My son is 5 and my husband and I have always dreaded bedtime with him. He doesn’t like to fall asleep alone which is fine with us as one of stays with him until he falls asleep. But the lead up to bedtime can be so stressful and it really makes me quite upset. He’s only 5 and I know he should be getting upto 11 hours but hes getting approximately 8.5-9hours. He’ll sometimes just refuse to sleep and stays up til 11-11.30pm.
We would start his bedtime routine nice and early making sure hes not hungry, a quick bath and a book to wind down. But he’ll say hes got too much energy and will get out if bed and start messing around or finds something to do.
He’ll suddenly have a huge list of things he wants to do and its so draining. We also have a 2 year old who falls asleep fairly quickly.
I feel like a “bad mum” when my friends and family members tell me they put their kids to sleep at 7-8pm and mines jumping off the walls at 11pm. I’m not sure what im doing wrong when their bedtime routines are similar to ours.
The health visitor said every child is different and not all need the same amount of sleep as other children. This is fine but any tips on what i can do or change that may help him to fall asleep quicker or any tips to ease our way into bedtime?
Anyone else ever get this too with their children? xx thank u