To ask how you don’t lose your shit??

[BuzzBuzzBuzzLightyearToTheRescue]

My girls are fabulous. They are clever and funny and close and I love being their mum.

However, they go from being angelic to absolute demons at night. Especially the eldest (7). I’m struggling to keep it together. I end up losing the rag which just makes me feel like the worlds worst mum. It can ruin an otherwise perfectly lovely day.

As soon as bedtime rolls around, they start to ignore me. They go from calm to utterly hyper. It’s like herding cats to get their bedtime routine done and the pair of them into bed. The eldest just carries on, wanders about, ignores me if I ask her to get into her bed (even if just to read).

Youngest (6) will generally carry on for ten mins but then goes to sleep. Fine. Eldest however simply refuses to go to sleep. Tonight my husband was out and she was still wandering the floors gone midnight. I constantly returned her to bed. She has lost her Switch privileges for tomorrow. Nothing worrying or upsetting her, by the way. I have asked and asked. She just gets bored in her bed and doesn’t want to go to sleep.

Whilst midnight is an extreme example, this is most nights with the eldest. I feel like my husband and I get no privacy and no time to just relax because she just appears down to see what we are up to and then won’t go back to bed. Eventually one of us loses the rag and then she gets upset and we feel terrible but to be honest it is just too much!! The other night I caught her hiding in the hall, listening to our conversation and what we were watching on tv.

She has a bedtime routine. Same as her sister and has been the same for years. She goes to bed about 7.45-8pm and is allowed to read as long as she likes (if I go in and take her book off her, she just gets up. I figure it’s better that she’s in bed reading at 10pm than wandering about…).

I’ll be honest. I’m running out of patience. She just doesn’t seem to need that much sleep. How, HOW do you keep your temper with this?! I don’t want to bark and moan and shout at her to go to bed. I hate that. But at 11pm it just feels like…please just go away!!

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At 7, surely the 'read for as long as you like' is understood by the child as 'stay up as long as you like'. Far too open ended.
Why not try a) Make a deal that she gets to have a bedtime that is 30/45 mins later than her young sibling b) in return she does 15 minutes reading and then you check on her, say night night (short chat say 5 mins is allowed) and then it is light out, not allowed out of room. Strictly enforced.
I really think the open ended invitation to read for as long as she likes isn't right for a 7 year old. Mixed message of 'bed time but not sleep time'.

I remember my ds going through this. I think it was FOMO!

I remember so clearly the day I had a friend over. I asked her for support with it and to come over so he'd come down but support me to 100% not even acknowledge his existence - Luke he couldn't be there because he shouldn't be iyswim?

Next day I woke him at 5am and took him for a 2 hour walk before breakfast.

He never did it again!

I think if she genuinely can't sleep then I'd allow a nightlight and reading.

But my rules have always been that once in bed you don't leave. I'd have a very clear list of consequences to leaving the room (except for the loo!).

Maybe a sliding scale of increased punishment for every time.

I'd then ignore her, go to bed when it's time for me to and then show her the consequence she reached the next day.

You just need to make the behaviour annoying and inconvenient for her and not worth bothering with!

My DD is 9 and acts in a similar way but we recently tried a glass of milk (for tryptophan) and a banana (enhances melatonin) then removed all screens and electronic devices from her room and gave her some colouring to do as it is apparently very relaxing. We have had 2 weeks of her sleeping before 10 which is a huge turn around.

Audiobooks!

I was told “You cannot physically make them fall asleep, all you can do is give them the best opportunity to do so.” So your role is to give them the best chances of a good nights sleep. But it’s not your job to actually make them sleep (because that’s impossible without medication or knocking them unconscious).

You can't make them sleep. You can make them stay in their rooms.

What I did around this age was to say if DC could have supper and get pyjamas on, brush teeth etc for a set time such as 7.30 - then we could sit down to watch a particular Tv show episode together, on condition that they go straight up to bed after ( if they fuss or come down then no Tv show the following eve).

