BAAAAAAM BAAAAAAAM BAAAAAAAM
In the mornings, sometimes I wake up before my alarm. I am a light sleeper, and sometimes it happens.
I always get up before the kids on school days.
Normally, I set my alarm – a pleasant sort of wind chime effect – and when it goes off, I turn it off and get up. Long ago, I learned that the “snooze” button is a nuisance that just disrupts my sleep.
One day, I woke up before my alarm – but not early enough to get back to sleep.
I heard Dylan’s alarm – a screeching, obnoxious BAAAAAAM BAAAAAAAM BAAAAAAAM sound – from all the way down the hall. It was going off half an hour before mine was scheduled to go off.
Five minutes later, I heard Dylan’s alarm again.
Five minutes after that, it went off again.
And five minutes after that. And five minutes after that. And five minutes after that.
From the time I heard it the first time, it went BAAAAAAM BAAAAAAAM BAAAAAAAM every five minutes for 40 minutes. In addition to the sound, he has a bright light set on an alarm in his room, which brilliantly illuminates his entire bedroom.
The brilliant illumination started in the middle of the BAAAAAAM BAAAAAAAM BAAAAAAAM and continued lighting his room for another half an hour.
Dylan is scheduled to be downstairs for breakfast 25 minutes after my alarm goes off. Yet he doesn’t get out of bed until the time he’s supposed to be downstairs.
Since someone turns off the alarm every five minutes, I would assume that Dylan wakes up – many, many times – substantially earlier than he gets out of bed.
Since he is a teenager, he stays up late. Then he sets his alarm a full hour before he needs to get up, so that he can stay in bed until he’s late in the mornings, too.
BAAAAAAM BAAAAAAAM BAAAAAAAM is not a pleasant way to wake. But BAAAAAAM BAAAAAAAM BAAAAAAAM for a whole hour? Every day? That’s just miserable.
And lack of sleep is the absolute worst thing for someone with ADHD. It exacerbates the symptoms, and makes focus nearly impossible. In Dylan’s case, it means he needs to jump around and sing way more than he does when he is completely rested.
I have provided Dylan with documentation about all of this. I have told him, over the years, that the worst thing he can do in the mornings is to disrupt his sleep by setting his alarms early. I have suggested that he get up with the very first alarm, and get directly into the shower.
“Feet on the floor,” I have said. “Once your feet are on the floor, you can get yourself to the shower.”
I have printed out articles from the internet, on neurology and sleep disorders and ADHD. I have provided him with statistics and facts and education on the subject until I can’t provide any more information about disruption of sleep.
And Dylan is almost an adult. He is supposed to be responsible for himself. And he does, usually, eventually, get out of the bed.
With an hour less sleep than he needed, when he technically needs more sleep than most adults do.
And he’s late anyway.