Don't sleep in (much) on weekends

Keeping (almost) your usual schedule opens up lots of possibilities

When I first became a parent more than 16 years ago, I soon realized that weekend sleep would not be the same for a while. Little kids often wake up at the crack of dawn, and they do not care if it’s Saturday or it’s Tuesday. My husband and I would switch off for the early mornings — which I recommend if you’re in a two-parent family — but this meant the other party could maybe sleep until 8. Nobody hit double digits.

Of course children do eventually grow up. But even when they do, there is some merit to continuing to wake up on time on weekends. Doing so opens up all sorts of possibilities for achieving personal goals, even in the middle of a full life.

Where it fits

For instance, if you want to train for a race, or just like longer exercise stints, these runs or bike rides can be hard to fit into the middle of a Saturday that’s got birthday parties, kid activities, errands, and so forth. Run from 6:00-9:00 a.m. and you can train for a marathon before many other household members get up (or any household members get up if you have teens!). Or, if neither you nor your partner cling to the idea of sleeping in, each of you can get a long exercise stint in on one of the weekend mornings, taking the kids on the other one. This is how people who have careers and toddlers run marathons. They don’t have access to special hours that no one else does. They just don’t sleep in.

Of course, exercise doesn’t have to be the only option. Many people’s minds are freshest in the mornings. Weekends can be a great time to tackle those bigger creative projects that tend to get shoved away when life gets busy. From 6-9 a.m. on a weekend, you could spend 90 minutes working on your novel, then an hour reading, or doing something artsy, and start your day feeling accomplished.

Now, to wake up at something close to your weekday time on weekends requires two things. First, you need to be reasonably well-rested going into the weekend. Sleeping in is often about paying off a sleep debt. It might work, but in general, you’ll have more energy by figuring out how much sleep you need, and doing your best to make that happen during the work week. If you need 7.5 hours, and you need to wake up at 6 a.m. on weekdays, then your bedtime is 10:30 p.m. Simple enough — and you’ll be thanking yourself every morning as you wake up ready to wake up.

But then, of course, to keep this up you have to go to bed at a reasonable time on weekends too. This is often the biggest challenge. Not because there’s any particular reason for most of us to stay up late. If you and your spouse want to watch a movie, you could watch it from 8-10 p.m., go to bed at 10:30, and then pop up on your own by 6:00.

Holding on to a story

I suspect the problem is that, in our minds, going to bed early on weekends seems kind of…boring. No, we haven’t gone anywhere featuring bottle service at midnight in years but…we could! And if we’re not, at least we’re still awake at the same time as people who are in clubs!

But time is just time. If you’re out doing something special, by all means stay up. But if you’re not, it might be better to shift the available leisure time from late at night, when little beyond Netflix appeals, to morning when more is possible. Not sleeping in on weekends opens up time for things that make us feel energized for life.