Teen Girl Sleep Deprivation | Body Clocks, Hormones & Morning Struggle - Teen Whisperer

It's Saturday morning, and you've got something well exciting planned. Something she's been looking forward to for weeks on end. And you've been awake for ages. You showered, you've had your breakfast, you've had your morning drink, you've got everything ready, and all she needs to do is get out of bed. But she's not. She's still in it. Fast asleep. Hiya, and welcome to The Teen Whisperer, the only podcast for mums or girls, where we connect the dots everyone else is staring at separately. Because do you know what?

Behaviour is never just about one thing. Every week we're gonna slow things down. Together, we're gonna look at what you're seeing, the behaviour, what you're then thinking about said behaviour, and then what you're making your thinking mean, how that's then making you feel, and what you're doing because of those feelings. Then and only then will we zoom out and ask a completely different question. What's happening for her? Because when we stop asking what's wrong with her and start asking what's happening for her, everything starts to make a little more sense.

I promise you that one, okay? My hope is that every time you listen, you'll leave feeling a little more seen, a little more understood, and a lot less alone. So let's start with what you're actually seeing because I know this is where you're coming from. Your daughter is still in bed, despite it being the day where you're doing something exciting and new, and you're really looking forward to it, and you know she is too. So you go into her room. Okay, time to get up. We're going out soon. Nothing.

Nada zilch buggero. Zero. You put your hand on her hip so she feels you're there, and you can feel her start to rouse, start to wake. A grant. You're gonna miss it. And what does she do? She pulls the duvet over her head. And now you're getting annoyed. Because seriously, you can't get out of bed, even when it's something so exciting that we've been planning for weeks on end, and you're not getting out of bed. And this is usually the point where the thoughts start ruminating, start going round and round your head.

Why does she do this? She's got something fun to get up for. She knows what time we have to leave, she knows it's something exciting. Isn't she old enough to get herself out of bed? And then perhaps the one that really gets you, if she can get up when she wants, can't get up when she wants to, how the hell is she gonna get up when she needs to? And suddenly, this isn't about her getting out of bed anymore. Now it's about what you're thinking her behaviour says about her. She's lazy, she's ungrateful, she's got no motivation, she expects me to do everything for her.

Isn't she old enough to do this on her own? She doesn't appreciate what I do, and then you're left feeling frustrated, you're cross, you're probably worrying a little bit too, because if she's this tired, is something else going on? Or is something wrong with her? And then you do what most of us do when we're feeling frustrated and angry. We start nagging, we shout, we open the curtains up wide, and she screams through murder at you. You turn the light on, same reaction. You threaten to leave without her, which leaves you feeling absolutely oo!

You tell her this is the last time you're ever getting her up and out of bed, and eventually she gets up. But the problem is you're absolutely blinking knackered. You're exhausted before you've even left the house. Sound familiar? I've got my hand up in the air right now because that was me. This is my exact story. But I want you to know something. You are not a terrible mum for your daughter not getting out of bed. There's way more at play here. You're not unreasonable for being frustrated. Total natural reaction, and you're certainly not alone as a mum of a girl.

But, and I want you to really listen to this. What if we're looking at this from the wrong end? Now, before you go, what the heck, Rach? How the hell can I be looking at this from the wrong end? Because I want you to see this. A girl who won't get out of bed is just what you're seeing. But what you can't see is what's happening within her, and this is the bit I am so interested in. This is where the teen whisperer comes into its own. Because when we look at behaviour, we so often jump to what is she doing, and then why is she doing it?

And then very quickly behind that, what's wrong with her? But what if we ask that different question? What's going on for her? Because sleep isn't simply a choice, and teenage girls aren't just smaller versions of us as women who should be able to operate on the same timetable. And by the way, that should is an inverted commas. I mean, let's start with the most obvious one. She may genuinely need more sleep. So teenagers actually need about eight to ten hours of sleep a night. The same amount she needed when she was a babba.

And puberty also brings a natural shift towards later sleep timing. In other words, her biology can be telling her she isn't ready for bed as early as you think she should be, whilst the rest of the world is still expecting her to get out of bed early. I mean, you've possibly seen it on social media, there's a big push for making schools open up later to reflect the fact that teenagers need more sleep and their sleep rhythm changes. But hey, it's still not happening. So when you're saying to her, why didn't you just go to bed earlier?

Her body might genuinely be saying, because I wasn't tired. And then you're saying, Well, why can't you just get up? Her body again may just be saying, because I'm still asleep. That's not permission to stay up until two in the morning every night, but it's simply recognising that her biology is involved in why she can't get out of bed. And this is the thing, and this is the next thing that I really want you to hear because puberty, she's full on into pubescent years. Big posh word for me, that one.

Puberty changes sleep. So there's that natural shift in the body's internal clock towards later sleep and later waking, as I say, still not being reflected in the schools in the UK, don't have to be being reflected around the world either. So your daughter can be absolutely shattered and still not ready for sleep at 9:30. Hell, I'm not ready for sleep at 9.30. My normal sleep cycle is between 10.30 and 12. But for her, she could actually shift backwards to like 12, 1 or 2, which then creates a wee bit of a nightmare because she's got to get up at 6:30 or 7 o'clock in the morning, but her body doesn't necessarily want to go to sleep any earlier.

