5 year old boy takes hours to fall asleep

[wsara2012]

My youngest child is 5 and takes forever to fall asleep. We do the usual routine of bath and story, lights out at 7.30ish but he just lies there awake and has recently started doing naughty things like drawing on his wall, getting up several times for no good reason. He is very difficult to wake in the mornings for school and can be quite grumpy, overreacting to minor situations. On another Note he is very fussy with eating and I wonder if he has vitamin deficiencies that could be contributing to the sleep problems. His older brother is normally asleep way before him. Any ideas to improve things would be very welcome 😊

Try putting him to bed earlier - lights out by 630 - he might be overtired

Is he getting enough exercise during the day? I try and make sure my 5 year old gets an hour outside each day else I have similar problems. It's a nightmare when it pours down all day.

I don't know about any deficiencies but my DD is the same. It takes her about 1 1/2 hours to fall asleep. We have learned to just go with it and let her do things in bed, like look at books and draw. Her reading is coming along which is helping as at least she's occupied. DH and I were the same, proper reading under the covers with a torch so it's not that surprising.

She's 6 now and has been like this for about 2 years now sorry