Early morning kids sports on weekends

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Playing under the lights is so much fun. For both the athletes and the parents! It's a great way to spend a Saturday night

[Anonymous]

How late do you want to sleep? Are your kids late sleepers too?

My daughter use to get up at 6am no matter what so I loved Saturday morning sports because I could sit in a chair with my coffee and someone else was in charge to wear her out

[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.

This. We now often have games at 4:30 or 5pm that definitely impact dinner or evening plans. Or the early afternoon games which mess with the ability to do anything else with the day.

Little kids get the morning spots. It’s field space, nothing more.

[Anonymous]

I don’t mind getting up for Saturday morning away swim meets. The sun is coming up and it’s warm out. What I do mind is driving from western Fairfax to the St James for 8 am Sunday morning futsal games… painful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t mind getting up for Saturday morning away swim meets. The sun is coming up and it’s warm out. What I do mind is driving from western Fairfax to the St James for 8 am Sunday morning futsal games… painful.

What about Saturday morning swim meets in February when it's dark and freezing?

[Anonymous]

If your kids truly enjoy the sports what's the big deal? If your kid is miserable and you are too, then totally you should find something else but although these sports are a huge time suck on my schedule I know it's a very small time relative to life that I have with them. I cherish the hour car ride with my son to travel sports where we can talk, listen to music, etc. Yes it's a grind and some days I cant wait until it's over but for the most part I try to stay in it with the perspective that one day I may miss all this chaos when it is just me and my spouse with nothing to do on a Saturday.

[Anonymous]

Once we get past the initial waking up process, my tweens are usually more focused, motivated, and eager when the game is first thing in the morning. By the afternoon, they’ve been running around outside with friends for a few hours and doing other things, and their energy gets dissipated. We had a 5 pm soccer game last Sunday. Three quarters of the kids looked like they were sleepwalking.

[Anonymous]

Just have your nanny take them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kids truly enjoy the sports what's the big deal? If your kid is miserable and you are too, then totally you should find something else but although these sports are a huge time suck on my schedule I know it's a very small time relative to life that I have with them. I cherish the hour car ride with my son to travel sports where we can talk, listen to music, etc. Yes it's a grind and some days I cant wait until it's over but for the most part I try to stay in it with the perspective that one day I may miss all this chaos when it is just me and my spouse with nothing to do on a Saturday.

You have the right perspective. We have two sons who both played travel hockey and soccer, and went on to play in college. One just graduated from college and the other just started. While traveling to see them play in college is fun, we do sometimes talk about missing what you just described. Just enjoy the phases you're in while you're there, they all go by pretty quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why? Aren’t parents lives hard enough? Why does this happen. No I don’t need the rest of the day to do things - I need to actually rest my busted skeleton from the week and sleep.

Noon/2 pm games are worse since they are right smack in the middle of the day

[Anonymous]

Bottom line- scheduling games or practices in the early morning is not unreasonable given field/ice/pool/whatever availability. Our job as parents is to teach kids that when they commit to something and there is a request that is not unreasonable, we fulfill that commitment, even when doing so might be hard. It actually blows my mind that some parents are sending the message to kids that sports before 9am is too “hard.” That is not the type of attitude that is going to set a kid up for success for anything! Kids benefit from doing hard things snd seeing their parents do hard things.

[Anonymous]

If you have an 8am game, go to bed earlier the night before.

I don’t enjoy getting up at 530 to get to an 8am game but I’m an adult who’s figured out how to mentally and physically prepare for said early hour.

[Anonymous]

Give me early morning over late evenings any day.

I am awake by latest 5:00 am everyday. If I sleep too many hours I get a headache. Awake on weekend mornings too.

[Anonymous]

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!

I don't know about baseball, but rec softball is typically 90 minutes NNI, 105 minutes drop dead.

Travel ball tends to be 75 minutes NNI, 85 minutes drop dead. Of course, travel teams are typically playing 2-3 games in a day.

[Anonymous]

I love Sunday afternoon travel baseball double headers. Highlight of my weekend.