would make it impossible for him to get to bed between 7-7:30pm.

Anacrusis, do you think 10.5 hours is enough sleep for a boy aged 11 who is difficult to rouse?

[anacrusis]

This is what I'm meaning - quite possibly not, but earlier to bed doesn't work for many kids heading into puberty, and catching up with morning sleep at weekends can cause weektime problems. I wish there were an easy answer which would fit into our culture - but the one that would fit the child best is quite possibly not going to match that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif). We've experienced this in its most extreme form in our household, with one family member not being physically rouseable at "normal" times for about two years - it got to the stage where the alarm clock in that bedroom woke all the rest of the household, just not this one family member. Things have settled now as young adulthood has been reached, but no amount of trying to adjust sleep patterns/find aggressive alarm clocks/repeated attempts at waking/ threats/cajoling worked: the rest of us all needed another nights' sleep after the daily efforts....

[sunil]

Daughter starts her day at 5:30AM. At 6:00AM she will be ready to do her Kumon, which finishes in 30 minutes and rest of the morning is for Piano practice. Any school homework will be done, whilst commuting to school. If there is no homework, she will be on Relative pitch / Triad Tutor.

Approximately, she gets 1 hour and 15 minutes for music practice in morning.

[VH2]

Sleep? Sanity? Who needs 'em?

Sanity is over-rated, but sleep is essential.

[BerkshireMum]

Whilst feeling decidedly sorry for myself now that BB is no longer at boarding school and I have to actually be more of a parent (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) , I was wondering how early parents have to get up to either facilitate music practice or cajole their children out of bed to practice.

I need to get up at 6:30am to be out the door by 6:50am for a 7:20am music practice at school. Anyone need to be up earlier than this? If I know someone is worse off than me then I'll take comfort in my 6:30am start! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I don't think 6.30am is particularly early, though we have fortunately never needed to be up before 7am. People we knew with children interested in swimming or ice skating (our nearest rink is 17 miles away) had to be up well before that to get them to their practice sessions before school, so I always felt quite relieved that ours were into music! My son used to get up at 6.30 through secondary school so that he could be up, dressed and fed before 7am when he started a 50 minute music practice.

I think the time we found hardest was when our son had group recorder lessons at 8.30am on Saturdays, so that we had to be up at 7.30am. We'd always relied on our Saturday lie-ins to catch up on sleep, as Sundays tend to be busy with church and having friends round. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[MNW]

Anacrusis, sorry but you are the resident GP or am I mistaken? If not I apologise for the questions! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush.gif)

What do you mean by sleeping in at the weekend causes weekend problems? BB went to bed at 8:30pm on Friday and roused naturally at 7:30am so even though I have to rouse him at 6:40am from an 8pm bed, I wonder if he isn't lacking in too much sleep. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

Heck, I feel guilty now! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[sunil]

Less than half price at Argos (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/9330283.htm

find aggressive alarm clocks

[Maizie]

I did get up at 6.30am throughout secondary school, and I'm jealous of all those who had to get up that early for music practice! I had to get up at 6.30am because the bus came at 7.32am and I had to get up, and then get down to the bus stop!! That was a public bus so it dropped me off in town to then walk to school - probably arriving about 8.35am.

[dolce@piano]

While the rest of us were still off in the land of Nod, Son A, from age 10 to age 15, used to get up at 6.30 a.m. and do 30 mins piano practice every morning (on digital piano WITH headphones on).

Son B has the major sleep problems common to many teenagers as mentioned above and probably sleeps about 6-7 hours a night and walks around like a zombie half the time.

Mind you, from age 11 both got themselves up (at 6.30 or 7), breakfasted, dressed, did their school bags and walked down to the school bus stop completely by themselves. My OH and I used to wake up at 9 a.m. and find the house empty and so assume that they were safely at school (which they always were). It was bliss.
I once tried getting up to 'help' the younger one and he said I'd ruined his morning and the last thing he needed was me fussing round him. So I stayed in bed after that.


.