5 year old Awake so late!

[Goingroundthebend90]

i am after advice as i am going round the bend! i have a wonderful inquisitive energetic 5 year old. bedtime has been a mare for as long as i can remember. it takes soooo long and its getting later and later. i genuinely have no idea anymore whether she is tired or not.
we have tried earlier and later bedtimes. its the actual HOW long it takes that remains the same.
i have a baby too so its extremely difficult. DH and i get no time together and by the time she falls asleep (now 9.30pm) i am exhausted and fed up.
i have tried essential oils, we have a routine, stories, warm milk, cuddles, i tickle her back etc.
i have tried to sit at the doorway/next room etc - she says she is scared and i dont want to force her before she is ready..
we homeschool and she wakes around 6am so by evening time its been like 15 full on hours and i just NEED some time to catch up on housework and recharge!! :(
does anyone else have advice xx

How active are her days? Does she do lots of exercise and get fresh air?

yes! we go on long walks, park trips, play in the garden.. but maybe she needs even more and every single day. she will
ask for home days but i dont notice that she sleeps any earlier or quicker on the days when we have been super active oddly

I'll paste a note I have on my phone about bedtime passes. Some of it might be irrelevant because it was something I wrote for someone else.

Bedtime passes
If you think the not sleeping is a psychological thing then you could try something called bedtime tokens / bedtime passes. Start with a family meeting, draw up some sleep rules, get your child to suggest and draw them to give them some ownership.

Agree a reward. We've used penny sweets and playmobil. We used playmobil, I bought a camping set and split it all up, put the names of all the bits in a pot and Daughter got a new piece at random every morning she had tokens left.

Make loads of tokens together. I mean loads. If the child gets up at bedtime or calls you in the night then that's absolutely fine and allowed, but costs 1 token. Put them in a pot by their bed. If there are tokens left in the morning, the child gets a reward.

For the first few nights the child needs to succeed. So you need more tokens than they will use. My Daughter used more than 30 the first night. When they're in the swing of it, start to gradually reduce the number of tokens. It took us a few weeks to get down to 6. My daughter started to fail a few times and had to try. We got stuck at this level a while. Eventually we got down to 3 and at some point the system was gradually forgotten. 30+ night wakings down to 1 or 2 was a lot bloody better.

You can look this up, I believe it's called bedtime passes and there's a few articles out there.

Just thought it might help.

Some children just need less sleep I think?

My 2 year old will often only fall asleep at 9pm, then can wake happy as Larry at 6am, then run around full speed all day until bedtime.

Some children just need less sleep.

My DS6 falls asleep around 10pm is up at 7am, full of energy. Just one of those things.

If she doesn’t seem particularly tired and is on good form the next day she probably just has lower than average sleep needs.

Could you get her ready for bed at 7.30pm (or whenever suits with the family routine) and tell her from then on it’s quiet playing in her room and that she can go to bed herself when she’s sleepy? That way you get your evening back and it removes the stress and pressure. My DD is the same age, granted she does sleep more than yours, but we’ve been doing it for about 6 months now and everyone is relaxed, bedtime isn’t a battle and she does actually put herself to bed at a reasonable time (never later than 8).

Some children are like dogs they 3 big walks/exercise a day.