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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

What time does your 5 year old go to bed/sleep on a school night?

28 replies

Hyperhelpmum · 08/05/2013 20:47

Just that really! Mine not asleep until nearly 9, I'm sure that's really late? I'm ready for bed about half an hour later!!!

OP posts:

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MsGee · 08/05/2013 20:51

We are in the same boat. Tis shit.

Our DD simply does not need much sleep.

Normal night is 8.30 - 9 ish. We got to bed at 10 ... Some nights we are desperate for her to go to sleep so we can go to bed.

weebarra · 08/05/2013 20:52

About 7.30, but he's pretty tired as on days that I work, we're out of the house at about 7.30 in the morning and not back until after 6.

MatchsticksForMyEyes · 08/05/2013 20:54

Between 7 and 7.30. Although I poked my head round the door to check her duvet hadn't fallen off and she looked up. Told her she should be asleep and she told me she was!

takeaway2 · 08/05/2013 20:56

Still not asleep. He's been to school and afterschool club till 6!

Shakey1500 · 08/05/2013 20:57

If it's a trek to nursery breakfast club the next day it's 7pm. Otherwise it's 7.30pm

SizzleSazz · 08/05/2013 20:58

6 and 4 and both in bed just after 7pm, lights out 7.15 and asleep soon after.

Original poster

Hyperhelpmum · 08/05/2013 21:46

Yup, thought so, way too late for him. This is a child who slept through from 6 weeks and used to sleep 12 hours a night or more. Since starting school he is just not sleeping. He is exhausted though. Thanks, just wondered if I was putting him to bed too early (between 7-7.30).

OP posts:

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 08/05/2013 21:54

8pm bedtime here, and he sleeps until 6.30-7am.

MsGee · 08/05/2013 22:07

The test for us was moving bedtime back. She was up at 4am every day

meandtheboys · 09/05/2013 21:01

7:30 here. Sleeps til 7am. He's always needed quite a lot of sleep and stil had an hour and half nap in the day until he was 4.5, even then he'd still have it now if it weren't for starting full time at school! On a weekend if we go out for the day 9 times out of 10 he has a nap in the car on the way home. DS2 (16 months) is a different matter all together though and is often wide awake in the car as his big brother is snoring away!

Yamyoid · 09/05/2013 21:11

My ds is in bed ready to sleep by 8 usually but we have the same problem hyper, he wasn't asleep until about 9 tonight. His sleeping's been worse than ever (apart from as a baby!) since starting school, he seems so hyped up.
I feel miserable because I got cross with him cos I was so frustrated. I think he normally doesn't get to sleep til 8.30 at the very earliest.
This morning he was woken by his little sister at 6am. I find the whole thing very stressful.

stealthsquiggle · 09/05/2013 21:15

Not as early as she should be. She's 6,ans just about asleep now (although she has been in bed for almost an hour), but I will have to drag her out of bed tomorrow morning and she will be as she was this morning, hollow eyed and tearful, and tomorrow that look will be immortalised in her class photo .

SchoolsBloodySchools · 09/05/2013 21:33

We aim for 7pm every night - sometimes it's bang on, other times a little later but he's always asleep by 7:30 on a school night and then up at about 6:30 the next day.

onepieceoflollipop · 09/05/2013 21:37

Generally 7.30/8pm ish. earlier if I have been working a lot and needing to wake her for before school club.

Original poster

Hyperhelpmum · 09/05/2013 21:58

yamyoid this is how I feel. Frustrated, worried, upset as I know he needs more sleep but school seems to leave him super alert and unable to switch off. Minor breakthrough, he was asleep by 8.15 tonight. I too get cross and he cries and I feel awful. I think sleep is SO important but how do you make a child sleep? I've tried reward charts, story tapes to sooth him. Nothing works.

OP posts:

zipzap · 09/05/2013 21:59

If I'm lucky - 9. If I'm unlucky - midnight

He's always been a bad sleeper - even when he was a little baby, he never went to sleep after his 7pm-ish feed like his brother and practically every other baby I've encountered but would stay wide awake. Eventually we gave up trying to put him down in his cot as it otherwise meant the entire evening was taken up with trying to get him down, only to then have to get him up for a last dream feed. So he used to sit with us in the evenings in his bouncy chair or high chair quite happily, then have a feed about 11 and go to sleep.

And it's just carried on - his older brother has always been a much better sleeper and is usually asleep before him.