My Dc really enjoyed getting the extra time with me and to them felt like a special treat each eve to watch the Tv show, looking forward to the next episode. I’m sure you can find a good one that they will enjoy. We even did it with watching the Harry Potter movies in chunks.

No advice. Sleep is what I struggle with too and is the reason I won’t ever have any more kids. I highly need quite time before bed and sleep.

no advice just saying you’re not the only one that struggles.

When i was a child, I was like this. Turned out I had a reaction to certain food colourings and caffeine which made me hyperactive and unable to switch off. It was actually the orange colour and my mum used to give me a glass of orange juice every night before bed (80s!). Once she had worked out what triggered it an eliminated it, I could sleep.

I used to let my daughter watch a Disney film in bed which she would often nod off too. Keeping her in the bed is the trick. Other than that I would second what someone else said about supernanny back to bed. No talking or eye contact just keep returning might take a hundred times but see it through and it works

Could you talk to her about it when it’s not bedtime and just the two of you? Explain how you feel it’s a shame that lovely days end up in an argument at bedtime. Ask her if she feels the same as you about the evening arguments. Then brainstorm solutions with her - what does she think might work. Write down all the ideas and then together choose the ones that could realistically work and maybe a couple of easy less realistic ones too so she feels listened to! If she is making the decisions about bedtime routine, it might help her to stick to the rules. Keep her involved in any adjustments to the rules but agree you’ll only talk about changes in the daytime when you’re both calm.This approach has often helped me with tricky behaviours and it also develops the child’s own problem solving skills.

Try a podcast op.
Totally empathise 🤗

There are also several other factors that could be impacting her sleep. Anxiety, SEN (ASD, ADHD). Kids often don't know how to describe or identify some of their emotions, so finding a simple way to talk about anxiety and how to recognise and deal with it could be helpful.

I’d also suggest no screens and sugar after about 5pm, plenty of fresh air (we often go for a walk after dinner before bath time) try to keep the focus on staying in her room even if she can’t sleep (like others have said reading with a low light or an audio book), and if this doesn’t work try melatonin. I’d also think about a mini room renovation for the autumn, like a nice light and a few cushions so she sees it as a nice relaxing place to chill out and it might break the cycle.

Is she upset that she can’t fall asleep or happy just wandering around? My son used to be very like your daughter, was finally nodding off around midnight and awake again by 6/6.30 so far too littke sleep for his age. We got melatonin from the states and started gaining him 2.5mgs a night around 8.30pm. He was asleep by 9 and still up around 6.30 m. It changed everything for the better in terms of his concentration, his school work etc. We've since been to a paediatrician who has prescribed it for him as you're not really meant to give it without that. But it's over the counter in most of Europe, the states, Canada. I was hoping my sons body would develop the habit of becoming sleepy around the same time every night but without the melatonin he's awake till all hours. My husband has ADHD and son showing some tendencies so there is form.

Maybe she just doesn't need that amount of sleep and is bored. I didn't. My dad worked shifts and when he was on nights, I sat up watching TV with my mum until she went to bed. On other shifts, I read until late, sometimes the early hours. This was from the age of 4 or 5. Never did me any harm, I always functioned well at school. Parents shouldn't automatically assume that they will have children who 'switch off' at a certain time to allow them 'adult time' in the evenings.

Hiya, no major advice but.... I can remember being a similar age and I went through this phase of needing to sit on the stairs so I could hear my mom, just watching tv or on the phone. No reason I can pinpoint but I can tell you it passed and I grew out of it!

We had the same. So I did a sticker chart and they would get a sugary treat on Sunday if they went to bed nicely every night during the week. That meant doing all of bedtime themselves except the stories. My trick was to intervene LESS not more. I shut myself in my room and told them to tell me when they were ready.

Punishing her the next day will change absolutely nothing. Maybe she just finds it difficult to switch off - could you see about getting a bubble lamp or lava lamp in her room to help her wind down?