Do you sleep while your [young] kids are awake?

Question

I was just wondering...after reading another question.

Personally, I don't and I would feel really awful if I did. I've known parents who are okay with their young kids [1-5 years] waking up at eight and watching TV until ten or even eleven when they wake up. For some reason I just don't understand this...

If you do sleep while your children are awake--do you ever feel bad or are you able to listen out if they get into trouble? Is there a reason [working graveyard shifts...] that you sleep or are you just a naturally sleepy person? I just don't understand.

If you don't, how do you feel about people who sleep while their kids are awake like I mentioned above.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Never...I have a hard time sleeping when they sleep...I'm always on guard

Answer 2

When they were younger than three I never intentionally slept at all while they were awake... Now that the youngest is 5 and the oldest is 7, I will lay down and take a nap on the couch in the morning. They know the rules when mommy is taking a nap. If the 5 year old breaks the rules, the 7 year old will wake me up and tell me, if I dont hear it while I am dozing. I felt bad when they were younger for dozing off after I ate lunch or something like that, but I dont feel bad now. We live in a very small town, It is like a time warp here. It is not uncommon at all to see 3 year olds playing outside by the road unattended throughout this town..Which I do not allow my children to do. The play in the back yard with a big solid sheet metal fence and 2 great Pyrenees dogs that alert me when one of the boys has been hurt. I am a naturally sleepy person. I dont see anything wrong with a little cat nap if the kids are above 3 or 4. However accidents happen, so for those people who have children that are younger than that, I dont think they are bad moms, I just think they are wore out.

Answer 3

The only time I have slept while my kids are awake is when my 5 year old is watching tv and I lay on the couch and nap a bit - while she is in the room with me - sometimes on the couch with me. I never sleep while my 2 year old is awake - that would be nuts! But I know there have been a couple times when I was so tired I sat on the couch and thought I would just "rest my eyes" and ended up asleep for 5-10 minutes - just long enough for something to happen. I felt awful, especially after hearing about a mom in my area that fell asleep on the couch and her kids got out of the house and drowned in a nearby pond. That scared me awake!

Answer 4

I have to be honest and say I do sleep, more dozing than deep sleeping, while they are awake in the morning. (DD 5yrs DS 2.5yrs). They get up anywhere from 5am and our bedroom door opens right onto the loungeroom where they watch tv in the morning. I just can't get up that early or I am a zombie by midafternoon. I can see them from my bed and I usually just lay dozing for another half hour to hour until the sun is actually up! Hubby is up and going to work most times too. Sometimes they come in for a cuddle and we lay together dozing but I am always on guard and always know when they are awake. The slightest hint of trouble and I am up like a cannon. But we have never encountered a problem except the time my daughter got into my lipstick!
I don't have a problem with it but would never shut the door and just go back to sleep till 10 or 11. At most I'm up by 7am at the latest to get DD ready for school and they are usually bugging me for breakfast too.

Answer 5

I know when I was about 3, I went through a stage where I was afraid of the dark -- not terribly so, but enough that for a short while my parents would let me sleep with the light on. If they caught me up playing with my toys, the brightest light went off and they switched to a nightlight, if they caught me again, it was "three strikes your out" and no more lights. It only actually got that far 2-3 times before I caught on and they didn't do it a mean way, they just explained the rules to me and made sure I understood why they were taking things away from me. Obviously, this won't work for every child. I was the sort of child who hated being caught (well, they all do, but I mean it in a more "I'm the good kid! I'm not supposed to get in trouble!" sort of way) -- and would be much more obedient after I was caught, so this system worked well for me. You wouldn't have to do it with lights, if they love to listen to music at night, maybe one time it gets turned down, and then switched off or something. They'd be rewarded for being quiet by getting more music or something.

Answer 6

Kind of...

My kids are 4 and 18 months. They are up and wanting to play by 6 every morning.

What I do is get them breakfast and dressed for the day...

I sleep on a futon in the living room, so they join me for some TV time on my bed. They enjoy it and I get to catnip after about 2 hours of being awake.

I do however, wake up when the youngest gets off of the bed. The older one will wake me if I don't wake on my own.

We have out TV time for about 30 minutes.

BUT.. I will not curl up and actually intend to get a decent, deep sleep while they are awake and playing.

Answer 7

Last year when I was pregnant and sooooo very sick I would lay on our couch and go in and out of sleep. My kids were 4, 5, and 10 at the time but I would always have an ear open and they knew if they needed anything they woke me up. But no, I've never gone into my bedroom or something for a nap and left them alone. Their responsible but not that responsible...lol. Yes, I felt bad for sleeping but because I was throwing up every 10 min I didn't have any energy in me. Hope this helps...

Answer 8

I have spent a fortune in making my house safe for my child so I'm not worried to death if I fall a sleep for a little bit while my 2 year old is playing. I tend to trap him in a room if I'm feeling sleepy. So I know theres not anything he will get hurt doing. A lot of times I wake up and hes curled up beside me sleeping too. I don't sleep all the time. Maybe fall asleep once a week or so.

Answer 9

Although I've been quite exhausted after a few sleepless nights here and there due to major insomnia, no, I've never fallen asleep while my children were up and about. I wouldn't feel comfortable with that. My kids are 8 and 5, and nowhere near ready to be "on their own" even with me in the house sleeping. Anything can happen.

Answer 10

Sleep, what's that. I have a 5. and 9. year old girl's. did some body mention sleep. I might have to look that word up, find out what that mean's.
if you don't wacth your kid's, then some body else will. that's when they get hurt bad, or get missing. it's hard enough to keep them safe when you are a wake and wacthing them in this world we live in today. alway's know where your kid's are at all time's.

Answer 11

I would never have been able to sleep while my children were awake when they were young. I would have worried too much to sleep.

My husband, however, did fall asleep on the couch once while I was working and our oldest was about 3. He had had a great night drinking and playing video games and was tired (grrrrr...still mad thinking about it 20 years later). My brother was getting married that day and my beautiful daughter was the flower girl. She decided to play hair cuttery with her paper doll scissors. She was practically bald on one side of her head by the time he woke up. I could have killed him.