What does bedtime look like for your 6/7 yo?

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Help please!

DS has just gone into year 2. He's never managed to put himself to sleep, and we've always lay with him until he goes to sleep. Various life things, new baby, house move, school move, and just generally not minding lying with him have meant that we've never stopped it.

But it's getting (extremely) unsustainable and we need help in gently moving away from this, nights when I'm with him I'm not down until at least 9pm (by comparison his little brother was sleep trained as a baby and can be left no problem.)

So at the moment our nighttime rigmarole looks like- 7ish up for a bath and teeth. 7.20ish in bed for a story and general chat about his day. Then from about 7.30 til 9 we lie in the dark with him, either him talking to us or him just not asleep.

We've tried to be like 'were going downstairs and we'll check on you in five minutes' but then he turns it into a big game where he spies on us, and elongates the whole process. Should we just carry on trying this and ignoring him?

Some of it is his personality/first child syndrome. He's never had to be by himself/entertain himself so really struggles just to be alone or just to play alone if he can't get to sleep. He can read independently but not yet at the level of reading books in bed.

Can anyone offer some advice on how to change this a bit? He's an early riser (pre 6) so I don't think his bedtime is too early, and he seems pretty knackered some days.

It's mainly for my benefit, me and my husband are getting zero down time in the evening!

Thanks in advance!

My same age/similar temperament child goes to sleep around 20:30-20:40ish after getting in to bed some 10 minutes earlier. We sit in with him but it’s fine, because he’s genuinely tired and it takes 10-15 minutes tops. No way would I spend 1.5 hours in the dark. He sleeps about 9.5-10 hours max, which is lower end of normal for a 6-7yo, even if some of their friends are doing 11-12 hours at night. I’d try really wearing him out in the evening (mine is currently having running races outside with DH) then a later bedtime, if your main goal is less time in the dark. Either that or enforce more independence so you do have more of an evening, even if he is awake.

We had this with DD as well. It took a lot of perseverance and was very frustrating working through it but we are at the stage now where we can tuck her in and say goodnight and leave the room and she falls asleep on her own. She prefers to know we are still upstairs for a bit so I will usually do a few jobs/put washing away etc potter about upstairs for a few mins but she's fine if I go down after that.

She is 6, just gone into Y2 as well and sounds very similar to your DS in that she wakes early so by the time it gets to 8 pm she is tired generally falls asleep quite quickly.

Ds just started y2, we go up about 6:30 shower him, he puts PJs on and I brush his teeth. He then reads a chapter to me and I read a chapter to him, he's in bed lights out at 7, he then has his yoto on with a story for 15/20 minutes then it's switched to either sleep sounds, crackling fire sounds or nighttime radio which is gentle music on low, that stays on until I go up to bed. He's usually asleep between 7:30 and 7:45, 8 at a push.
He hasn't always been like this he didn't sleep through the night until he was 3. I find plenty of physical exercise/activity helps.