Any advice would be great!

[Rebeccaj1985]

My 7 year olds bedtime is an absolute nightmare he is completely chilled out before going up to bed and then is hyper while in bed which is massively affecting my 5 year olds behaviour too cos he's taking hours to go to sleep when he's always been so good, last night they took over 3hours to go to sleep. My 7 year old will admit he finds it hard to settle and we are currently seeking other solutions to his behaviours and sleep included but is there anyway I can try and get my 5 year old out of this.. bedtime is a massive struggle and even though they're not in the same room they are still bouncing of each other with an hour between bedtimes, totally understand the excitement of Christmas and everything but I cannot do this non stop just because they have got used to it. Any advice will be massively appreciated

What sort of thing hyper? Jumping around? Shouting? And what times are they going to bed?

I think I would try moving the 7 yr old's bedtime a bit later, if only temporarily. (Unless it's already very late in which case possibly the 5 yr old earlier). Make sure the 5 yr old is really asleep.

And I think I would try to "manage" the 7 yr old to sleep to get him back into good habits. As in stay with him, make sure he doesn't do any hyper, read to him or talk through the day quietly, or anything you can do together to keep him calm till he gets sleepy. DD is younger but also struggles with getting to sleep, she wanted "coaching" to sleep yesterday, so I talked her through how to relax one part of her body at a time, then suggested thinking through her day or counting in her head, then left her to it. She reported the next morning she got to 300 - but it worked.

Could you let him read to himself or look at a comic or something for a bit on the condition he's quiet? (But lights straight out if he makes noise.) DS reads to himself at bedtime, it's about the only thing I know that will keep him quiet and not fidgetting. But once he's read for a bit, he is warm and snuggled in bed and you can turn the light off and he stays there. On the whole.

School times it's 7.30 -5 year old and 8 for 7year old, but this week (no school) it's been more like 8 and 9, I've just been laying with him speaking about everything going on with the excitement from Christmas and told him when I'm tired I relax my arms and then other parts of me while staring at something or counting so hoping he goes with that for tonight.

He ranges from laying in bed fidgeting to the past few nights shouting, throwing things, jumping on bed, anything he can to try and get a reaction.

I generally stay with him each night but I've not been well either so this week hasn't been great for us all but I'm going back into routine, that always works best for us all and now there's not school it's kind of gone out the window.
I think I'll try him reading a book tomorrow and hope that chills him or I'll stay and read or listen to him just so we have that bit more one to one time

Thank you cat for your reply, it's definitely given me some options to try.. the reading being number 1 😉