Natural night owl of a child

[Buxbaum]

DD is 4 and from babyhood has always been a bit of a natural night owl. She has never exhibited the 5pm onwards overtired behaviour that i've seen in her friends and by her natural body clock she would quite happily go to bed about 8.30-9 and wake up about 8am.

This is fine, except that we have a term-time schedule which needs that everyone needs to be up by 6.45 and out of the door by 7.30. No matter how early we get her into bed she rarely falls asleep before 8.30 and we almost always have to wake her in the mornings, when she is cranky (the difference on the odd morning that she wakes naturally is remarkable). She is active and physically tired by the end of the day but she just doesn't get sleepy until later.

DH and I both teach and as always we have let her slip into her natural sleep rhythms over the holidays. I'm now dreading the first day of term as that wake up is going to be painful.

I don't know anyone else in RL with this issue. Most of them have children who are in bed by 6.30 - 7 and their struggle is keeping their child in bed until 6am. Any solidarity or similar issues out there?

My older DD is and was always this way. She's thirteen now.

I found that her sleep was badly affected if she ate anything processed..... So I cut out all processed foods...it was easier to do that than try to work out which additives were affecting her.

We made sure her last meal of each day was about 6.00pm and that it was a good one.

After that all she could have was milk...or water.

Bath or shower at 7.00pm, half an hour to read and then lights out at .7.30 with a kids meditation video (only the sound) from youtube...there are loads of them. Stories or music aimed at helping kids sleep.

It helped a lot.

I was that child. My ideal state now, no alarms and no responsibilities, is to go to bed at about 1am and sleep until 9 or 10. Sorry!

My parents used to have me on a term time sleep prep schedule at the end of the holidays, so the final weekend before back to school they would wake me up half an hour earlier each day. It was horrid, but did make the transition a little easier and I find myself doing it voluntarily now!