To hate being a night owl?

[CarlyCoffee]

I’ve always been a night owl. I am simply not tired after 9pm. My husband is exactly the same and my children are also heading that way.

Honestly, I hate it. I hate that we aren’t tired until midnight onwards. I hate that we are not morning people. I hate that I will never be up for a 6am exercise class (and I hate that the early risers see it as some sort of moral superiority that they can do a full gym workout before the sun comes up). I hate that at the weekends, half the day is gone before we are all up and ready.

During the week, mornings are crap. We all get up and it’s a mad rush to get ready. We are never late, but it’s not a relaxed and pleasant morning. I feel tired in the afternoon/early evening and then it passes and I’m wide awake at 9pm again. Exercise doesn’t change anything.

I don’t think I can reverse this. It is too engrained. But I’d really like to change things with the kids. Or maybe this is just who we all are?

At least your family are all the same… I’m a night owl married to a morning person with a VERY LOUDLY CHIPPER morning person DD1. Help me.

Meanwhile DD2 and I are zombies before 8.30am but come into our own after 8pm.

I could have written this! I feel your pain 😀

Oh god I’m the same.

And people just don’t get it. We’re treated as lazy and wrong.

I can see that this would be absolutely fucking brutal also 😩

I often work at nights and could quite happily plough through work into the small hours. I am mega productive at that time of night. See the amount of “we are concerned about the hours you are keeping” meetings I have had over the years..!

I‘m an owl too, living in a lark‘s world. Left to my own devices, I’d naturally wake up about 9 or 10, not 7.

As regards changing….

Well DD1 woke between 5 and 6 for the first 6 years of her life and that didn’t change me

However now I’m mid 40s and struggle to stay in bed past 8.30 even on a lazy weekend which I never thought would happen. Still can’t get to sleep before 11 mind you

I'm the same. I was tired at 8.30 last night but I know if I go to sleep I'll wake up 2 hrs later raring to go again rather than sleeping through and be up early raring to go.

Yes this is me. If we all emigrate will we turn into a morning people?

Yes! This is also why I get the rage if someone wakes me up shortly after I fall asleep - because I will not be able to get back over for hours. People actually don’t believe me when I explain these things!

Do you think some people just don’t need as much sleep as others?

I always feel horrible when I see threads about putting a 7 year old to bed at 7.30 on a school night, for example. My 7 year old wouldn’t entertain going to bed at 7.30. I put her to bed for 8.30 but it’s not uncommon for her to still be pottering in her room at gone 11. I can’t make her go to sleep 🤷🏻‍♀️

CarlyCoffee if she seems totally happy on that much sleep then maybe. But it may be she has issues switching off - my DD was like this and she was ok with little sleep at 7 but got grumpier as she got older and busier (but still couldn’t sleep). We tried melatonin and it’s been a game changer, she is now asleep by 8.30/9 (age 10) and much happier.

@Alwaysoneoddsocki emigrated to somewhere 8 hours ahead and, yes, for a month or so I was bouncing awake at 6am and asleep at 10. Then… the owl began to grow and grow and now I’m back to awake at 9am and 1am.

eventually the rhythm returns

Darn it! That’s my back up plan gone. We need to start our own night owl society.

Like a PP having young kids and what I assume is perimenopause means I'm lucky to sleep past 6:30 these days. So I'm shattered by 10!