I don't let him stay up - we go upstairs about 7.30-8 ish, get pjs on, have story, do teeth etc and he usually plays quietly in his room, occasionally trotting out to find me or dh for some spurious reason (tonight - 'Mummy I just checking - do my teeth look like a banana?' Yes DS2, your smile is the same shape as a banana. As it was yesterday and the day before that and the one before that...)

Sometimes, particularly at weekends if dh and ds1 are watching a rugby match on tv, he will get to choose a dvd and get pjs on and watch it, often fall asleep to it, but rarely before 9pm.

Other nights when he is just wide awake, I am desperate for him to fall asleep as I want to sleep and don't like leaving him up and the only one awake.

When he is finally ready to go to sleep, he gets into bed and makes a nest for himself out of his bedding and toys, snuggles into the middle of it and falls asleep. I then have to wait a little while until he's heavily asleep so I can shiggle him around and turn his nest back into an ordinary pillow/duvet/tucked in little boy arrangement!

My sis has 3 girls (9,5,4) who are all in bed and asleep on normal days by 7-7.30. because they want to be. Eldest one now might be a little later, and dsis whilst recognising that 8pm is fine for a 9 yr old, reckons she is missing out on her evenings - she just doesn't realise how lucky she is!

thebeastandbeauty · 09/05/2013 22:01

6ish. Sometimes more like 6.30.

Original poster

Hyperhelpmum · 09/05/2013 22:05

Wow zipzap he sounds adorable and AWAKE! Does he seem tired the next day? As stealthsquiggle said, my son is hollow eyed and dreamy with fatigue and at worst horribly tearful and emotional when really really tired. I think I would be ok if he didn't need sleep but he has always slept loads, 12 hrs at night then two hour daytime naps aged 2!

OP posts:

PoppyWearer · 09/05/2013 22:07

I have an awful sleeper and she is currently stretching bedtime out to about 8.30-8.45pm, but then she is out like a light.

End of the week when she is more tired, she goes to sleep earlier.

zipzap · 09/05/2013 22:10

OP have you tried getting him in his pjs with a gentle dvd to watch in a dark room? Can work quite well with ds2, especially if we are upstairs early enough to put a dvd on. I have some big squashy pillow cushions at the end of my bed on the floor, ds2 has a couple of beloved snuggly blankets that he snuggles up with and watches something that is his choice - but with the caveat that it is something that he is very familiar with and that is gently - no fighting or explosions or noisy/fast/exciting bits in. And if it is on quietly then they have to concentrate to listen which means they can't really play and do other things, especially if it is too dark to see them.

he snuggles up, happy to be quiet and still and will often relax watching it and end up sleeping. I know some experts say to avoid tv before bedtime, but when you have a child who won't sleep, sometimes it is a way for them to calm down and be still, and even if they aren't actually asleep, they are relaxing and hopefully puts them more in a frame of mind for sleep even if they don't actually fall asleep watching, as they will have got used to being warm and still... Definitely need to be careful with the dvd choice though - and if you have 2 or 3 that you choose between, then it becomes a routine in itself and they'll get used to them and falling asleep earlier and earlier on in the dvd!

good luck...

IwishIwasmoreorganised · 09/05/2013 22:11

Ds2 is 4.11 and ds1 is 7.6. They are both usually in bed by 7pm (and asleep within minutes) and wake between 6.45 and 7.15 am.

Ds1 can manage staying up late one night a week when he goes to Beavers - he's about an hour late going to bed that night.

I know that we're lucky, but long may it continue!

MrsCF · 09/05/2013 22:13

My 5 and 3 year old are usually in bed by 6.30 pm having stories, lights out 6.45 ish and they are usually asleep 7pm. By the end of the week they are more tired and I can sometimes bring bedtime forward. They wake somewhere between 0630 and 7am. Dreading when they start to learn to tell the time!!

MrsHoolie · 09/05/2013 22:17

Between 7-7:30.
However she doesn't always seem that tired and would happily go to bed later.

In the last few months she's been waking really early so I think she might need a later bedtime

LittleMissLucy · 10/05/2013 01:06

We have "lights out" at 8.30pm. I used to let the DCs just nod off when it suited them but then it started varying wildly between 7.30 and 9.45 which was just too late for a sane morning the following day. They know the "lights out" rule now and can see the time on the clock I've put in their room. If they don't do it themselves, I go in and turn the lights out for them. It works.

AThingInYourLife · 10/05/2013 01:12

Bed - 7.30, lights out - 8pm

She usually goes to sleep quickly, but tonight I caught her reading by torchlight :o

I pretended to be very cross.

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