Article: Is 12 hours sleep normal for a boy?

Question: Is it normal for my 8-year-old son to need 12 hours of sleep each night? He has always seemed to need long hours of sleep since he was an infant. But it is getting harder to achieve this goal as he gets older.

We've just started basketball and Cub Scouts, which pushes his bedtime back to about 8:30-9:00, but only two times a week. And I wake him at 7:30 to be on the bus by 8:30.

By the end of the week, he's a bear after school. Trying to get him to do his homework on a Wednesday or Thursday night is a battle. And most mornings I have to drag him out of bed at 7:30. He seems to be tired all the time.

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