I'm a morning person. It took forever to figure that out, with it finally being a matter of realizing I don't typically get squat done in the afternoon. Living with a confirmed night owl also helped reinforce this discovery. Lately I have tried to do it all. Get up early with the kids, or to be more specific, get up early with Oliver who is the other morning person in the house, (Gah, that apple did not fall more than a few millimeters from this tree.) AND stay up too late with Mr C. This is where my twitter bio, "testing the limits of sleep deprivation", comes from. Ahem.
All this fabulous no sleep-ness is about to change in a very big way. On August 31, Oliver will have to be at school by 8:15. (For comparison, we've been taking an 8:20 bus most mornings. Sometimes 8:10 or 8:40, but usually 8:20.) Google's handy transit mapping feature tells me I have a number of options, none of them what I would call "fun." We can leave at 7:05 and get the bus that takes us right to school in time. Not bloody likely. The other options involve varying lengths of bus rides and walks, with the best one having us on a 7:25 bus and a 10 minute walk at the end. It's the shortest bus ride (about 10 minutes) but the walk isn't a short one, especially since I will have a 15 minute walk to get to work once I leave Oliver's school. It will be especially challenging in bad weather.
Another contributing factor is that I'm changing my work schedule to enable me to pick Oliver up by 4pm most days. See, tuition only takes us to 2:30. For 9 bucks he can go to the after school program until 4. That jumps to $20 if he stays longer. Not to mention the 8:15 arrival means an awfully long day for a 4 year old. Fortunately, my job is cool with the change.
Obviously my late nights are quickly coming to an end and I'm anticipating a few problems. I like reading blogs in the evening, and a few nights a week there is tv I really like. We don't have TiVO or any sort of DVR. I have a feeling Hulu and I are going to become very tight, though I have no idea when I will squeeze in actually watching the shows I am going to miss.
I'm not worried about falling asleep. Lately that has not been a problem. At.all. It's the waking up part I struggle with, especially when Oliver decides 5:45 is a fine time to ask for an update on baseball scores or to decide he's starving and can't possibly sleep any longer.
On the bright side, I am hoping to squeeze in exercise before we leave in the morning and that all that walking will contribute to some weight loss. I know I need to do more, but every bit helps, right?
If you're faced with a time shift yourself, or you just want to be an earlier riser, check out Zen Habits for some suggestions I will be trying to follow (especially the part about making getting up early a reward, not a punishment!). Hell, check out Zen Habits anyway. It's jam packed with good info. I was surprised to discover Dumb Little Man had nothing to say on this topic, though it does have a number of good articles on sleep (and is another just plain smart site).
So tell me, have you changed your sleep schedule? How did you do it?
4 comments:
I'm about to have to do a major change in sleep schedule as well. I'm not sure how it's going to work, but I know I need to make it a schedule and not just blow it off like I always have. Two days a week I will have to be in Oakland by 7am, two days by 8, one not until 11. Oy!
I'm going to check out that site. I could use some helpful info on sleep habits/schedules and how to get up early!
Have you thought about another car? Do they let pre-K kids take the school bus (or are you too close)?
It never occurred to me to prepare for a sleep change. I always just suck it up until my body gets used to it.
I think your way is better.
I'm working toward become an earlier riser (and earlier go-to-bedder), too. I've attempted this a few times before, but the sad reality was that I simply had too much to do with all of the classes that I was taking. Now that I only have one class that won't be wildly homework heavy and doesn't have textbooks, I'm looking forward to shifting to a more "adult" (in my view anyway) schedule. I got off to a good start this week and I'm really going to try to keep it up.
"Adult" sounds like "ancient" when you put it that way. I own that.
Post a Comment