Sleep question for 5 year old and am I setting him up for a hard time?

[MamaNae]

We live in Iowa, around here we have Sprint Cars it's a form of racing. Anyway, the Nationals are next week. This is like the 'christmas' of sprint car racing. DH & DS1 got tickets from DH's grandparents...the races go Wed, Thurs, Fri & Sat (Aug 11-14). They typically get over around midnight :banghead DH & DS1 will be there every night, we're 17 or so miles from the track so they won't get home until around 1am (parking is a nightmare)

Problem? He starts school on the 23rd...so starting the 15th we'll have to start working on bedtime at 7pm up at 7am.

Is that going to be so so hard for him? We're night owls anyway so going to bed at midnight won't be a problem but then having to flip a switch and only having a WEEK to prepare for an early bedtime/early wake time...is this going to be so hard on him? He can't NOT go to the races because 1) he's really looking forward to it and 2) The tickets are very expensive *sigh* I wish DH's family used their brains!!


And part 2, is that enough sleep for a 5.5 year old? 12 hours? School starts at 8:23, we'll be driving him so we'll leave the house shortly after 8:00 so that gives us an hour to eat, get dressed, etc.

[MamaNae]