No Matter How I Wake Him, He Cannot Get Up in the Morning

"I have to wake them ten times before they barely get up. They were not like this when they were little."

This is something parents often say once a child is past the upper elementary years. The child cannot get up in the morning, stays foggy for a long while after getting up, and does not touch breakfast. And at night they are wide awake.

To the parent's eye it looks like the child has become lazy, and the child feels wronged. Both are understandable. But at this age there is one thing that really is happening in the body.

At puberty the body's clock shifts later

Our body has a clock that sets the times of falling asleep and waking. In the evening that clock releases a substance called melatonin and gives the signal, "now it is time to sleep."

Past puberty, the very hour at which this signal comes out grows later. It is not that the child has decided to sleep late; the hour drowsiness arrives shifts later. So at night the eyes are wide awake, and in the morning it amounts to the body being woken while it is still night for it.

That this is not a choice has been confirmed

This is the part parents are surprised by.

Researchers measured the body's rhythm in adolescents while giving them plenty of sleep on a regular schedule for several weeks. It was a condition with no mobile phones and no late-night engagements. Even so, the clock was still shifted later.

That is, it is not that the clock shifted because of a habit of sleeping late at night, but rather that they come to sleep late because of a clock that is already shifted. That this pattern is common in adolescents and young adults of this period has also been set out.

So attempts to make a morning person by will usually fail. This is a matter on a different layer from the child's diligence.

Catching up on sleep at the weekend throws it off further

Making up on the weekend for sleep missed during the week is a natural thing. But sleeping into the afternoon on Saturday makes the body's clock take that late hour as its new reference. Sleep comes even less on Sunday night, and Monday morning becomes the hardest.

When parents say "I let them sleep well over the weekend and Monday is the worst," this is where that belongs.

What I look at in the clinic

I do not look at this story through sleep alone.

No appetite in the morning, feeling drained during the day, coming to life only in the evening, frequent stomach pain — these usually come together as one bundle. It is because the rhythm of digestion and the rhythm of sleep share the same clock. So I do not take sleep apart on its own to work on it; I look at the whole order in which the body switches on in the morning.

I ask how long it takes to fall asleep at night, whether they wake during sleep, and how long after getting up in the morning they become hungry. Which part is lagging differs from child to child, so even when they come in with the same story, it goes differently.

Things you might try at home

Start with having them see light in the morning. When they get up, open the curtains, and if possible have them see the light outside even for a moment. Light is the strongest signal for pulling the clock earlier.

Not letting the weekend wake-up time drift more than two hours from the weekday one helps as well. Even if you let them sleep more, staying within two hours makes Monday less hard.

At night, the other way round, it is better to cut down on bright screens from an hour before bed. Light both pulls the clock earlier and pushes it later, and light at night works in the pushing-later direction.

When care is needed

If they are so sleepy during the day that it is hard to bear and they keep falling asleep in class, if they snore heavily and appear to stop breathing in their sleep, if morning headaches continue, or if the days stay heavy even though the hours of sleep are sufficient — sleep itself has to be looked into separately.

Otherwise, it is better to start by understanding together that the child has not become lazy. When that misunderstanding comes undone, mornings at home get a good deal less noisy.

---

Sources

• A study confirming that adolescents' internal clocks remain shifted later even under conditions of plenty of sleep — Developmental Neuroscience, 2009
• A summary that the pattern of falling asleep late and having difficulty getting up in the morning is common in adolescents and young adults — Seoul National University Bundang Hospital Sleep Center

Written by Dr. Heo Ji-young (Ph.D. in Korean Medicine Pathology, Kyung Hee University · former Research Professor of Herbology, Kyung Hee University)