Bedtime reading

[Cats01]

7 year old DS loves reading. Whilst this is fantastic on the face of it, we are having difficulty getting him to stop at night. On a school night his light is off between 8.00 & 8.30, by which time he has had 30-60 minutes reading. He apparently settles down, we say goodnight and leave him. Almost immediately his light goes on, he is reading, we turn the light off and go downstairs, repeat for the next 2 hours. He is consequently shattered every morning and incredibly grumpy and can't concentrate on much. Incentives and penalties have had no effect! We don't want to put him off reading but he needs more sleep. Just ordering f anyone had similar experience / any advice?? He needs more sleep and we (selfishly) need a bit more of an unbroken evening occasionally ;-)

Could you try audio books? He may well drift off listening to it.

I was like this OP. I even hid secret torches around my room for the times my lamp was removed. No punishment ever worked. I am still like this. If I get a new book I am really looking forward to, I will stay up all night to read it.

Sorry

We had the exact same thing with DS (age 5) - I even posted on here about it. He was turning the light on again, or going to the bathroom and hiding books in there. Would have been fine except he was knackered and grumpy in the day time. We ended up bribing him with saying he could potentially have half an hour on the iPad the next day if he turned his light off when we told him to (I know! What parent bribes their child to read less by offering an iPad?!) - it worked an it broke what had become a bit of a thing with him - it had turned into a habit, as that kind of thing so easily does with children. Now we still have to go and tell him to stop reading at 8 or 830 but he always does (and we don't have to let him go on the iPad every day either).

Ds2 was the same with his Beano (he is 6). He would push the bedroom door open and read in the light from the landing.

I think 7 is old enough to sit him down and explain the rules. Bed by 7pm, so he can read until 8.15pm. Then light off. If he turns it back on, tell him you will simply remove the bulb for the rest of the week.

Also you know, he was so exhausted that in some ways it was almost like he wanted a way to stop doing it, if you see what I mean - it had become a kind of compulsion! I used to read a huge amount also as a young child so I do understand, but when it affects their happiness, you have to so something. I feel for you!! Just showed your post to DH who was amazed at how similar your situation is to ours!