Tween and teen girls need plenty of sleep to be able to function well at school.
Ideal sleep time varies between sources, but it is generally agreed that tweens need 9-10 hours per night, and teens about the same.
Some sources say that teens need even more since hormonal maturation is occurring at that time, though with the earlier shift of hormonal maturation that may depend on the child.
Keep it simple, and assume that your tween or teen needs between 9 and 10 hours of sleep every night.
If your family is anything like mine, there has been a subtle shift in bedtimes and sleep schedules during the summer.
While we have mainly stuck to my toddler's schedule like glue, my tween has been staying up until nearly 10pm some nights.
It has been fun for her to play outside in the longer, lighter days, and have movie nights and sleepovers with friends.
For the summer it's easy for her to still get plenty of sleep by sleeping later in the morning.
But, with the return of school comes the return of a scheduled morning routine.
It's time to get her back on track before school starts and so do the 7am wake-up calls! It is well known that without good sleep your tweens and teens will have more trouble focusing at school.
She may also have trouble keeping her energy up to last through her after-school soccer practice or ballet lesson.
Plus, sleep is the key time each day that your daughter's adrenal glands can recover and rebuild.
This restoration is key to her healthy hormonal development.
During puberty, girls are making much higher levels of sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.
Much of her endocrine system including her adrenal glands are involved in this process.
If her adrenal glands are not adequately restored each night, it can be a real challenge to keep her sex hormones at the right levels during this critical time of maturation and growth.
The adrenal glands are primarily involved in buffering stress by creating and secreting stress hormones.
If a girl's physical stress is too high (perhaps due to lack of sleep), or she doesn't take the opportunity to rebuild her adrenal glands each night with a good night of sleep, she might run out of resources to make enough sex hormones during this key time of development.
Here are my top tips for getting your tween and teen girls back in the habit of great nights of sleep.
Sleep is key to hormone health.
Be a healthy sleep model for your girl by limiting the sugar and caffeine, turning off the screens at night, and sleeping in a calm, cool, dark room with all of the family cell phones quietly tucked in in another room.
Enjoy the fading light of the summer sun!
Ideal sleep time varies between sources, but it is generally agreed that tweens need 9-10 hours per night, and teens about the same.
Some sources say that teens need even more since hormonal maturation is occurring at that time, though with the earlier shift of hormonal maturation that may depend on the child.
Keep it simple, and assume that your tween or teen needs between 9 and 10 hours of sleep every night.
If your family is anything like mine, there has been a subtle shift in bedtimes and sleep schedules during the summer.
While we have mainly stuck to my toddler's schedule like glue, my tween has been staying up until nearly 10pm some nights.
It has been fun for her to play outside in the longer, lighter days, and have movie nights and sleepovers with friends.
For the summer it's easy for her to still get plenty of sleep by sleeping later in the morning.
But, with the return of school comes the return of a scheduled morning routine.
It's time to get her back on track before school starts and so do the 7am wake-up calls! It is well known that without good sleep your tweens and teens will have more trouble focusing at school.
She may also have trouble keeping her energy up to last through her after-school soccer practice or ballet lesson.
Plus, sleep is the key time each day that your daughter's adrenal glands can recover and rebuild.
This restoration is key to her healthy hormonal development.
During puberty, girls are making much higher levels of sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.
Much of her endocrine system including her adrenal glands are involved in this process.
If her adrenal glands are not adequately restored each night, it can be a real challenge to keep her sex hormones at the right levels during this critical time of maturation and growth.
The adrenal glands are primarily involved in buffering stress by creating and secreting stress hormones.
If a girl's physical stress is too high (perhaps due to lack of sleep), or she doesn't take the opportunity to rebuild her adrenal glands each night with a good night of sleep, she might run out of resources to make enough sex hormones during this key time of development.
Here are my top tips for getting your tween and teen girls back in the habit of great nights of sleep.
- Limit screen time, especially in the evenings.
Of course, more and more homework is done on computers as kids get older, but turning off the screens at least an hour before bedtime helps to alert your child's inner clock that it's nighttime - time to sleep.
I give my adult clients a "laptop curfew," preferably by 8pm, and I recommend the same for my tween and teen clients. - Your child's room should be a calming place.
Creating a room that's comfortable and conducive to sleep should be a priority for girls.
Allow her to choose colors and décor, and even set up a comfortable space for reading or quieting activities to end the day and induce sleep. - Keep up a bedtime routine.
Even adults should have a bedtime routine, but keeping a routine tends to slip once our kids grow out of bedtime stories.
Warm lavender baths, warm milk or tea, dim light in the house, and reading fiction can all contribute to an easy-to-sleep environment for your tweens and teens.
In fact, finding a shared book to read with your child even as she enters middle school or high school can be a lovely way to connect at the end of each day.
Read The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma for inspiration. - Cell phone free zone at night.
Recent studies have shown that 4 out of 5 teens sleep with their cell phones.
There are many problems with this fact, but a key issue relevant here is that if teens are texting all night with their friends, they are not sleeping.
Establish rules that limit cell phone use at night.
For example, all cell phones can be plugged in at night, not in the bedrooms.
It is best if parents model this behavior as well.
Unless you are required to keep your phone on in the evening for work, do your best to practice being present with your family during the hours each week that you are home from the office. - Limit sugar and caffeine, especially in the afternoon and evening.
Again, modeling this behavior is the best way to encourage your teen or tween to limit her daily sugar and caffeine.
Eating sugary treats and caffeinated beverages can induce a ride on the blood sugar rollercoaster.
When her blood sugar crashes in the middle of the night after an evening burst of sugar or caffeine, her sleep will likely be disrupted.
(That's why you wake up in the middle of the night after drinking a few glasses of wine in the evening.
)
Sleep is key to hormone health.
Be a healthy sleep model for your girl by limiting the sugar and caffeine, turning off the screens at night, and sleeping in a calm, cool, dark room with all of the family cell phones quietly tucked in in another room.
Enjoy the fading light of the summer sun!