Early morning kids sports on weekends

[Anonymous]

I hear ya OP! Another challenge of the early Saturday games is wrangling your kid into bed at a decent hour on a Friday night. Plus finding the motivation myself to organize Friday night so we can easily roll out the door in the morning.

Overall my family loved the travel sport experience- early weekend mornings included. Until the season when my teen’s love for the sport started to wane. That was a rough season, cause it’s no fun doing all of the above with a kid who’s not into it. At the end of the season, he decided to try another sport.

[Anonymous]

I love 8and 9a games. We get up at 6a, get ready, do a Starbucks run and get ready to take to the field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m fine with the 9/10 am games. It’s the 1 pm games that totally kill my weekends.

I agree with this. We had soccer at 10am this morning and to me that's ideal because it gets us moving in the morning but is not so early that we can't all get a little extra rest. It will be over by 11am and then we have the rest of the day to either do something fun or chill out and rest.

To be honest, having activities on the weekends is something we try to limit as much as we can. With soccer it's unavoidable, but for everything else (dance, swim, scouts, etc.) we really aim for things that happen during the week. I work part time so I can do things like sign kids up for a 4pm class, or help lead a Tuesday night Girl Scouts. It frees up our weekends which allows us more relaxation time, plus we can get out of town when we want. Soccer is the one exception right now but to be honest, and I don't think it's going to last more than another year or so because the kids like it but don't love it -- it's mostly social for them.

Don’t have them do travel.

My kid had a 10am, but they are required to be at the field an hour early (9am) and the field was 45 min away.

So for that 10am we had to leave at the very latest 8:15am. Games are 90 minutes. Drove back home and we have been “out for the game” from 8:15am-12:30pm. That’s just one kid.

For one game, a 4-hour period is gone.

[Anonymous]

Don't do archery! My child had to be driven 6-7 hours to get to some far away remote location. Then, you sit on hard bleachers or chairs and wait ALL day until her heat is called and they shoot for 10 minutes. She shot in 3D, 15m and 30m and outdoor once and it was stretched out all day. We left at 8p and got home at 2am.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love 8and 9a games. We get up at 6a, get ready, do a Starbucks run and get ready to take to the field.

Your kids must be young. My 13 yo has 8 or 9am games this season which means we are there much earlier for warmups. It’s hell for all involved but that’s the field availability this season. Saturday was rough. We went to Starbucks after the game and then she slept for a few hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Love 8 am cross country, can’t stand 11/12 basketball

Me too! We’re done by 9am and have the rest of the of the day. Kid who barely makes it to school on time actually gets out of bed for sports.

[Anonymous]

As other posters said, I prefer morning games on the weekends. That way we get the rest of our weekend. But this weekend we have a midday game on Sunday. So our family won't be able to take advantage of the MCPS three day weekend.

[Anonymous]

It doesn't get better - my son is in high school and has to get to school at 6:30 am or earlier many weekends to get the bus to travel to meets with teammates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not to make your life hard, it’s field availability. Rec sports, travel sports all sharing limited field space in our community. We have a 7pm game tonight.

+100

This is just the way it is.

Those little ones start at 8:00, but the MS or teenager kids have start times at 5:00

Just be patient. It moves farther back in the day.

What really sucks is when DD has an 8:00AM game and DS has a 5:30PM game

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This isn’t mandatory. Don’t stress yourself and your family out. It doesn’t work well in the long run.

If you signed your kid up for it, you made a commitment. Don't sign up if you're going to flake out bc you want some beauty sleep

[Anonymous]

Agree that 8am is rough, but otherwise we’re good with getting it done and having the rest of the day.

My tweens actually hate waiting around for 5 and 6pm games.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I told my husband that he would be on the hook for all games for our kid on a travel team (bc the local option would have been plenty). He was up at 6am to get him to a game two counties away. I slept until 9am and will get another kid to their local game this afternoon.

After so many years of schlepping kids to sports every season, I’m starting to hate it. Every other weekend would be plenty. Better yet: one evening game during the week to keep the weekends free.

If I were queen of the world, I’d institute a 90 min running clock for baseball.

The one-hour running clock for indoor lax was awesome!

This is so enlightening. Will NOT be signing my kid up for baseball. Thank you for your wisdom.

-mom of littles

Baseball games already have a time limit; when was the last time you saw a baseball game go the full amount of innings? There are other games to be played and you're only paying for 2 hours of the umpire's time; less for tournaments

[Anonymous]

My husband used to coach our kids' indoor soccer teams and when they were young they would have 7am Sunday games. That was brutal, but luckily we lived about 10 min away. The little kids also got the earlier travel soccer games too.

Then, when they hit middle school the games would be 9pm on a Saturday night. Ugh.

My sons are now a Sophomore and Senior and their club soccer games all seem to be between 10-2pm. I did my time, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:sign your kid up for something else
- signed parent of HS Hockey player who has practice until 11:30 PM on a school night given when the team can get ice time.

That’s insane to me. I know it’s all personal preference, but no sport is worth the lack of sleep which cause problems with cognitive development and functioning. Then again, my kids are never going to be olympians and don’t need scholorships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:sign your kid up for something else
- signed parent of HS Hockey player who has practice until 11:30 PM on a school night given when the team can get ice time.

This.
- signed parent of HS swimmers who often have practice at 4:30 a.m.