So she starts the day already carrying a sleep deficit, and then we wonder why she can't get out of bed. But there's also another piece we don't talk about enough, and this is where I want to bring in something that's particularly important when we're talking about our girls. Her body has rhythms within rhythms. So she's not just moving through a 24-hour sleep wake cycle. If she's having her menstrual cycle as well, she's also moving through a roughly monthly hormonal cycle, and those hormones reflect and influence far more than her reproductive system.

They can affect her body temperature, her mood, her energy, and her sleep. Research shows that sleep can be poorer in the premenstrual phrase and around menstruation for some girls and women, particularly when premenstrual symptoms or period pain are present. So when your daughter's struggling with her period, she struggles with her sleep. Not rocket science. Look at where she is in her cycle, because not because she could be in that premenstrual phase where she's absolutely knackered. She could be in that actual menstruating phase where she's absolutely shattered.

But her dot, her cycle, sorry, is another dot on the picture. And this is where melatonin comes in, because we've all heard about melatonin, haven't we? Melatonin is one of the signals involved in telling the body it's night time, it's time to wind down. And sleep and Cacadian rhythms are closely connected with those hormonal rhythms, and then there's serotonin, another chemical involved in regulating sleep, mood, and a whole host of other things. But I don't want to talk to you to think at all talk to think of those two as little buckets that simply get emptied when she's tired because it isn't that simple.

What I want you to understand is that sleep, light, hormones, mood, stress, and the body plug clock are all talking to one another. Got no idea, but they're talking to one another. So when her system is already worn out, when she's had a week of rubbish sleep, when she's been up late, when she's stressed, when her short hormones are shifting, getting up in the morning isn't happening in isolation. Her body is having to bring all of those systems online, and sometimes it takes a hell of a lot of effort.

And this is why the cycle matters so much, and this is where a lot of people just completely ignore the fact that our girls have cycles. Their bodies are not supposed to feel exactly the same every week. There are natural rises and falls throughout the menstrual cycle. So for some girls, the week or two before their period and the days around their period can come with more fatigue, poorer sleep, more discomfort, or simply a greater need for recovery.

And that matters because if you don't know this, you can end up thinking, what's happened to her? She was absolutely fine last week when actually nothing has happened to her. Her body has just moved into another phase. So if your daughter's exhausted every morning, don't just ask how do I get her out of bed? Ask what's going on with her sleep. What time is she actually falling asleep? How much sleep is she actually getting? What's happening with her phone? Is she on it to the early hours? What's happening at school?

Has she had a stressful week? Is she catching up with her sleep at the weekend? Is she physically active? Is she getting outside? Or is something else worrying her? And then where is she in her cycle? Because all of those things are dots. And the point isn't to find the one reason, it's to start connecting them. So the next time you're standing outside her bedroom thinking, for God's sake, why don't you just get up? I want you to pause because you're seeing the very last bit of the story. You're seeing the girl who won't get out of bed.

You're not seeing what I've just said about her sleep, when her body actually becomes sleepy, what's happened during the week, what's going on hormonally. You're seeing one dot. So perhaps instead of why won't she get up, we start asking what's making this so hard.

That is a completely different question. And it doesn't mean that you just give her a free pass. It doesn't mean she gets to do whatever she likes. It doesn't mean you become her personal alarm clock forever. It just simply means we understand before we jump to those conclusions. Because once you understand what's going on, you can actually decide what needs to change. Maybe she needs an earlier bedtime, maybe she needs a better wind-down routine, maybe the phone. She needs to put uh restrictions on it.

Maybe she's carrying a huge amount of stress. Or maybe she just needs a little more sleep. And that's why I keep saying, I keep banging on about it, behaviour is never just about one thing. That eye roll, that slam door, that phone glue to her hand, those tears that come from nowhere. And yes, the girl who absolutely refuses to get out of bed when you've got something fun planned. They're all information, not a problem to fix, a clue to follow. So next time you're standing at that bedroom door, before you decide she's lazy, ungrateful, or just being difficult, zoom out.

Look beyond the behaviour, connect the dots and ask yourself what's going on for her. Because sometimes the girl who looks like she can't be bothered is actually a girl whose body is asking for something completely different. And when you can see that, you stop fighting the behaviour and you start seeing the whole girl. And if you're listening to me, this thinking that's me, I've got something for you. It's called Connect the Dots. It's a brand new, really simple guide to help you slow down. Look at what you're actually seeing, and then zoom out and consider what else might be going on for your daughter.

You can grab it for free at my website, the3w's 13westroya.co.uk. And if doing this has made you realise that you want some help actually making sense of what's going on with your daughter, rather than being giving yet another parenting strategy, sorry, or being told what you should be doing, that's exactly what WTF is for. It's where we look at the whole picture together. Not fixing your daughter, not perfect parenting, don't believe in that. Just understanding what's going on, connecting the dots, and working out what might help.

You'll find all the details again at my website, the3w's th13whisperer.co.uk. Because remember, behaviour is never just about one thing.

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