Please help. 4YO won’t sleep

[Juliecloud]

DS has been awake since 8am. He was up until 11.30pm last night. He’s still awake now at 10.30pm. He’s grumpy and tired all day but he will not go to sleep. He does not nap any more. He does anything to avoid staying in bed. He won’t even stay in his room.

What can I do to get him to sleep? Or at least stay in his bed?

Where does he like to sleep? Would he rather sleep or be with you while he falls asleep?

How’s his diet and amounts of daily activity?

He sometimes sleeps in his bed, sometimes on his floor, sometimes in our bed. Normally one of us would lie beside him until he fell asleep but now he chats or climbs all over us rather than going to sleep.

He doesn’t eat very much during the day. He’d happily eats sweets/chocolate and nothing else given the choice. He ate a reasonable amount today though and had pasta, meat and veg for dinner and a banana about 7.30pm.

He’s pretty active all day. He was at preschool for 3 hours this morning and we went swimming this afternoon.

In the nicest possible way to say this you need to be the parent here and tell him it's time to go to sleep. He's old enough to understand that misbehaving and refusing to sleep has consequences. For example if he doesn't go to bed he can't do xyz tomorrow. Or if he has a favourite tv programme or toy he can't have that tomorrow.