Sonoma County families find ways to cope with changing sleep patterns in face of coronavirus pandemic

In an unprecedented time when just about every facet of daily life seems turned on its head - work routines, school schedules, personal grooming habits - experts say that one key area should remain as close to pre-pandemic patterns as possible: Sleep.

The coronavirus pandemic and ensuing stay-at-home edicts have changed the daily habits of hundreds of thousands of people in the North Bay. Children are no longer up and out the door for an 8 a.m. school start and those working from home are finding it takes less time to pull on a pair of sweats than a pair of slacks. Suddenly, the alarm clock doesn’t mean what it used to.

Sleep, rest and routine are the building blocks from which the rest of a day can unfold during an anxious time, according to doctors and sleep scientists. And as difficult as it seems, they contend that adherence to a familiar schedule can be a crucial piece of maintaining sanity in what feels like a crazy time.

“The most important thing is to make sure that we don’t lose sight of the normal that we used to have so when all this over we can easily transition,” said Dr. Lydia Kim, a pediatric sleep doctor at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

That means following routines, to the extent possible, that were established before the shelter-in-place edict, especially with school-age children, according to Ian Campbell, project scientist at the UC Davis Sleep Lab.

“It means that they may need to keep the same rise time that they had in school,” he said. “See what works for your child but avoid letting it shift into a normal Saturday rise time.”

And that means you too, Mom and Dad.

“It’s getting up and getting dressed and not doing your work in your bathrobe,” he said.

But many locals contend that if ever there was a time to take a step back and perhaps buck a traditional rule or two, this is it.

For the Correia family of Santa Rosa, with both parents working from home and three kids finding their way through distance learning, the new schedule means something a little different to everyone. Andrea Correia, vice principal at Santa Rosa High, said she’s going to bed earlier than ever: “I’m exhausted.”

But her three kids? She and husband Scott are giving Ava, 15; Sofia, 13; and C.J., 10 a little more leeway.

Phones, screens - all the things typically monitored - are now seen as her kids’ lifeline to their friends, all of them separated for weeks.

“Typically during a regular school year they have to give me their phones at 9,” she said. “My ninth grader will keep her computer with her and do her work. …With distance learning it’s kind of hands off. It’s ‘Take your phone, take your computer, I don’t care.’ I know how hard it is for them to be missing their friends so if this is working for you and it makes you happy, I’m OK with it.”

The stay-at-home bedtime now looks more like 10:30 p.m. Everyone is usually up by 9:30 a.m. - long after the time the alarm clock used to go off for the 7:45 a.m. start at Piner High, where Ava is a freshman.

“My 15-year-old would definitely sleep until 12 but we are up and making noise,” she said. “We don’t let her.”

For the Correias, exercise remains a key piece to making sure kids relieve some stress and are physically tired by day’s end so sleep comes easier.

Andrea Correia, a career educator, also shared an extra tip for parents dealing with the unscheduled days and close quarters: It’s not always about holding fast to rules.

“My advice to parents is to really take a pause and be easy on yourselves, be gentle,” she said. “You are doing a great job, it may not look like what it did two months ago, but you are doing a good job. Relax and enjoy your time with your kids.”

For Sanna Range, a sales manager at a Sonoma restaurant, the push and pull of seeing her 14-year-old son’s need to connect with friends - a need that was prompting him to play video games with them deep into the night and sleep late in the morning - prompted her to consult the family’s pediatrician. Normally, video games are banned during the week.

“I was concerned it was a free-for-all,” Range said.

But clearly, this is not a normal situation. Plus, she could hear her son talking about his day with friends as he played. That has value, she said.

“(The pediatrician) said it’s more important to have good relationship than it is to be caught in a power struggle,” Range said.

The constant nagging about bed time and wake time or school assignments? Not worth it, the pediatrician told her. For either of them.

“Everyone is under large amounts of stress,” she said. “She just said, ‘Listen, it’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon.’?”

For some, sleep can be an elixir to help deal with anxiety in these uncertain times. And the new rules of engagement for school and work have given some permission to fall into a sleep and wake pattern that feels more natural.

For Kirsten Skold, working from home instead of in downtown Santa Rosa, where she is office manager at Luther Burbank Home & Gardens, means that has slipped into what she feels is her body’s more natural sleep patterns, which she admits are extreme.

“When I wait until 4 in the morning, I fall right asleep,” she said, and she stays asleep until about noon. “It feels more comfortable.”

Skold, whose parents are 79 and who works with mostly senior volunteers, said her worry-level dropped after Sonoma County officials instituted shelter-in place-rules, but she still considers sleep a bit of an escape during this uncertain period. It’s one of the reasons she feels OK going back to her night-owl ways.

“I am getting more sleep than I usually do and I think that it is a way of hiding from things,” she said. “If anything, it’s more sleep rather than less.”

Teri Cownie’s alarm used to go off at 5:30 a.m. She drives a school bus for West County Transportation Agency. Normally, she’s at the bus yard at 6:10 a.m. and picking up her first student at 6:30. Nowadays, with no routes to drive, she stays up far later than she normally would, doing things she wouldn’t on a weeknight: Watching Netflix, catching up on Facebook and “playing mind-numbing games on the computer.”

And don’t tell, but she kind of likes it.

“It’s nice not having to get up,” she said, acknowledging that with her husband still working early hours in appliance repair, some envy exists in her household.

“He’s an early riser and is up and about. His idea of sleeping in is sleeping until 6:30 a.m.,” she said. “His schedule hasn’t changed. That’s been our biggest issue. He still has a business.”

And she knows there will be a big adjustment whenever classes do resume.

“I’m going to get used to this and when school starts it’s going to be - boom,” she said.