Can I post in sleep about an 11 yr old?

[Knitwit101]

My son is 11 and his sleep is a mess.

He regularly stays awake till after midnight then he is tired in the mornings.

All electronic devices are taken away after dinner, so 6.30ish. He doesn't have a bath or shower every night but often does. We still read a book together most evenings but that's getting harder to stick to as more activities start to happen in the evenings and go on later but we try.

He goes to his bedroom maybe 9ish and plays in his room, he's either reading a book or drawing, plays with Lego. He has his own room.

He is so tired and grumpy and not properly able to concentrate during the day, it's so noticeable, I have to do something now. I have tried in the past but given up after a week or so. I need to sort it this time though.

Please help me decide how to tackle this.

Do I put him in bed at 9 and stand by his room to make sure he doesn't turn his light back in or get out of bed? This seems a bit mean because I would hate to have to lie in bed when I'm not tired.

Or do I do this at 10.30pm? Trouble is I'm not a night owl and often am asleep earlier than this. I have tried this before and lasted a week before I gave up because it hadn't made a blind bit of difference, I could be sitting there at midnight and he still would be awake and I would be way more grumpy than him the next day.

Another option would be to wake him early every morning and hope he figures out for himself that he needs to sleep earlier. We would just have to ride out a few weeks of mega grumpy days. But then what about holidays? It seems like between now and the summer there are holidays every few weeks and I'm not going to wake him at 7am in the holidays. Or should I? Am I just making excuses and have to toughen up?

I feel like I need to pick a strategy and stick to it.

I hope it's ok to post about an older child here, I'm not getting much help elsewhere. There seems to be lots of sensible advice on this board.

I’m still at toddler stage, but thought you could do with a bump!

I’m a teacher, and my school tries to give parents some guidance on sleep, which I’ve listened to to try and advise kids from my form, so I can pass on some of that.... (but I haven’t tried it myself!)

Although a good routine is great and healthy, a teenager (which you will soon have on your hands) is NOT going to cooperate about getting up early in the holidays. They will cope with having a completely different routine in holiday and school term, so focus on getting school term routine sorted.

It’s natural for teenagers to shift sleep patterns towards staying up later and waking later. This is a going to be challenging for him for the next ten years or so!

Is your son getting enough exercise late afternoon/early evening? Boys of this age apparently tend not to get enough exercise to get themselves physically tired, and that can delay sleep. Doing something energetic in the fresh air before dinner can help if he’s not already doing this.

Personally, I think 9pm, although an ideal bedtime, is hard to enforce and it would be better to aim for something achievable. If your son is currently going to bed at midnight, 10pm would be a huge improvement. Routine is key to helping people feel tired, so aim for bath/whatever at the same time every night if possible e.g. 8.45, reading together at 9pm, then he can stay in bed and read until 10pm with a dim light on, but shouldn’t be out of bed or playing with Lego. You’ll need to enforce this, so I’m afraid you would have to stay up till 10.30 if possible to make sure he’s not getting out of bed or putting the light back on.

Try to talk to him about why it is important for his brain to get enough rest and explain tha routines help tell his brain it’s time for sleep. You may still get through to him now, in a year he’ll be far less likely to listen!

Good luck, hope it goes well for you. Hopefully someone with more experience will be along with some advice

Does he do much exercise? DD is almost 13 but reasonably active and knackered by 9:30 most school nights. She walks 4-5 miles a day, walks to and from school and then around during the day. Plays tennis and swims in addition to double PE three times a week and swimming at school.

We do have a no tech/gadgets after 9 rule.

In the holidays all bets are off and she stays up until midnight/gets up at 11am if she needs to and we aren't going anywhere but I bet she doesn't do the same amount of exercise as when at school. We might go for a 4-5 mile walk or to park run but that's probably it most days unless something is going on.