Sleep

[dudette]

My daughter is 10 and I really struggle to get her to bed before 10 in the evening ... she says she's not tired, and struggles to get to sleep,even if the lights go off half and hour before. She does struggle to get up at 7 in the morning too, but other than physically taping her eyelids shut at night, I have no idea as how to get her to sleep earlier.
My son, who was always easier to get to sleep is now also finding it more difficult to nod off.

All my friends children also struggle to go to sleep earlier than 9.30, but this can't be right, surely?

I don't remember going to sleep later than 9pm until I was much older than them, and my husband was the same.


Who else has this problem?

[Jillibeans]

Dudette, my daughter of 13 is also battling, I put her to bed at 9 and then she reads. Lights out by 9.30, but then also just lies there and sometimes at 10.30 she is still awake. During the week in fact 2 nights Monday and Wednesday she is allowed to stay up until 10 because of a program she watches on TV but then she is not allowed to read before going to sleep - lights out straight away.

[Ameniatha]

my older son is like this too...he is 9.

He can stay up and watch tv all night if we let him...I on the other hand have a strict policy that he must be in bed latest 20:30 on school nights. This is not always easy to enforce..and sometimes ends up in arguements..

In the weekends we usually let him stay up a little later..

I do however always tuck him in, and say goodnight. He sleeps with a little light on until we go to bed. If he is in bed early, say 20:00 then he is allowed to read for half an hour...otherwise not. reason for the early bedtime is that we get up between 06:00 and 06:30.

Even though he should get enough hours of sleep he is terrible at getting up in the mornings, I have to resort to all sorts of things. Usually tickling him awake works ok, and he starts the day in a good mood. Otherdays I can be in and out several times to wake him up after which he will go back to sleep the moment I am out the door....this usually ends up with me fetching the vapouriser which has plain old water in it....then I spray him awake....

Sound like torture???? nah not really, its become a sport now, I just have to mention that I will spray him, then he is out of bed in a flash...

I once read somewhere though that some children just don't need very much sleep, and are actually better of sleeping for fewer hours than the regular 8-10.. I also feel that the sleeping pattern of children has something to do with how active they are during the day...like do they do any sports outside of school? do the partake in any other extracaricular activities? and so on..

[Jemlet]

This website has some good ideas it seems

http://sleepforkids.org/index.html

[Pampered]

We only have problems with the girls like that during the holidays, when they wake up later, and go to bed later. It becomes a vicious circle! Okay, my girls are only 8, but we try to have them in bed between 7:30 and 8, and they are normally asleep by 8:30. In some extreme cases, they will only go to sleep at about 9. But then they are up at 6 in the morning. They have incredibly busy days, with after school clubs on a Monday, then coming home to practice violin. Tuesdays they have ballet, Wednesdays is Violin, and Thursdays they have another after school club, with more violin practice. So Fridays they come home and do homework. By the time they have eaten and bathed, they are so tired!!