- Jun 26, 2017

Freeschoolin' Explains Reverse Cycling

In our home we don't have bedtimes.

We sleep when we are tired and wake when we we are rested.

This often leads to Reverse Cycling for Hope (7) which is a daytime sleep pattern; when sleep is during more daytime than nighttime hours.

Hope after being up all night. Still happy and havin' fun!

HOW WE GOT HERE We began like many with a regular nighttime bedtime routine. Hope slept very well at night so we did not have habitual all-nighters when she was an infant. We did not even Co-Sleep; Hope had a crib! *gasp* Hee hee. Around the age of 3/4 Hope communicated to us that she would rather sleep in our bed, to which we happily obliged and so we embarked upon our Family Bed journey. Not long after, she began to have difficulty sleeping at her usual time in the evening, so we just went with her schedule. We had also recently stumbled upon the principles of Radical Unschooling, where the child leads their life/learning as much as safely and reasonably possible, including things like bed times. We work from home mostly so adjusting to Reverse Cycling when it happened wasn't difficult and we set up our life purposely so that we could live as freely as possible.

2 year old Hope

THE MOON We didn't notice why Hope Reverse Cycled until Hope was 4/5 when she revealed to me that, "...the moon gives me energy!", so we started tracking her sleep patterns and noticing that indeed, her sleeplessness followed the full moon cycle! Then when she was 5/6, her Reverse Cycling pattern started following the new moon. We didn't even know about the new moon, really. We aren't into astrology(not knocking it!) so we had to learn as we went about moon energy and Hope was the wonderful catalyst. This year, Hope is 6/7 and her pattern has changed again to where she is Reverse Cycling with both the new and full moon so we've had to become adept at surfing her fluxing sleep patterns. They've honestly been so natural to flow in and out of. Again, we set our lives up to make this kind of flux easier on us compared to if we were to work outside the home or other similar variables that would make living this way a struggle.

STRUGGLES? We don't have the pitfalls that most would expect being a home educating family with so much Reverse Cycling going on. If we have a meet-up, Hope knows that because she chooses her bedtime, she is responsible for managing her emotions whether she is tired or not. It's not a rule, it's just part of respectful relationships she understands. So, if she's stayed up all night before a field trip, she is able to balance herself and have fun. We've never missed a meet-up and being late is never due to Reverse Cycling; it's a chronic issue for our family regardless of when we sleep. *grin* Honestly it's been truly incredible to witness her self-management; she keeps showing us more evidence that this lifestyle is so right for us.

Just this past Friday Hope stayed up all night (with Freeschoolin' Daddy), after a day of playing in the park and going to see a potential vehicle we have decided to buy.

In the morning she had some turtle handling fun while we bought groceries at a local Farmer's Market and even went with me to drop off Daddy later at midday for his wrestling show. She never melted down. She had great fun. She learned so much.

I know that our bond would not be so tight if we had arbitrarily confined her to sleeping habits that did not suit her individual needs. We are so grateful for the examples around in the radical unschooling community that helped our family feel safe following Hope on her adventures all this time.