7 year old bedtimes

[seeyouinanotherlifewhenwearebothcats]

Please talk to me about your 7 year old bedtimes. What do they look like?
We are at wits end with DS. He has same routine every evening; bath, PJs, story from DH (plus another chapter of a book every other night from me), then has his Yoto on. He was always pretty good going to bed with this routine, some evenings he’d play in his room but didn’t come out which we were fine with. This issue now is that he is in and out, in and out for hours with silly requests and can be up so late! And he will stand at the top of stairs calling and we’re afraid of him waking the other children. This is an ongoing issue since before summer so don’t think it’s that. Really want to get it sorted for him being back at school.
Bedtime is 7.30. Any tips or advice or is this a typical thing at this age?! Feels like we’re back to toddler stage 🥴

My 6 year was doing similiar. I printed out a reward chart for him and allowed him to choose some stickers. He gets to put a sticker on the chart every morning ig he goes to bed nicely the night before and once he gets a certain amount of stickers he can have a treat (something small like a toy car or magazine.)

It's worked.

Bed time too early in my opinion. All my DC hit 6/7ish and started playing silly buggers with early bed times. Use it to you advantage- he can stay up till 8.30 if quietly in room reading/building Legos/drawing/writing/any other productive non screen activity.

Any messing about stay up late privileges withdrawn.

Also, make sure he gets enough physical activity during the day.

Negotiate. Tell him that you have decided to allow him to stay up a bit longer and go to bed at 8, but he has to agree that he won't be making all this fuss any more.

He is pushing the boundaries, so widen them. Give him more freedom, but explain that the extra freedom to stay up late comes at a price.

Is 7.30 lights out? If so I suspect it’s too early, mine was lights out at 8pm at that age and by age 8 it got nearer 8.30; last half an hour is quiet time in their room but they lose that the following night if they mess about at lights off time so it feels like a treat for them

Yes to the early bedtime too. Mine is going to sleep between 8:30-9pm.

Yeah maybe 7.30 is too early. But he plays and bangs about room in and out until it could be 10pm! So do you all do lights out 8.30 say, but can play on the room til 9? I will say, the more exercise he gets the later he is up,we’re always incredulous. He’s very active. Cycles a lot, football, tennis etc and the nights he has football training he’s up even later, it’s like he’s a dynamo 😴

Perhaps needs more time to wind down before bed? I know if I exercise late I'm wired for a couple of hours after and find it hard to sleep. Move bedtime later on football nights and focus on a proper wind down routine.

Yeah this is a good point, thank you for this.